Mandarin Course

The first email sent by my mother with her iPad

Knowing half of the capital alphabet and in turn not knowing how to type Chinese with phonetics, my 67-year-old mother has been deterred from writing emails. All she could do with a PC was to open a browser and to click on links and be a pure information consumer. Some handwriting pads are available for entering Chinese but a keyboard, a mouse, and a writing pad are all together too much for my mother to manage. The iPad changed everything. It melted the barrier between my mother and the technology, and brought her back to the information era. “I don’t want one. It’s too complicated for me,” she said when she learned we were buying her an iPad as her Mother’s Day gift. “Don’t worry. It will be very easy to use,” we assured her. We avoided the word “user-friendly,” which was not in her dictionary. “Oh, this is what you talked about?” she asked curiously when we showed her an iPad, her first computer. The sleek body of the iPad comfortably found its place on her lap. I instantly realized that this was the intimacy Apple was promoting and what it made iPad stand out. With PC, her eyes have to go back and forth between the screen in her front and the keyboard. With iPad, her sight and her finger can finally come together. I cannot agree more that tabbing links or buttons with finger is the most intuitive way of using computers. I encouraged her to try replying the email that I CC’ed her a week ago. With iPad’s handwriting interface, my mother WROTE her very first email by …

Chinese Diagnosis — A Practical Road Map (40)

Chinese Diagnosis — A Practical Road Map Medical diagnosis, whether Eastern or Western, must fulfill three requirements as follows: objectivity, rationality, and connection with a practical treatment method. Objectivity How can you be objective in diagnosis? You must employ your senses rather than your imagination. A health problem is usually observable and detected by your senses of sight, touch, hear and smell. If an illness is not easily observable, you should ask plenty of questions to see how the patient feels. A physician who asks few questions misses a lot of valuable information. In Chinese medicine, there is the golden rule of observe, listen, question, and pulse read 「望聞問切」. This means we have to detect the illness with our senses in the first place. Then we do the last step of pulse read. Pulse reading cannot give you a definitive picture as the three steps of observe, listen, and question combined, but it can serve to confirm what you have detected with your senses. For more details about pulse reading, please see my video “Popular Misconceptions”. Despite all its myths, Chinese medicine never suggests using the sixth sense or imagination in diagnosis, for that is violating the principle of objectivity. Rationality A health problem manifests itself in complicated ways. What seems apparent from your senses, and what the patient tells you may not be real. This is where rationality comes in. You must be able to distill the real problem from the aberrations …