Your own 太医

Yes I am a hypochondriac but I still maintain that no one knows your body better than you, yourself. In other words you are your best doctor (for general ailment excluding major illnesses at least). Of course you need to find out information from a qualified medical doctor to come up with a diagnosis from the symptoms you are experiencing. However beyond that you have to do more research (thanks to the internet) to fully analyse whether the doctor's diagnosis/prognosis is accurate because he is coming to a conclusion based on his medical knowledge, past experience from treating a general population. He doesn't really understand your body constitution unless he spends at least half an hour or more listen to all the details which come to your mind describing your discomfort in various parts of your body.

So I had this persistent cough which the GP prescribed antibiotics because I had yellow phlegm and according to him there is a prevailing epidemic caused by bacteria and many of his patients coughed for weeks. That (if the information from my research is true) is myth number 1, the colour  of your phlegm does not indicate the presence of bacteria. Still being a hypochondriac I readily bore the side effects of the full course of antibiotics. The violent urge to cough died down and all seemed well until the cough recurred again. Fearing being subjected to another dose of antibiotics I went to a sinseh which did not help either. Meanwhile I began to notice the acid reflux problem which I used to have 2 years ago had started to resurface, meaning that the cough was worse at night when I lied down.

While lamenting about my nagging cough, my sister in law described a person who was so frustrated with her persistent cough that she threw caution to the wind and drank coconut water instead. In our Chinese upbringing, coconut water is a no no if a cough is the 'cool' type. Miraculously her cough suddenly went away. I thought it too high a risk to try. However when I was researching about GERD ( Gastroesophgeal reflux disease) I was dumbfounded to find that coconut water is one of the natural remedies because of its alkaline nature. So I immediately gave it a try and bingo I didn't have any cough throughout that night . So I went on to take daily drinks of coconut water and it seemed to work while I am still keeping my fingers crossed.

I found out from my research that a persistent cough can be caused by a post nasal drip from sinus or an acid reflux or both which seem to reinforce each other. Most GP will not ask you whether you have sinus or acid reflux. I suspect the lady who drank coconut water and had her cough cured was probably having a GERD problem which she herself was not aware (many suffers apparently are clueless they have this problem).

My contention is you are your own太医 (imperial physician) who takes cue from your body reaction to various diet and activities including the texture of your poo. You have to form your own opinion what best treatment to take from all the information gathered from doctors and otherwise.

If you don't listen how would you know?

When sociologist Teo You Yenn wrote an article in the ST "Let's talk about meeting needs and not just equality of opportunity", One Dr. Sudha Nair, who led the Bedok Interim Rental Housing Project, responded in a letter to the forum entitled "Why the poor are poor:$500 a month on cable TV and cigarettes and this family still wants financial aid?"

Teo had basically pointed out the hurdles and stigma families in need of financial aid undergo to receive aid. She highlighted the challenges the families living in rented flats face and in particular how disadvantaged and academically far behind their children are compared to their cohort in school. Dr. Nair in her rebuttal letter basically justified the need to ask seemingly intrusive questions about family genograms and ecomaps and detail income and expenditure assessments. To her these questions help the social workers understand the family's choices and their ability to distinguish between wants and needs. She highlighted that most of these families have sold their owner occupied flat for various reasons, spent the money and were in financial difficulties. By helping these families explore alternatives ( in Singapore for eg. single parents must hold a job to receive child care subsidies) these families are able to move on. Needless to say she cited several cases whose members changed their spending habits or found jobs and were able to buy their own flat.

Dr Maliki Osman, a Minister of State then reinforeced with a rebuttal on Teo You Yenn's book "This is what inequality looks like". An abstract from his commentary include:
"Taxpayers' money should not just be given away, even to the needy, without expecting the recipients to help themselves. Social workers working with low-income households on a daily basis (sometimes for many years) have a good understanding of the difficulties they face, and the challenges in helping them."

What Dr Maliki didn't expect was a response signed by 40 social workers commenting that his rebuttal "presents an incomplete picture of the REALITIES of low-income families". They further remarked "While it is easy to attribute the situation of low-income households to poor decision-making and celebrate tough love, we must also acknowledge the role that systems and structures play in creating the conditions of poverty in the first instance"

One ex student of Dr Nair though respecting her as an engaging lecturer had to differ from her commentary saying:
"But what is lacking in this (her) article is how it fails to appreciate the role structural injustice plays in perpectuating poverty.....Individual "bad" behaviours do not cause poverty though it certainly plays a role in worsening their problems. "Unhelpful" and "harmful" behaviours are usually a result of experiences with marginalisation and oppression, and any family's problems has to be seen in the wider socio-economic context such as low wages, poor working conditions and unaffordable health care and housing."

This, in my opinion, is so well said.

What the above course of events clearly signifies is the government's habitual reflex reaction to defend especially because Teo You Yenn in her book points out that "people's experiences are linked to structural conditions of inequalities", throwing reflections on consequences of state policies.

How I wish our government can reign its hastiness to jump in defence and listens a bit more. Policies and their unintended consequences are forgivable if the government listens and makes changes.

Incidentally if you are wondering why some of the rented flat families have cable TV it is because they have no money to have entertainment outside. The parents refrain from shopping malls to avoid their children asking to buy stuff and the TV is their only semblance of a normal family and it helps keep children from wandering outdoor in an unconducive neighbourhood.

If you don't listen how would you know.

Exam Meritocracy

In an ST article "Meritocracy and its toll on our students" two professors highlighted the toll and the opportunity costs of the Singapore education system which places great emphasis on academic performance. Their comments are based on more than 300 submissions that business undergraduates in SMU wrote introspecting their life in and beyond the university. 

What strikes me is the impact of our national obsession with academic performance. Except for a few, all students accept the societal definition of success in sole material terms and academic performance as a means to this end. It comes with an opportunity cost. The students see their parents working diligently to support their education expecting good academic performance from them in return. Some however feel emotionally neglected wishing their parents can love or appreciate them unconditionally and not see their worth through such narrow lens. For some, the parents' relentless strive towards financial goals had caused conflicts between their parents and discord in the family. Many students also mentioned periods when they felt life was meaningless and had signs of depression, with a few finding escapes in smoking, drinking or sex. 

More disheartening is the lack of mention about the "love of learning" or inspiration drawn from their course of study. It seems that their choice of study is often guided by the goal to get a high paying job as influenced by the family rather than an excitement to pursue the field of study. I feel rather sad that almost half a century from the time I pursued my university education, the paradigm towards learning in Singapore has not changed much. Four decades ago the aim of pursuing a college education for most students was truly to relieve the parents' financial burden and for many to support younger siblings' education. Despite having moved from a third world to a first world country it is sad that the collective notion of success in Singapore remains in material terms and academic achievement remains as a measure of merit.

Someone once remarked "Despite the brilliant performance on global academic rankings, Singapore has produced proportionally fewer top-ranked scientists, inventors, entrepreneurs and business leaders. When Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam was asked about this by CNN many years ago by Fareed Zakaria, he replied that Singapore was an “exam meritocracy”, compared to America which was a “talent meritocracy”. 

Why I feel sad is because I think a lot of talent in our young may be buried and repressed when they are not encouraged to find their true passion and to discover themselves. Many of my contemporary are unable to recognise a passion that we can pursue upon our retirement so as to make our life richer. I feel it is because it was either undiscovered or had been buried long ago. I do not wish this upon our young.

Liberation from the Self

The following words I shall henceforth strive to remember:

終日吃飯未曾咬著一粒米，終日行未曾踏著一片地。與麼時無人我等相, 終日不離一切事，不被諸境惑，方名自在人。更時時念念不見一切相，莫認前後三際，前際無去，今際無住，後際無來。安然端坐，任運不拘，方名解脫。

Taking one's meal every day, one never chews a grain of rice. Walking every day one never steps upon the ground. Without the discrimination between self and others, one lives in the world, not deluded by anything at all. This is a genuinely free person whose thinking is beyond name and form. Transcending the three periods of thought, he understands that the previous period has not passed, the present period does not stay, and that the future period will not come. Sitting properly and peacefully, not bound by the world, this alone is called liberation! (The Dharma of the Mind Transmission)


Albert Einstein's words as follow seem to reinforce the above:

“The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which he has attained liberation from the self”. (In his writings "The World as I see it")

This theme of liberating the self to glimpse life's true meaning is also echoed by Einstein later on, in a 1950 letter to console a grieving father Robert S. Marcus:

“A human being is a part of the whole, called by us "Universe," a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. The striving to free oneself from this delusion is the one issue of true religion. Not to nourish it but to try to overcome it is the way to reach the attainable measure of peace of mind.”

"Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion."