(Through Rose-Coloured Glasses)

This is a 50 years old legend, from HKU.

Young Dr. Kildare was a first year surgical resident. He was not on call that night. As a matter of fact, he was having a happy time with his buddies in the bar near the hospital. Suddenly his beeper went off.

“Excuse me, I have to call the hospital.”

“Doctor you are needed in emerg, there is a serious multi-cars accident. We are overwhelmed. We need all the help we can get.”

Back to the hospital he went. He was assigned a patient with stomach ache, and with a tummy as hard as rock, who screamed with every touch. He made the quick diagnosis, appendicitis, that required surgery right away. He tried to find the chief surgical resident, who was tied up with the accident cases. The chief sent back a message, the case is all yours.

Young Kildare’s jaw almost touched the floor. He had never done any appendectomy bt himself before. He assisted in a few cases, and did some other surgeries, that’s all. Well, you know the surgical basic, you have to walk when your horse died, the young doctor kept telling himself. He went in to scrub and put on the surgical gown and mask.

Nervously he entered the Operation Theatre and approached the operating table. The patient was already prepped, and waiting for him. He spreaded the drapes and covered the body.

“Scapel.” He put out his hand, and made the first cut. He tried to remember the number of layers he had to cut through, before he could enter the abdominal cavity. Luckily, he had the abdomen opened with minimal bleeding. He was congratulating himself silently.

“Rat, where is the appendix.” He searched and searched, with no success. He began sweating, beads of water appeared on his forehead. Then he realized. “Holy Mackerel, I am on the left side, the wrong side for the appendix.” He almost passed out.

Swearing, he changed side with the nurse and made another cut. This time the inflammed appendix was quickly located, ligated and cut. Now he had to closed both wounds, one left, one right.

An hour later, when the patient woke up from the anaesthetic, the young Dr. Kildare was already at the bedside, speaking in a low voice, “you see, I want to make sure everything is OK, so I took a look at the other side too. And this is on the house, no extra charge.”

The patient was extremely grateful and thanked the young doctor over and over again.

Well, that is the legend.

Headline in today’s newspaper: Patient sued for wrongful masectomies.

So the legend might be a true story, after all. Time changes, but there are things that never do.

(Through Rose-Coloured Glasses)

Life is a struggle. Always.

Last weekend, we went to see a play called Future Folk, in Toronto.

It is produced by the professional group Sulong Theatre Collective. It tells the story of the Filipina nannies who come to Canada seeking a new life. Back home in the Philippines, life is a struggle. They come under the Live-in Caregiver Program, which, while dangling the prospect of freedom and possibility of an immigrant status, in front of some women in desperate situations, usually provides Canadians with very affordable and compliant nannies. Philpina nanny, this is  an universal phenonemon with many countries around the world.

Through songs, dances and story narrations, we learned about the hard work of the nannies, abuses they face with their employers and problems with families back home. Although it is mainly one-sided, but the play does reflect some of the problems that exist. It tells the hope and struggle of the Philpina nannies, and hence the title of the play, Future Folk, I presume.

Flash back forty years, when we were still university students, we also did shows and plays of the hard life of the Chinese immigrants. Those who came to this “Golden Mountain” to seek a better life for their families, to work in the coal mines, in the TransCanada railway, in the kitchens of chinatowns, and sent their hard earned money back home to their wives and children. Most stayed and were buried here, never had a chance to return home. We traced the root of the Chinese immigrants, the history and devastation in China in that period, that forced them to seek a chance of a better life.

Same story, different period, different nationality. Life is  a struggle. Always.

Also this week in Toronto, they are showing a documentary, Last Train Home, on migrant Chinese workers and their family problems in nowadays China, directed by Lixin Fan, a Montreal documentarian.

Each year, the train stations, ferry terminals and bus stops are packed with travellers, more than 130 million of them, who travel from their factory jobs in the big cities of China to their faraway homes in the country, to be briefly reunited with family members for Chinese New Year celebrations. Just like the Thanksgiving and Christmas here, except on a more massive scale.

The film follows the struggles of Changhua and Sugin Zhang, a couple who left their rural home 16 years ago for more prosperous jobs in urban factories in Guangdong province. They left behind a daughter and a son, who were raised by grandparents. The daughter, Qin, just turning 18, has grown to resent her parents for their long absences: “All they care about is money.” She drops out of school and works in a factory, against the wish of her parents. Conflicts and alienation grow between them. But what can they do? As the mother said, that’s life.

Same story, within country, different setting. Life is  a struggle. Always

(Through Rose-Coloured Glasses)

Air rage, celebrities have it, time and again. Naomi Campbell (fashion model) went ballistic when her luggage got lost. Clay Aiken (American Idol) got into a “dispute” with a fellow traveler when his in-flight nap invaded her personal space. Icelandic singer Björk lashed out at a reporter in a Thai airport just for welcoming her to the country. And a near riot took place at London’s Heathrow in 2006 after Snoop Dogg (rapper) and some of his entourage were asked to leave a business-class lounge—and almost took down a duty-free shop with them. Angry Ivana Trump (Donald Trump’s ex) was escorted off a plane. And now a junior cabinet minister has an outburst in Charlottetown airport last week. The list goes on.

Why do they fly into a rage (no pun intended  🙂  )? The angry generation? For publicity? Or their ego? Or is it just fun and game?

Look at another recent example. Just a week ago, Matt Romney, the former US potential presidential candidate, was involved in an air rage incident in Vancouver. This occurred just before takeoff, when Romney asked the passenger in front of him to return his seat to its full upright position. The request sparked a confrontation which resulted in the man becoming physically violent and attempting to strike Romney. The man turned up to be a rapper, Sky Blu, who proudly proclaimed in his own video on the TMZ Internet site that he was the other party, and went into detailed narration of his misadventure.

Blu said he was trying to go to sleep and reclined his seat, when a passenger sitting behind him started to protest.

“Then all of a sudden I see him reach over and he grabs my shoulder (and says) ‘Sir, put your seat up,’ and I just react,” he says making a punching motion in the video. “‘Boom!’ …. … get off of me.”

“That man assaulted me, I was protecting myself.”

After Blu’s punch, Romney and his wife began screaming for help. The plane, which was taxiing to the runway, turned back. Blu was arrested and later released, not charged.

A video confession, nicely done, Mr. Blu. Why did you have the seat down during take off, in the first place? This is against airline policy. This policy actually is for your own safety. And why didn’t you put it back up when asked a few times? Instead boom, you flared up into a rage and started a fight? “He touched me first” is not an excuse.

OK, Blu is a minor celebrity, but probably has already developed an oversize ego (a spoiled kid, no doubt. He is the nephew of Motown Records founder Berry Gordy). Self importance, ignorance and righteousness, and if combined with alcohol, will create a dangerous air rage cocktail.

Lesson learned: Don’t travel with celebrities (disregard of ego size) on board.

And even better, isn’t Air Canada proposing a nut-free zone for allergy sufferers; why not a nut-free zone to buffer such violent pests.

(Through Rose-Coloured Glasses)

Wow, this is cool. Utopia finally comes to earth. “Eat what you can, pay what you want” commerce is our next trendy culture! As soon as I hear the news, I hurry out of door, to search for such a godsend in our area. I spend hours walking up and down of all the streets in my neighbourhood and beyond, stop every pedestrian I can question. They simply stare at me blankly, shake their heads or snicker at my back, Who cares, search of the Holy Grail has to go on. At long last, a good samaritan points and steers me in the right direction. This joint is not a “pay as you wish” as such, but a “pay by weight” restaurant. Close enough. I eagerly push open the door.

A huge sign hangs by the entrance, “Eat all you can, pay by weight, 10 cents per lb”. I figure, how many lbs can I consume, even 10 lbs can cost only a dollar, wow, this is gourmet paradise.

I pile my plate with all sorts of food, from lobster, fish, shrimp to prime rib roast, vegetables of assorted colours, pasta, bread, pate, cold cuts, desserts …………

Euphorically I arrive at the check-out counter. The smiling waitress politely says to me, ”step this way please, sir, right onto that scale, to see how much you have to pay”. Oh my god, ‘pay by weight’ all right, but it’s my weight they are after! And I wish I was here 80 lbs ago.**



** ”These” for you, GY

(Through Rose-Coloured Glasses)

Forty years ago, we arrived as foreign students. This was our first taste of independence. We usually lived in dorms or with fellow students in rental rooms/houses around our universities, home away from home. Some of us even learned to cook for ourselves. When friends came to visit, they were surprised that we liked chicken wings so much that we had them for every meal. We always explained that’s because chicken wings were cheap. In those days they only cost $1.00 for 3 lbs. But the actual fact was, we don’t know what else to buy. We don’t know the English names of most food products. Minced pork, prime ribs, chicken gizzards, those are exotic words not taught in high school, not the requirement for university entrance, and were definitely not included in our vacabulary. So we just kept asking for what we knew, i.e. chicken wings.

But man cannot live on chicken wings alone. Eventually, we developed a simple smart scheme. Although our vacabulary was still extremely limited, but then we survived much better. The magic was to use the word “THIS”, with one finger pointing, we told the butcher or shop-lady, “I want this, this and this.” Simple, we understood each other perfectly, and the transaction was quickly completed. We had more varieties on our dinner plates.

Our vacabulary and our diet improved and we adapted into the Canadian way of life, we don’t have to use “THIS” scheme anymore.

But now forty years later, who can imagine, we are once again faced with a dilemma. We have to resort to “THIS”, the simple and reliable scheme. We are so forgetful nowadays, occasionally we cannot recall even our friend’s names. So once again when shopping, we may have to resort to finger pointing and THIS.

Nowadays as the composition of the Chinese Canadian immigrants keeps changing, we are faced with a new language barrier, in Chinatown. There are many Mandarin/Putonghua speaking workers. The other day, I was ordering a food tray in a Chinese supermarket, the shopgirl didn’t understand my Cantonese and I, her English. Finally we have to resort to the catalogue pictures and with one finger pointing, “I want this, this and this.”

(Through Rose-Coloured Glasses)

Really, why did you make that public announcement: “I was unfaithful. I had affairs. I cheated. What I did was not acceptable.”

Well, fine. But we already knew all these. Further, they should be made between you and your wife, and/or the 19 and more ladies involved, nothing to do with us at all. And you made this public speech and said them with your hand over your heart, just like ready to sing the national anthem, or like pounding on your chest, reciting your mea culpa. It is impressive and bold, but a well scripted public performance, none the less . Not actually a confession, but a publicity stunt, the first step necessary for your return to power and previous glory and follow by more lucrative sponsorships.

There is no doubt that you are a great talented golfer, scandal or not, it won’t affect your scores, unless you are deeply deeply sorry and was so emotionally upset that may influence your concentration and sport performance, and need to get it off your chest, but why do that in public?  Why this tightly controlled showmanship? From this well orchestrated announcement, we can still see the public image of a control freak, a self-centred, and not really sorry, nor rehabilitated individual. We highly doubt the sincerity of this born-again, AA-ish type of talk. If addiction can be cured so easily, we don’t need a 12 steps program, 1 step is more than enough.

What we, the public really want to know, and wasted the 13-1/2 minutes waiting, is all the juicy details, of how and why you cheated, is there a divorce or not, and what kind of settlement, and how much did this lesson cost you. Hand us the dough, just leave the apology to the appropriate parties involved.

(Through Rose-Coloured Glasses)

1
All hell broke loose when the madman tried to meet the Biden family for the first time, during the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games. The madman, after he heard that his hero Joe, was coming to town, he was bursting with joy. Presented with this once in a lifetime opportunity, the madman quickly got to work, created his own VIP pass and headed straight for BC Place stadium.

He boldly passed through all the checkpoints and headed for the VIP section. There was his hero, with his wife, kids and grandkids. He locked eye with the RCMP lady. Oh no, trouble, the lady was coming his way. The madman turned and ran. He was taken down.

2
Of course we caught him. We are the Vancouver 2010 Integrated Securities Unit. Our members include personnel from the RCMP, Vancouver Police Department, West Vancouver Police Department and Department of National Defence (a total force of 15,500 under our ISU command). This is not a White House dinner party, no Salahis, only a madman. We spent over billion dollars on our top of the line, state of the art security system. It bounds to be of some use.

We have surveillence cameras everywhere, even connected to Ottawa and the US for instant response. Although in the end, we still have to rely on our well trained human forces, their alertness, excellent eye-sight and quick thinking, to accurately spot those out of place behaviour cues.

Of couse there are loop-holes in our security. We closed the barndoor (i.e. the non-spectator entrance door) as soon as we identified it.

At the end, we are happy to report, Mr. Vice President was never in danger! Of course, what do you expect, it is a madman, not a hitman.

3
As security experts pointed out, since the 9/11 attacks, governments have been spending millions of dollars on high tech screening equipments. They introduced new screening methods in response to new kinds of attack – scanning shoes after the 2001 shoe bomber attack and insisting on 3 oz. plastic bottles and no liquid on board after a foiled 2006 plot to blow up British airlines, a naked total body scanner after the Christmas attack of hiding explosive in underwear. But experts say there are limits to throwing hardware at the problem, even if high-tech fixes could be developed quickly. These are all knee jerk responses, trying to detect and keeping prohibited material away. Instead we should learn from the Israeli airline model, focus on the working of the criminal minds, implement a wide range of behavioral profiling techniques. “Look at each person behind the eyes,” advised an expert, “ there are flaws there that most people would ignore. Once you’ve got a flaw or an inconsistency or a lie, that’s when all the alarm bells ring.”

That’s how the RCMP got their madman this time.

(Through Rose-Coloured Glasses)

Already mid February, after the spring break, colleges and universities will be on exam-mode, and pretty soon, a new crop of graduates will be let loose into the cruel real world, facing a bleak future.

Although most of us are too mature to be in this category, but this is for your kids and grand-kids and our younger generation of WYK boys.

Studies showed, there can be long-lasting adverse effects on those who graduate during a recession.

According to an article “I wiil survive”, from McMaster Times, McMaster University of Hamilton, Ontario, new grads should change the way they look at this new reality.

For those having to make drastic changes, beware that during recessions, alcohol abuse, emotional and family tensions register in higher rates of personal and family problems. Professional and personal transitional support, specific career transitional help and learning stress management techniques are key.

People need to change their expectations and be creative about their job hunt. Expert advised, “know who you are, your passions and strengths.” During an interview, “if you understand the environment and have emotional intelligence about it, you’ll blow them away if you can show how structured and forward thinking you are, and if you can demonstrate passions and strenghts that can help them in this downturn.”

Don’t panic. “The economy will recover, but you need to think about new areas of interest and new ways in which the skills that you have can be used somewhere else. Social sciences graduates, for example, end up with a set of very portable skills, such as writing, research, analytics and measurement, but often these grads don’t actually appreciate how portable their skills are, and that they can be applied to multiple settings.”

For those about to graduate, may be their best choice is to stay in school and wait out the recession. Stay in for another year or continue to graduate work. “Or at least have that in your back pocket and if you get a job can always turn down the acceptance or do it part-time.”

Remaining positive and viewing your situation as a platform for next steps will be crucial in this time of upheaval. Increase your chance of getting a job by “having networking cards on hand, with your name, contact information, degree and area of expertise; take advantage of chance meetings and don’t underestimate the power of weak links, because someone you have even a loose connection to has an entirely different set of information and contacts. You don’t necessarily need to be talking to CEOs to get a job, you just need to be trusted by someone they trust and that could be their child, their haridresser or even their neighbours.” “Build a directory of employers to apply to, because you will have a much better chance of getting a job with a company that is not posting a vancancy than with one that is.”

(excerpts from the spring issue of McMaster Times)

(Through Rose-Coloured Glasses)

10. To stop the rain by aiming the flame to the sky at a certain angle (yes,  it worked,  no more rain)

9. To prorogue the Game for more favorable conditions by shutting down the cauldron

8. To contain the Flame to a small area to reduce carbon pollution, in the spirit of the Copenhagen 2009

7. To create an eye-sore, oh, I mean a tourist attraction

6. To create more jobs, in setting up and altering the fences daily; stimulated by the Canada’s Economic Action Plan

5. This is how Vancouver fights crime, put everything under lock and key

4. To boost the spirit of our athletes, VANOC promised the fence will be down once we have 10 Gold medals

3. By placing the Olympic flame behind a fence became a symbol in itself

2. To prevent terrorists attacks and avoid protests at all cost

1. Without the Olympic Flame, some Olympians are already too hot to handle (see picture below)

(Through Rose-Coloured Glasses)

You don’t need to be born in the year of the Tiger to be one. You can just called yourself Tiger, like Mr. Wood or the rock band, Glass Tiger; or simply behave like one.

According to the Chinese Zodiac, a tiger is “Courageous, active, and self-assured. Optimistic, passionate and independent. Rebellious, dynamic, and unpredictable. Quick tempered but considerate. Affectionate but careless. The Tiger is a natural born leader and symbolizes power, passion and daring.” Fit you to a T?

So what type of tiger are you? Here are a few choices.

1. Roaring Tiger — So much have been writen about this fierce and fearsome animal. When a tigress roars (or any tiger for that matter), the world shakes. It is nerve-racking to be under the cold stare of a tiger. It is extremely lucky to survive from the tiger’s mouth. You have to go in the tiger’s cave to catch its cub. But still you can beat up a tiger, 武松(Wu Song) did it.

2. Virile Tiger (Wood) — A tiger in the bed !? Is that the minimum requirement of a politician/celebrity? Included in this streak/ambush of tigers: JFK, Bill Clinton, David Letterman, John Edwards, Eliot Spitzer, Tiger Wood, Mark Sandford ……….. and our Toronto local boy Adam Giambrone. And please don’t forget, Mrs Robinson, a virile tigress no doubt, had joined the streak. What an impressive ambush.

3. Paper Tiger — In a 1956 interview with the American journalist Anna Louise Strong, Mao Zedong used the phrase to describe the United States:

“In appearance it is very powerful but in reality it is nothing to be afraid of; it is a paper tiger. Outwardly a tiger, it is made of paper, unable to withstand the wind and the rain.”

History finally proves him right.

4. Crouching Tiger — Be prepared to run for your life, this is the attack position of a tiger, crouching low, but ready to leap out and strike. This is the moment of calm before the sudden onslaught of a storm. Restraining its hidden power and savageness, the tiger is silently lying low and then, suddenly explodes and leaps, shows off its spectacular colours, bursts into its full glory. A magnificient fighter.

5. Tiger in the Plain — This is a completely different scenario. A tiger that has left his natural mountainous habitat, and wandered onto the grassland, a  flat open plain with nowhere to hide; inevitably attacked and chased by the dogs. A fading star.

Plain Tiger (Danaus chrysippus) actually is a butterfly, also known as the African Monarch.

6. Fox in Tiger’s Terror — One day a tiger was hunting around in a forest. An unlucky fox was met and caught by the tiger. For the fox, the inescapable fate was very clear — death. Despite the danger, the fox thought hard to find a way out. Promptly, the fox declared to the tiger, “How dare you kill me!” On hearing the words the tiger was surprised and asked for the reason” The fox raised his voice a bit higher and declared arrogantly: “To tell you the truth, it’s I who was accredited by God to the forest as the king of all the animals! If you kill me, that will be against the God’s will, you know?” Seeing that the tiger became suspicions, the fox added: “Let’s have a test. Let’s go through the forest. Follow me and you will see HOW THE ANIMALS ARE FRIGHTENED OF ME.” The tiger agreed. So the fox walked ahead of the tiger proudly through the forest. As you can imagine, the animals, seeing the tiger behind, were all terribly frightened and ran away. Then the fox said proudly: “There is no doubt that what I said is true, isn’t it?” The tiger had nothing to say but to acknowledge the result. So the tiger nodded and said: “You are right. You are the king.” An imposter, but a quick thinker.

7. Tony the Tiger vs Exxon Tiger — Put a tiger in your tank, or your cereal. Tony the Tiger is the advertising cartoon mascot for Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes breakfast cereal, appearing on its packaging and advertising. The Exxon cartoon tiger was used by the Exxon Mobile Oil company in its advertising campaign, first appeared in 1964. In the 1990’s they were embroiled in a court battle regarding the trademark of the tiger. These tigers are great salesmen. They charmed their ways onto your kitchen table and into your automobiles. Combining the charm of Tony and the virility of Tiger, you can cruise leisurely around town, boosted by the Exxon tiger in your gas tank.

8. Tigger — Tigger is a very bouncy fella. Tigger is amongst the most exuberant creatures in the 100 Acre Wood, of Winnie the Pooh fame. His most stand out and well-known feature is his very springy tail. When Tigger is in a bouncing mood he is actually expressing his zest for life and is a form which he often uses as a technique to share his eagerness and happiness or even fondness amongst his dear friends. He shall act on impulse and will make a dash on being jubilant but that impulsive dash more often than not is jumping around without taking measure of the surroundings. This at times leads to mishaps and causes utter mayhem. What is also regarded to being one of his hobbies is that he will exaggerate the truth. He is quite a free spirit.

9. Hobbes the Tiger — Hobbes is a character in the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes. He is Calvin’s stuffed tiger, and is depicted with two distinct identities. From the perspective of his owner, Calvin, Hobbes is a real individual with thoughts, feelings and ideas just as every other character. From everyone else’s perspective, Hobbes is seen as Calvin’s stuffed tiger, given personality and action only by Calvin’s active imagination. He is named after 17th century philosopher Thomas Hobbes, who had “a dim view of human nature.” (Thomas Hobbes claimed that humans’ natural state is a state of war, where “the life of man: solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”) Hobbes is much more rational and aware of consequences than Calvin, but seldom interferes with Calvin’s troublemaking beyond a few oblique warnings — after all, Calvin will be the one to get in trouble for it, not Hobbes. He is Calvin’s sub-conscious and teacher.

So what type are you? Really?