In case you're wondering whether Kathyrn Stockett's novel The Help is as good as To Kill a Mockingbird, here is the answer: No. It's better.
Both stories talk about black African-American maid or housekeeper. Aibileen and Calpurnia were black, and I mention this for a reason. My domestic maid is coloured, as well. I love The Help more as the black maid in this novel, Aibileen, was helping to raise a little girl and that hits a strong chord with me. When I read the chapter in which Aibileen taught the preschooler to potty, I can't stop thinking about my daughter.
It's either unsettling or ironic - or a bit of both - that Aibileen was only allowed to visit her coloured bathroom made for the blacks. She ended up bringing the baby girl out to that weired makeshift "bathroom" with no proper walls but plyboards hammered together. This, of course, is how the girl learned to go in the potty. But anyone with even a cursory knowledge of American history - to be exact, in 1962 for Aibileen - will realize that the white baby's mother is going to throw a fit once she finds out her daughter go to the coloured bathroom. "This is dirty out here, Mae Mobley. You'll catch diseases! No no no!"
Yes, at first blush, it seems like a ridiculous act of racism, but when we think about it some more, it's happening somewhat similarly nowadays. I knew people who set up house rules banning the domestic maid from kissing the toddlers, even if the maid is supposed to love the children.
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Friday, February 17, 2012
On Call
It's a Friday in hospital full of activity for me. The first thing I did in the morning was to make sure my fountain pen brims with ink, and my cup with coffee.
On your mark, get set, go.
Within minutes, my beeper was on full blast, and my footprints were all over the hospital.
This is a hospital, and there's no reason why we don't talk about death. Soon after my morning clinic, I joined a pre-inquest meeting for a coroner's case. Before long I had to rush to another hospital building where a patient had a cardiac arrest. By the time I finished the meeting, there were plenty of patient consultations for me to take care of. I didn't take lunch and tried to finish seeing them, lest they grew in number. When the debt grows, believe me, it grows like compound interest.
Soon I found out one of the neurosurgery patients had been seen by my colleague few days ago. I quickly turned to that page, and told the intern knowingly: "This, you should find my colleague to continue seeing your patient."
Not that passing the buck is an honourable thing to do. But everyone of us will probably do this once in a while. When I settled most of my jobs, an inner voice nudged me to get back to the neurosurgery patient. He wasn't seen by my colleague yet. That didn't come as a surprise. What surprised me is that the nurse in the neurosurgery unit came and handed me a fountain pen that I left behind in the morning. I was surprised, embarrassed, and brightened all at once.
On your mark, get set, go.
Within minutes, my beeper was on full blast, and my footprints were all over the hospital.
This is a hospital, and there's no reason why we don't talk about death. Soon after my morning clinic, I joined a pre-inquest meeting for a coroner's case. Before long I had to rush to another hospital building where a patient had a cardiac arrest. By the time I finished the meeting, there were plenty of patient consultations for me to take care of. I didn't take lunch and tried to finish seeing them, lest they grew in number. When the debt grows, believe me, it grows like compound interest.
Soon I found out one of the neurosurgery patients had been seen by my colleague few days ago. I quickly turned to that page, and told the intern knowingly: "This, you should find my colleague to continue seeing your patient."
Not that passing the buck is an honourable thing to do. But everyone of us will probably do this once in a while. When I settled most of my jobs, an inner voice nudged me to get back to the neurosurgery patient. He wasn't seen by my colleague yet. That didn't come as a surprise. What surprised me is that the nurse in the neurosurgery unit came and handed me a fountain pen that I left behind in the morning. I was surprised, embarrassed, and brightened all at once.
Sunday, February 5, 2012
I Know
Similar to comrades in the army, doctors within a team call each other for dinner even though we're busy.
It's fairly obvious that there isn't convenient time common to the doctors. "Alright, you go first, and I'll finish admitting my cases and join you guys in a minute."
As we all know, virtually nobody will turn up one minute after that remark. Even so, the phrase "in a minute" can mean anything like fifteen minutes or forever. The difference in sense of time is unbelievably easy to grasp. Doctors know each other well and recognize what that particular colleague usually means by one minute. We just know.
Any of us who has worked in an office with someone else for few months can usually tell when that person will be back if he says, "I'll be gone for a while." The interesting thing is that we don't have to be that explicit soon after we get along with each other.
Once we start getting used to the I-know-you-know-what-I-know manner, there is embarrassing story waiting to happen. This I know, too. There is another story I like to tell. Many years ago I was asking a nurse to help me getting a needle into the knee joint of my patient. I had to wear sterile gloves and cleanse my patient's skin with povidone iodine solution before puncturing the joint; these are the rules for doctors to prevent infection. "Could you please fetch me the soya sauce?" Lest I begin to confuse those of you who aren't working in the hospital, let me say that soya sauce is a byword to describe the brown povidone iodine solution. The nurse disappeared. I waited. I mused. "What, for heaven's sake, keeps my nurse from getting back to me?"
And no prizes for guessing that I found my nurse busy scratching her head to find a bottle of soya sauce in the pantry.
It's fairly obvious that there isn't convenient time common to the doctors. "Alright, you go first, and I'll finish admitting my cases and join you guys in a minute."
As we all know, virtually nobody will turn up one minute after that remark. Even so, the phrase "in a minute" can mean anything like fifteen minutes or forever. The difference in sense of time is unbelievably easy to grasp. Doctors know each other well and recognize what that particular colleague usually means by one minute. We just know.
Any of us who has worked in an office with someone else for few months can usually tell when that person will be back if he says, "I'll be gone for a while." The interesting thing is that we don't have to be that explicit soon after we get along with each other.
Once we start getting used to the I-know-you-know-what-I-know manner, there is embarrassing story waiting to happen. This I know, too. There is another story I like to tell. Many years ago I was asking a nurse to help me getting a needle into the knee joint of my patient. I had to wear sterile gloves and cleanse my patient's skin with povidone iodine solution before puncturing the joint; these are the rules for doctors to prevent infection. "Could you please fetch me the soya sauce?" Lest I begin to confuse those of you who aren't working in the hospital, let me say that soya sauce is a byword to describe the brown povidone iodine solution. The nurse disappeared. I waited. I mused. "What, for heaven's sake, keeps my nurse from getting back to me?"
And no prizes for guessing that I found my nurse busy scratching her head to find a bottle of soya sauce in the pantry.
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Grieve
I happened to open an old e-mail when I tried to find the address of an acquaintance of mine. I read on.
It's a story of my laptop computer being stolen during my overseas training in Montreal. This is a hard story to swallow, and I skipped meals for two days, as what people do after having a heart attack. Two days isn't a long time, but it was long enough to see me rewrite a manuscript (over four thousand words without a backup copy), to lose my wit, to leave a vacuum where I tried to fill with buying a book When Men Grieve.
It came as no surprise, after nine years, to see that I forgot most of the details. Memory is not, as many of us think, an accurate transcription of past events. Rather it is a story we tell ourselves about the past, inundated with lessons that we learn, or lessons we wish we should have learnt. To that matter, what am I supposed to remember? I found a quote in my e-mail, "Clenching the sands of life too tightly only causes more of it to slip through our fingers."
Thoughtful remark, I would say.
It's a story of my laptop computer being stolen during my overseas training in Montreal. This is a hard story to swallow, and I skipped meals for two days, as what people do after having a heart attack. Two days isn't a long time, but it was long enough to see me rewrite a manuscript (over four thousand words without a backup copy), to lose my wit, to leave a vacuum where I tried to fill with buying a book When Men Grieve.
It came as no surprise, after nine years, to see that I forgot most of the details. Memory is not, as many of us think, an accurate transcription of past events. Rather it is a story we tell ourselves about the past, inundated with lessons that we learn, or lessons we wish we should have learnt. To that matter, what am I supposed to remember? I found a quote in my e-mail, "Clenching the sands of life too tightly only causes more of it to slip through our fingers."
Thoughtful remark, I would say.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Kodak
How many people would be surprised to hear that Eastman Kodak filed for bankruptcy after struggling to adapt to an increasing digital world? I'd bet it isn't a lot. Since the digital photography technology has improved in leaps and bounds, I never dream about buying the traditional films (who does?).
It's obvious now that we are getting used to digital camera. And for good reason. We are accustomed to the beauty of digital photography. Take film speeds; once fixed for each roll of camera film, sensitivity of the digital imaging system can now be changed with just a click on the button. Or the secret trick to load the 36-exposure film cleverly to give 37 exposures in the not-so-distant past; now, we can press the shutter as often as we like.
We started seeing the new experience of taking digital photos, but I wonder how on earth one could ever imagine the change before digital camera was invented. At a time when digital photography may seem straightforward, I've come to the conclusion that it's always clearer to look back at the rear-view mirror than look ahead of the windshield.
It's obvious now that we are getting used to digital camera. And for good reason. We are accustomed to the beauty of digital photography. Take film speeds; once fixed for each roll of camera film, sensitivity of the digital imaging system can now be changed with just a click on the button. Or the secret trick to load the 36-exposure film cleverly to give 37 exposures in the not-so-distant past; now, we can press the shutter as often as we like.
We started seeing the new experience of taking digital photos, but I wonder how on earth one could ever imagine the change before digital camera was invented. At a time when digital photography may seem straightforward, I've come to the conclusion that it's always clearer to look back at the rear-view mirror than look ahead of the windshield.
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Transmogrified
Everyone wore business attire (suit with neck tie for male colleagues, tailored trousers or skirt for females) when the team took photo with our hospital chief executive this Friday - it's just that a handful of us were wearing shirt and white coat. I meekly hid in the back when I found that my white coat didn't blend in with all those dark business suits.
It's not the first time that I feel that the dressing code means an entry ticket to a certain position. I still remember vividly my student days, when I started the pilgrimage to the medical ward wearing the white coat, with stethoscope hanging round the neck, to justify my presence. I tried to look as though I could behave as a doctor, talk in a professional parlance - or at least to blend in a bit more.
Now, in a matter of years, I am wearing white coat not to justify myself being a doctor, but to keep myself from becoming an administrator. I wear the white coat to keep me from the exit.
It's not the first time that I feel that the dressing code means an entry ticket to a certain position. I still remember vividly my student days, when I started the pilgrimage to the medical ward wearing the white coat, with stethoscope hanging round the neck, to justify my presence. I tried to look as though I could behave as a doctor, talk in a professional parlance - or at least to blend in a bit more.
Now, in a matter of years, I am wearing white coat not to justify myself being a doctor, but to keep myself from becoming an administrator. I wear the white coat to keep me from the exit.
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Atishoo
There are few experiences as common as that minor ailment known as common cold, where you sit on a train with people staring at you like an extraterrestrial creature, abashed with water running down your nose. And at the same time, you're running out of tissue paper.
Common cold is going to happen to everyone of us. You may feel a little as if having a cold is the sine qua non of having a winter. But, you might ask, why the heck do we sneeze when we catch a cold? What purpose does a sneeze serve, apart from embarrassing us on the train? The best perspective to take, as pointed out by Richard Dawkins, would be from the virus's point of view. From the standpoint of the virus (or more precisely, the standpoint of the genes that create the virus), I was told, it has evolved to manipulate the human respiratory system to expel it into the air, which in turn makes it more likely to infect more people. This makes sense.
Think of an even better-adapted cold virus that infects its host's nervous system and compels the host to kiss other people on the mouth.
If you find that idea weird, well, think about the rabies virus.
Common cold is going to happen to everyone of us. You may feel a little as if having a cold is the sine qua non of having a winter. But, you might ask, why the heck do we sneeze when we catch a cold? What purpose does a sneeze serve, apart from embarrassing us on the train? The best perspective to take, as pointed out by Richard Dawkins, would be from the virus's point of view. From the standpoint of the virus (or more precisely, the standpoint of the genes that create the virus), I was told, it has evolved to manipulate the human respiratory system to expel it into the air, which in turn makes it more likely to infect more people. This makes sense.
Think of an even better-adapted cold virus that infects its host's nervous system and compels the host to kiss other people on the mouth.
If you find that idea weird, well, think about the rabies virus.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
