Loud Thoughts

How We Die: Reflections on Life’s Final Chapter Sherwin B. NulandISBN: 978-0679742449 Pub. Date: January 15, 1995 Publisher: Vintage

House is a popular TV series about a medical doctor trying to solve some very difficult cases.

Death fascinates me like life. Sherwin Nuland, a practicing medical doctor, depicted death with autopsy clarity. It is a freaky, moving, and addictive book. It is also a wonderful book to learn some basic medical terminologies; my appreciation on House is now greatly enhanced.

Except for by trauma, such as gun shot, car accident, etc., death is a process that takes a lifetime; it is not an event that terminates a person. Fearing or trying to avoid it is not acknowledging life itself. That said, there are certainly smart things to do to enhance its quality or not shortening it unnecessarily.

Note that Dr. Nuland does not believe one can live beyond the length programmed by one’s genes. It appears cells can only divide a finite number of times, organs will gradually lose their efficiency, and entropy in the system can only increase. Modern medicine has not found a way to reverse this process yet.

Dr. Nuland stopped short of promoting assisted suicide. The medical profession and institutes dispense excessive amount of resources just to maintain signs of life. Since death is a process, and not an event, there is really nothing to avoid and meaningless to catch just few more breaths.

He admitted it is easier said than done in a painful and emotional story regarding his own brother. He seemed to be trying to convince himself with those grueling chapters on AIDS and cancer death: their inevitable ugly and painful processes. Where is dignity, where is social responsibility, where is humanity, to prolong their suffering while dispensing away resources?

I rewrote my living will and checked my medical power of attorney after reading this book.

New York Times reported that World Bank has been computing GPD, based on PPP, with 1980’s prices all the time. After they have switched to current prices, China’s GPD shrank to mere US$6 trillions, instead of US$10 trillions.

China Daily picked up the same story on December 18th, but the numbers are slightly different.

This is comical. PPP based GPD, said the article, is preferred by economists. World Bank is among the most prestigeous economist society. It is a collosal blunder for World Bank to have used a 25-year-old price basket for GPD computation. I don’t really quite understand how can this happens, governments, China included, publish CPI data every year.

Does this mean the USA has lost their ground to pressure China to appreciate RMB faster?

Adobe CS3 is an amazing collection of creativity software. I recently acquired them and upgraded my sadly outdated PhotoShop 7. As an amateur, I barely scratched the features, among the first to play is the photo stitching feature. Click to see the hi-res version.

(Johnny, how about porting them to Solaris?)

This is the view from my office, facing north, a nice view on TsingHua Univeristy. The light-brown building on the left of the chimney is the main building. The one closest, on the right corner, is their FIT (Future Internet Technology?) complex: a huge building housing reseach teams and labs. The next generation pure IPv6 is only one of the projects experimented here.

This is from ERI looking west. You can see Summer Palace and part of Peking University. The closer buildings are, I believe, TsingHua's staff residential area. Peking University is right beyond them. The far ranges are West Moutains and Fragrant Hill is part of them.

This is from my apartment looking north. You can see Capital Building on the left, the tallest in Beijing and KunLun hotel with a circular restaurant on top. The trees obscured LiangMa River across. Those red buildings are on the east side of the famouse SanLiTun, the brisk shopping, bar, and restaurant area for expats and local alike.

天觀雙俠 (繁體中文) 鄭丰 (陳宇慧)ISBN: 9789867131881 Pub. Date: 2007年07月19日 Publisher: 奇幻基地

How do I describe this style of literature? The straight translation will be “KungFu fictions.” But that is not justice. On the other hand, many will snicker at even trying to acknowledge them as literature, similar to what New York Times will call tabloids journalism, I guess. I have been obsessed with them when I was much younger, spending a big part of my allowance renting them (the other parts are on other similarly questionable categories).

This popular art form combines the elements of fantasy, western, history, and folk lores. Decades ago, no serious writers dare to use their real names writing these, lest ruining their pure artistic reputation. Many admitted subsidizing their normal salaries with this side-job, but usually long after they have firmly established themselves in the literature circle.

About 10 years ago, GU Long (古龙) and JIN Yong (金庸) changed the industry. The former wrote stories that are unrealistically and sappy poetic. The latter actually tried to turn this form into real literature. Mr. GU died from alcoholism: very fitting to his characters in the books. Mr. Jin essentially killed the industry by setting a new benchmark few can surpass.

Until this one came. I have not read Kung Fu books for so many years now. But this one captured me no less firmly than Harry Potter.

In this city of more than ten million, I bet half of them thought of the same thing: the Sunday lazy sun is warming the afternoon, how about hanging out in the park, playing Mahjongg over a cup of tea. No wonder the parks are brimming with people. Over 80% are playing games: Mahjongg the most popular one and cards second. The sound of Mahjongg games filled the residential areas and street players are at every corners. What an enviable leisurely city.

Every engineer define the boundaries before engaging a project. Did LI Bing think his shall last longer than 2200 years? Through these centuries, the DuJiangYan Irrigation System failed only once: in 1933 after an 7.5-scale earthquake that dammed up the upstream for 45 days and it was partially destroyed by the ensuing flood. To tour DuJiangYan, hire a guide to explain how things work: sands sediment there and water goes there; deal with drought this way and flood that way; automate this but do that manually. To sum it up: it was a near perfect engineering work.

Since I didn't have time to visit the famous SanXingDui Museum, I visited the newly opened JinSha Site Museum in the city. They did a good job designing the flow. A quick tour takes about an hour; a deeper appreciation requires about half a day. JinSha is a 3000-year-old mystery. The stone kneeling figurine had his hands bond behind and shows an intense expression. Was it a statuette of a criminal or a sacrificial doll? Did JinSha embody a collapsed ancient culture or the origin of Shu culture?

WuHou Temple appears to be the only one commemorating both the king and his prime minister (ZhuGe Liang), and named after that latter's posthumous title. ZhuGe Liang is one of the most prominent and highly respected figures in Chinese history. A stone stellae inscribed two essays authored by ZhuGe Liang and caligraphed by Yue Fei: two poignant heroes failed by their eras and leaders. So powerful. I was almost moved to tears.

Throughout China, fairs go with temples. Near WuHou Temple is the Ancient JinLi Street teemed with shops and restaurants. ChunXi Road, downtown Chengdu city, is a contrasting modern shopping area alike those in Beijing and Shanghai, only a little smaller.

In Sichuan, must see Sichuan Opera and eat Sichuan cuisine. We went to “Fu Rong Guo Cui” in JinJiang Theater. The performance is good and priced at “tourist grade.” “Changing Faces” shows are common in Beijing, but ChengDu's version featured a puppet doing it! One performer can even change backward. Honestly, it has become old watching these shows. How many times can you be amazed at the same, albeit very skilled, trick?

Sichuan restaurants in SiChuan must meet the impossibly high expectations: innovative yet traditionally authentic. Tourists really should not expect both. Just choose.

The Sichuan dialect bring back childhood nostalgia. ChungDu's pace is just right; the weather is mildly pleasant. That's why Sichuan is known as “the heavenly land.” I did not have enough time to visit many famed spots, guess there must be a next time.

According to China Daily, China's economy grew 11.2% in 2007. As for 2008, the forecast is 10.8%. I still remember government's target of 8% at the end of 2006. Guess many countries hope to deal with China's problem — having too much money.

The Economist Special Report on India and China Nov. 3rd, 2007

The Economist had a special report on India and China titled High-Tech Hopefuls. As I would expect from any world-class publication, I have always found this magazine fair and informative. Its subscription fee at China, however, is more than double of USA. These economists really “charge what the market can bear.”

The opening article offered a rather interesting point of view on why did these great civilization declined — they were both technology leaders in this world few hundred years ago. “Lost of interest!” said Joel Mokyr. Both China and India ran out of challenges at that time. Hmm… Another classic economic doctrine: competition is always good for the society.

The report focus very much on present and future. And its points are simple and compelling. For the next few years, both China and India would reap the benefits from existing technologies, mostly originated from abroad, instead of developing their own. They will catapult themselves over the mistakes made by the 1st world countries these few hundred years and land on the modern world in much shorter time. During that speedy flight, they need to scoop up a bigger piece from the value chain: Apple keeps $80 for each iPod and leaves $3.70 to China’s assembly lines. Innovation seems to be the key. But insisting on re-inventing a China version is not getting very far, even in China.