A friend of mine asked me to describe Winslet's character in light of Nora in the Play A Doll's House.   

http://polymath.xanga.com/697660232/about-revolutionary-road-spoilers/

喜歡跟戀愛當然不是一樣的東西，不管用英語或許中文，日語，等等都一樣；這兩個字是不同。怎麽不同呢？喜歡怎麽變變成愛情？

我認爲這寫中文字可以教我們一些真理：喜歡的主要特點就是喜和歡。喜就是英文的like的類型。愛呢，有一個心，被那個被愛的來抓著。愛克嫩還有喜歡的愉快的感覺，可是不一定有的。

Liking something or someone is about affinity - if something brings you happiness or good feelings (好感）you can easy find yourself quite happy to see them/think about them.  Liking something indicates that the object of the like brings the subject positivity.  

Love, at least the character in chinese draws a picture of an essential  quality of love - it's captured your heart.  The character for heart is under a grasping claw.  Liking something certainly doesn't mean you love it... and loving something doesn't ultimately mean you still like it.  Love doesn't require enjoyment or happiness - and in fact, love doesn't need it.  So often, we discover how much we love something once we discover how much we are willing to suffer on that object's behalf.  Your heart is captive to the object's well being an happiness - concerned and driven.  

In our modern, if even post romantic notion of love, I think we have mistaken a strong like for love.  When enjoyment/pleasure is gone, it seems that we no longer associate that with love.  Love needs to be fun, if not exciting - pleasurable to the partakers, else it's no longer worth keeping.

This is, in contrast to the love described by I Cor 13, a very different and, in my opinion, base thing.

I Corinthians 13:

 ⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

 ⁸ Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰ but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. ¹¹ When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. ¹²For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

 ¹³ And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

It is after suffering that you know whether what you feel is affable affinity or love - if you cannot suffer for the object of your affection, it cannot be love.  Not truly.  Love accepts and endures hardship and heartache, not like.  Love bears grievances and sins, and bares its beating heart to offer support and strength despite the hardship.  Love might be jealous, but it does not demand.  God shows us love - to Israel and through a new covenant - and that love is jealous.  But that love also seeks its objects growth and well being.

It is not like; we are not very likeable.

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喜歡事很簡單，負擔也沒有；一遇到辛苦的情形，都可以告別離開從新開始。愛不會。愛會忍耐。愛不會放棄。愛可以Sacrifice。喜歡不必，也許不會。從神的道路，我們可以感覺到他的水準。是一個完成，十分十美的愛。在這世界上，我們得用它的力量來愛對方，不管是我們的家人，朋友，或許戀人。

I returned from Severance Hall the other night after watching Don Giovanni.  The rendition was excellent, with many a modern twist, albeit occasionally over the top bordering on exhibitionist/raunchy.  That said, the story itself is quite tawdry and salacious as it centers on the force of nature that is Don Giovanni, an arrogant, self-centered nobleman who's chief pleasure in life is the seduction of women.  As he says, he loves women too much to love but one - to love but one is to be cruel to all others.  This view colours all his attempts at conquest throughout the opera, which tracks not only the damage that he causes to various women, but also to the men who love them.

The tale ends with his demise at the hand of the ghost of a man he slew.  Commandatore scene.  Judgment is exacted after he is offered a chance at redemption, which he refuses.  He perishes, but the effects on the other families/couples remain - some stronger, some denied happiness.  Particularly piquant is Don Ottavio's Il Mio Tesorio.  Don Ottavio is played by a tenor, and the part is an older man who dotes on Donna Anna, a woman who, in the opening scene, resisted Don Giovanni's advances.  Donna Anna also loses her father to Giovanni, when the Commandatore (Donna Anna's father) challenges Don Giovanni to a duel to protect his beloved daughter's honour.

Il mio tesoro intanto 
andate a consolar,
E del bel ciglio il pianto
cercate di asciugar.
Ditele che i suoi torti
a vendicar io vado;
Che sol di stragi e morti
nunzio vogl'io tornar.

Meantime go and console my dearest one,and seek to dry the tears from her lovely eyes.
Tell her that I have goneto avenge her wrongs, and will return only as the messenger of punishment and death.

Don Ottavio also sings: Dalla sua pace, which I also love.

Dalla sua pace la mia dipende;
Quel che a lei piace vita mi rende,
Quel che le incresce morte mi dà.
S'ella sospira, sospiro anch'io;
È mia quell'ira, quel pianto è mio;
E non ho bene, s'ella non l'ha.

On her peace of mind depends mine too,what pleases her gives life to me,what grieves her wounds me to the heart.
If she sighs, I sigh with her;her anger and her sorrow are mine,and joy I cannot know unless she share it.

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When I first watched this as a child, I had no idea what I was listening to.  It was beautiful, but it was just beautiful, lyrical music.  I had so little of an idea of the plot that when I watched Days of Being Wild by Wong Kar Wai, I didn't notice the resemblance of the themes.  Indeed, there are only so many stories that are told in the world, but I have to note that I know of few that center on the free-radical of a man who loves wantonly and recklessly as he.

The Spanish name for the character is Don Juan, and the original.  More interestingly, one of the character's love interests goes by the name of Haidee (Byron's), also the name of the girl who ultimately becomes the wife of the Count of Monte Cristo, by Dumas.

It's strange realising that all of these folk-tale like characters can intertwine in the popular fictions of the day.  But who is this libertine and why did he capture such attention?  What does he have to do with Leslie Cheung's character in WKW's Days of Being Wild?

As a comparison, Leslie's character was a beautiful, rootless drifter who was an unacknowledged son of a philipino chinese family, presumably with some Shanghainese relation.  His initial encounter with Maggie Cheung in the movie is a timeless image - and a wholly different seduction.  He asks her to look at a watch with him for a minute, telling her that this moment - this minute would be indelibly etched in his memory... that he would never forget her.  The film goes on to show his different "women" that he is attracted to for different reasons.  While Don Giovanni's affairs are brutal things, and his use of his friends callous and brutish, Leslie's character uses the others in an amoral, yet unmalicious way.  He does not intend them to be hurt - nor does he use them as shields - but the callous damage is done all the same.

When one of his friends (Jacky Cheung) shows interest in a girl, he flaunts his relationship with her (Carina Lau) - showing his power and romantic puissance.  Andy Lau eventually confesses his interest in Maggie Cheung's Character, another woman "stuck" because of her memories of Leslie's character. 

Whereas each of these men treasure these women for one reason or another, Leslie's character only collects the experiences and memories - treasing the memory and the flavour of the experiences - but not the woman herself.  In the end, in the final scenes where Leslie dies, Andy Lau asks him about Maggie's Character, thinking that he would not remember that minute from years ago. 

But he does.  He remembers her, foiling an attempt by Andy to paint him as truly careless.

The problem is not Leslie's lack of sensitivity, but rather his belief that he cannot and will not be tied down.  "There is a kind of bird that is born without feet.  It must forever fly, for on the day that it lands, it will be dead."

Andy: "There is no such bird, for that bird was dead when it was born."

While Don Giovanni's character is dragged into hell by the stone statue of the Commandatore, Leslie's is shot to death while on the train.  They both have had opportunities to repent and turn from their callousness - Giovanni could have become an upstanding nobleman, whereas Leslie could have settled down with any number of beautiful women...

Giovanni's moral fibre is very different - killing, infidelity, outright lies - none were strangers to him.  Leslie's was intrinsically a romantic and his chief fault was his complete aversion to commitment - and his desire to find his parents.

Still, to my mind, there is an echo here, a resonance in the social effects of these men that are emotional free radicals, causing damage, moving on, and destroying society.  I have many flaws, and I think all men are tempted to be a bit like either Don Giovanni or WKW's Leslie.  But they serve as warnings in their respective societies - Don Giovanni - this selfish living earns you no friends - and perhaps a quick grave.  It warns women not to be taken in by this seducer.

WKW's is much more appropos to HK/asia - family ties bind.  Love is a binding.  You cannot have love without a binding.  Nor can you demand a bond when it is not offered.  Those that toy with emotions without commitment imperil others, both male and female around them.

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Dalla sua pace

Dalla sua pace la mia dipende;
Quel che a lei piace vita mi rende,
Quel che le incresce morte mi dà.
S'ella sospira, sospiro anch'io;
È mia quell'ira, quel pianto è mio;
E non ho bene, s'ella non l'ha.

On her peace of mind depends mine too,what pleases her gives life to me,what grieves her wounds me to the heart.
If she sighs, I sigh with her;her anger and her sorrow are mine,and joy I cannot know unless she share it.

After Don Giovanni meets his end, Donna Anna asks for another year to grieve, to delay her wedding with Ottavio one more year.

Ottavio is a gentle spirit, ultimately, indulging her even with time, despite his gray head.  Is this not what every woman desires?  Space and freedom to be loved and to sort through all the emotions that course through her?  And he obliges her because of his love for her.  And his love takes on vindictive elements, as well as comforting elements.  To love is to protect.

I Corinthians 13:

 ⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

 ⁸ Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰ but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. ¹¹ When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. ¹²For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

 ¹³ And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Emphasis in bold, mine.

Justice is eventually meted out.  And that is a warning to those that would injure hearts wantonly...

But a moment within the hearts of the offenders, and its wrongdoing - but a complex one at that.

It seems unbelievable to me that Japan should suffer from yet another nuclear disaster - Two man made [Let us leave this topic], and another the concatenation of a human design and an earthquake.  Words cannot describe the horror of radiation sickness - silent, invisible, deadly, poisoning land air and sea. 

This tragedy is compounded by waters, fires, explosions and earthquake, amidst a prolonged recession.

May God have mercy on Japan.

*prayers*

With the unprecedented amount of unrest and, for all intents and purposes, revolution in the middle east/north africa, it brings to mind again the notion of stability.  I think children, as they grow up, learn notions about how fixed and stable their world is.  When one is young, every year passes like no other - presidents seem to be nearly eternal and unchanging.  I recall growing up with the USSR as the dominant rival for world-power.  That notion was fixed and stable until the fall of the Berliner Mauer, and the rapid changes that followed Glasnost.  A quick tour through the last century quickly shows how mutable governments and nations really can be.  Russia has had effectively 2 maybe three major government changes in this century, China transitioned from Imperial to KMT to Communist - and it's debatable how whether the communist in name government should be considered a seamless transition from the days of Mao, or whether the maneouverings of Deng Xiaoping and later Hu Jintao can be construed as new governments.

Germany went from an Imperial Prussians to the Weimar Republic followed by the Third Reich (Dritte Reich), then the twin Bundes Republik Deutschland and Deutche Demokratische Republik (DDR), followed by the reunification and reintegration of Germany.

Nation by nation, we could explore the world, and find time and again that revolution is more common and more frequent than one might expect based on limited personal experiences.  The US Civil War could have easily brought forth a number of new nations, rather than the integrated, United States that now exists.  A Texan secession is always a possibility, even today.

So, why do people revolt? 

Why do some repressive governments putter along, while others fall?  Why do some nations, even with strong economies, nearly come undone, such as the US Civil war?  Why are so many nations revolting at the same time?

The concept of a social contract is an interesting one, and I think encapsulates the trigger for revolt, with a couple modifiers.

The trigger is when enough of the population believes that they would be better off with war and possible loss of life than to remain under the current governing regime. 

The equation for this calculation is of course impossibly hard to model, but I would say that the primary drivers are: 1) food/life essentials, 2) freedom to prosper/work, 3) Religion/Philosophy/justice.  If enough people believe that the current governance renders them unhappy in the above areas, in order of decreasing importance, the likelihood of rebellion increases.

Because this is essentially a perception issue; relative wealth/happiness being a major driver - it's important to note that the way information is conveyed, shared and distributed is of paramount importance.  If the populace perceives and believes that the elites are repressing them, revolution is that much closer.  On the other, hand, if the people believe that there is "enlightened autocracy" that works for the good of a population, they are much more likely going to be willing to tolerate loss of freedoms, etc.  Propaganda from neighbouring states and rival ideologies fit into this category, as modifiers of perception.

I think people innately have a sense of justice, and desire a sense of self-determination and control.  Without needing a formal articulation of a social contract, people know when their rulers are failing them, they need to remove the government. 

It is in this area that the modifiers have their effect:  1) The population can be distracted, by entertainment and handouts, etc, to convince them that life isn't that bad.  2) Do they see examples of better governments?  3) Is the government that they have reforming?  4) In systems where regime change is scheduled (Democracies with regular elections) there can be the sense that change is right around the corner...  whether or not it actually is. 5) What are the alternatives - are there leaders available if the government is overthrown?

Charismatic leaders can modify the perception of all of the above, moving the masses towards or away from revolt/rebellion/revolution.  But what they do is give voice, or sway the prevailing emotional winds that are at play within a population, in my opinion.  In a very well run government, that tries to take earnest care of the population, I think inciting revolution is hard.  But not impossible.

Look at Adam and Eve.  One could argue that they were under perfect government, but someone came and modified their perceptions...

Perhaps we are predisposed to rebel...

I was chatting with a friend last night when an old memory surfaced about a little can of Coke that lived in my basement.  

When I was younger, we used to have parties at my home where a whole bunch of guys would come over and we'd hang out, play games, and stay up to the wee small hours of the morning.  It was hoots of fun.  One of these young lads chanced to place an open can of coke under a sofa, and promptly forgot about it.  Or that's what I suspected when I happened upon the can several years later when returning from either college or medical school, many years after such parties had ceased.

Intrigued, I swirled the can around.  Sure enough, from within the bright red and white can there was the swishing sound of liquid.  I grinned at the thought that the beverage may have braved the ravages of time and remained edible - or at least safe for consumption.  I brought it towards my lips to take a sip, then thought better of it.

Instead, I brought the can to the bathroom and tipped it over, pouring out some uncarbonated caramel coloured fluid.  It looked like coke.  Again I thought about imbibing.  

Just as I did, I decided to give the coke a shake, and the fluid then came out in a furry chunk.  

My stomach did a somersault, and I quickly dumped the rest out in the toilet.

Apparently, coke doesn't keep forever...

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I like to think of myself as an independent thinker, but marketing can affect me.  Coke's, for whatever reason, has worked.  I love the old jingles, the colours, the mottos.  I remember drinking at Renaissance festivals (Enjoy Thy Coke), and craving it while overseas.  The classic ad with a kid giving the football player a coke lives on in my memory with crystal clarity... "I'd like to buy, the world a Coke, to keep it company..."

But the cokes I remember best are the ones sitting on my shelf.

During my second year of undergrad, after a particularly painful breakup (my first ever...) a friend came by with a glass bottle of coke with a metal cap.  We sat in my room for a while.  He drank his, while I just looked at mine, which had become covered with condensed moisture.  The water left my hands damp with cool droplets.  I never drank it - just remembering him and that thought ever since.

It's still on my shelf.

I have no idea whether that bottle of coke's contents are still potable, but the memories contained within remain sweet indeed.

Of late, I've become very impressed with how much manipulation can occur in the markets.  Coordinated attacks, dubious information, market movements that make no sense... some of it really is the melee of financial warfare.  The prize?  Wealth.

Recently, I've been increasing my exposure to the market, acquiring a reasonably large position in a certain company that operates in China, based in Hong Kong, and traded on the NASDAQ.  The general impression of many in the US is that every company based in asia is suspect of fraud, which is a difficult position to disprove.  So despite amazing numbers, good auditors, well-known investors, the stock is is exceedingly vulnerable to any suggestion of fraud. 

In the past week or so, I doubled my position, leveraging significantly, in anticipation of the a forced buy in from short-traders, as the stock was very very heavily shorted (60% of the float or so), thinking that they could not "escape" this trap of their own devising. 

The markets, however, are a battlefield.  One cannot expect that one's enemy will not seek to escape a bad situation, and will employ any means or strategy to elude you.  So, after a 20% run-up last week, the short positions appear to have coordinated a sell-off to coincide with an opinion piece on a financial blog that has resulted in an aggregate 20+ percent drop in the price over 3 days.  So, given that I had a good run up, then increased my leverage towards the top, the aggregate price movement has left me much poorer.

I've only been aggressively trading in the last 3 years - during training, I found it very hard to trade, as time was very limited.

One can be very encouraged during great gains - but losses can also be very discouraging.  I find myself rather listless today, unwilling to write articles or think about anything other than immediate patient care concerns. 

But...

    ¹⁹ “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. ²⁰ But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. ²¹ For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Matthew: 6:19-21

And then it forces me to ask, where is my treasure?  As much money as I've gained or lost in the last several days, I have a pearl of great price.  And I am treasured, even as I treasure my God's gift of salvation.

As I trade further, I really need to be careful of "blowing up" - trading is stewardship.  If I lose it all, I cannot invest it in Kingdom work, nor in the things I need to live.  I will try to be less greedy in the future.  Better reflection on the trading environment last week should have alerted me that while the possibility of explosive growth was strong, it was also a highly risky time as well.  The psychology of the markets is a fickle and dangerous thing, as there are no allies, per se... merely temporary allies-at-arms.  Everyone wants to preserve their own wealth - and get more - which is usually at another's expense.

More careful assessment of the probabilities should have led me to reduce, not increase, my position.

Live and learn.  But definitely learn.  Thanks be to God.

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Just finished a book about Chiang Kai Shek.  The Generalissimo looks at the man from youth to grave, and is a lot more sympathetic than I would have guessed.  Given that the historical context within which he lived is so rich and complex, there is no way I can review the book and do it any justice.  However, I want to highlight a couple areas.

1)  Chiang Kai Shek was, to all appearances, a devout Christian.  He committed a lot of debauchery, but it appears that after he married Soong Mayling that he truly did believe, and that he re-oriented his life, and re-cast his life in an understanding of scripture.

  He seems to have seen his life from the perspective of a sort of martyr, with Jobian sorts of a eras, as well as believing deeply in a single China, hoping to rebuild China in a way to restore national prestige, as well as improve the lot of the Chinese peoples.  Living through a period of immense social unrest and injustice, surrounded by warlords and warfare, it could be argued that any would be leadership of China saw that unification was essential to China's future existence - even at the cost of personal sacrifice.

  This point is very unusual.  The author of the book looked at periods where Chiang Kai Shek could have either eliminated the Communists, or more conservatively preserved his position and men - dragging the civil war out.  The author argues that Chiang might indeed have sought an all or nothing approach, as he did not want to sacrifice territorial integrity - did not want China divided into two states, even if he were to be the head of one of them. 

  He saw the retreat to Taiwan as a way to preserve a different vision of China, that might compete with the Communist vision in time, writing this rather clearly in his diaries.  I'd say he succeeded.  The Taiwanese model has influenced the mainland profoundly - as it should.  I view Taiwan as a repository (among many other things) of many wonderful aspects of chinese culture, which are percolating back to the Mainland.  In fact, mainland development has benefited greatly from Taiwan, just as Taiwan has benefited economically from the markets and raw materials of the mainland. I don't want to address TW/PRC here, as it's a huge issue and far more complex than I have time to write.

2)  From the view of the Chinese people, Japan was terrifying during the 1920s-1940s.  Japan experienced their industrial revolution much earlier - and leveraged that to nearly wrest control of much of the mainland who had remained under the rule of a decaying imperial regime.  China had languished under opium, suppressed and backwards for a couple centuries.  The experience of being attacked and invaded by multiple western powers and then later by Japan leaves a very bad taste in the minds and mouths of the leaders of China.

  I don't think one can meaningfully understand Chinese international policy without deeply digesting the immense humiliation that China perceives and remembers regarding this period.  China, rightly or wrongly, remembers a long 5000 year history of culture and greatness.  It remembers the last 400 years as foreign oppression.  While the west doesn't remember, collectively, a period of imperialism, China does - at least at the leadership level.  Both Nationalists and Communists fought against what they perceived as Imperialistic impulses - Japan, Europe, and to an extent, the US.

3)  Warfare between warlords is crazy.  In a sense, Pakistan and Afganistan are going through what Japan and China had in warring states periods.  WIthout strong central government, it's not entirely possible to build normative regimes.  Guns beat words.  In a sense, the Communist Revolution was really a competition of ideas - which model would unify and remake the Mainland.  Both sides believed in the necessity to eliminate rival factions; once in Taiwan, Chiang demoted rivals steadily, until there was a single power... that finally devolved into its present democracy. 

  It's interesting to note that had George Washington desired to be a King, he might well have established an American Monarchy.  There was certainly public sentiment to that effect.  He was wealthy, well connected, and powerful.  It's rare in history to see military leaders decline "tutelage", but Washington did decline that power.  Perhaps a near-despotic leader is necessary to achieve unity.  What follows is, however, immensely complex and difficult to navigate.

Two Links:
In Praise of Short Words (Out with the Long) - The Economist 2004 

LVMH attacks Hermes - The Economist 2010

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Short Words - I'm fairly certain that I've posted on this topic before, and yet I can't search for it within my blog, so I'm going to reiterate - despite my love of polysyllabic blathering, I do respect short words.  Would that I could write so well that with words so short I could speak my mind.  Here it is again.

LVMH's Arnault has accumulated over 20% of Hermes' shares, potentially attempting to take control of Hermes, this august family owned fashion legend.  If Hermes fell, I would be greatly saddened.  It remains one of my favourite marques.  Hopefully, there will be a way for it to remain centered on craftsmanship and quality, and independent.

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The end of 2010

I've been working for over 2 years now.  Time does fly.  I've grown, I've hurt, I've been hurt.  I've treated patients, I've written most of my novel, I've been traveling.  The year has been amazing in so many ways, and I've new indelible memories formed from Beijing to Singapore, Hong Kong, Hawaii and the Galapagos.  But more than anything, I really have come to realize that what I really want is to be married to a woman in a way that the Lord will be pleased.

Most of my life, I've been concerned with having a good story - to live life poetically or artistically.  I wanted an artistic symmetry to events and paths, a certain beauty to the sweep of actions and reactions.  Perhaps it's from watching too many chinese art movies, or perhaps from reading too many books, but I've come to understand that ultimately, the characters make the story.

Now, may God grant me to be who he wants me to be, and, if he's willing, a woman that he is pleased with and he wants me to be with.  Story irrelevant, let's make sure the characters fit.  I'd rather a very insipid tale, even trite with the right woman than an inspiring yarn with a harridan/disaster.

The Scent of a Man - From the Economist

Making Sense of Scents - From the Economist

I love the idea of being able to distinguish another person's MHC from their scents.  I wonder if all the scents I've liked really have been suggestive of an unmatching MHC.  The writer's comment in the former article is interesting.  I think if you're able to choose a scent for someone else, then perhaps it suggests that you know what MHC types you are attracted to.  And if they like it on themselves, then they think it mirrors their own...

In fact, choosing perfume/cologne may be very useful in chemical discernment, albeit in an oblique way...

Regarding my Favourite men's fashion house:  Zegna - From the Economist