Reminiscences

  I contemplated writing In Defense of Free Speech in Universities: A Study of Three Jurisdictions, which was published last fall,   in the summer of 2018, a few months after the Lindsay Shepherd incident in Canada. Living in Canada at the time, I became increasingly aware of a free speech crisis on many of its university campuses. I listened to the recording multiple times, each time becoming more angered, until I became fully committed to writing the book. Nonetheless, it did not dawn upon me how serious the whole situation was, until something happened to me later that year. That October, I travelled to a Canadian university to interview for a teaching job.   The interviewers, all lawyers, expressed a very keen interest in my book project that was already taking shape. “It is highly relevant to law school,” they affirmed smilingly. They then inquired about its contents and arguments. Their inquiry was reasonably expected, though, in hindsight, quite sneaky.   I...

About the author Privacy policies, terms, and conditions   Years ago, I published an essay in a Chinese newspaper entitled "Snow in March." I had trouble finding it online--a hard copy of it is likely lying in a small cabinet in my HK home. Because I deem it one of my best works ever published, I try to recall what I wrote and recreate it in English. *** My favorite subject in high school had always been Geography (and in senior high: both Geography and English Literature). The primary reason was that the geography textbook contained many scenic pictures which satisfied the needs of a little girl who did not get the chance to travel to many places. Well, it should have satisfied the wanderlust of those who travelled rather frequently, as the less-travelled places rather than tourist hotspots were featured the most. Think: the rocky deserts in the interiors of North America, the sand dunes in the Sahara, and the tropical rain forests in the ...

About the author Privacy policies, terms, and conditions It is time to write about Jordan Peterson, given that he was recently ordered by the court to undergo "social media training" to retain his license to practice as a psychologist. This post, which contains solely my views on his calling Yumi Nu "not beautiful" in one of his Twitter posts in 2021 rather than my thoughts about "social media training," is indeed long overdue. However, I did not have a blog then, and no media outlet was willing to accept my pitch.  Since his Twitter post went viral, countless responses have appeared on various forums most of which are, as one might expect, driven by simplistic perspectives, e.g. it is unkind to call a seemingly overweight woman "not beautiful"; "the woman is not overweight: she is only big and I found her hot!"; "beauty standards are subjective: who is he to judge?" I do think Twitter/X...

About the author Privacy policies, terms, and conditions In all of my courses that touch on freedom of expression, I have asked my students to discuss this question in my first class: "The President of a Canadian university said freedom of expression is 'Eurocentric' and leads to the suppression of minority groups. As such, it needs to be remade in the era of globalization. Do you agree? To what extent do you agree? If you don't, why not?" This usually comes after my explanation of the "natural law tradition," according to which there are universal, fundamental principles governing people in all societies and cultures who enjoy fundamental, innate natural rights based on these principles. Examples of fundamental rights are the rights to freedom of expression, life, and property.   As expected, students in general appreciate the natural law tradition and even expressly embrace it. However, some students agreed tha...

About the author Privacy policies, terms, and conditions We often hear people say "The enemy of our enemy is our friend." This seems to make good sense. In fact, it is a strategy frequently used during wartimes: countries that might not be on friendly terms form alliances to fight against a common enemy and these allies are "friends" against the bigger enemy. During peacetimes, this strategy is frequently used in politics. During the US Presidential Elections, for instance, some candidates, recognizing that they are losing out, typically withdraw from the race and express support for a remaining candidate whose position aligns with theirs more and/or whom they believe would benefit themselves (more) should he become the President. When only very few candidates are left, voters, fearing that their most dreaded candidate would win, typically vote for a strong contender whom they might not like very much in the hope that the latter ...

About the author Privacy policies, terms, and conditions I re-watched a TVB drama series that first aired in 1990, called "Blood of Good and Evil."  In this series, the protagonist is torn between loyalty and love for his surrogate father, a gang leader involved in money laundering and other criminal activities, and his biological father, a cop reputed for his dutifulness and moral righteousness. In the end, he reconciles with his biological father, from whom he has been estranged for many years, whereas the gang leader commits suicide.  I enjoyed more time I did last time, and it was a couple of years since I last re-watched it. I did not pay attention to what made the series so popular and critically acclaimed: the relatively straightforward plotline, very real and likeable characters, and intricacies of their emotions portrayed. Whereas the son is obviously and understandably grateful to the gangster-father, he is tortured by his new-f...

  About the author Privacy policies, terms, and conditions A couple of days ago, I introduced to my readers this formula by American legal scholar and economist Richard Posner. Economists do not care as much about the nature of rights, including the right to free speech, as about economic efficiency. A good law restricting certain expressions is good as long as the perceived harms of the expressions are greater than the costs of suppressing them. This seemingly complex formula isn't all that complex if you understand the reasoning: I want to embark on a more challenging and contentious endeavor this time, which is to study the economic efficiency of laws regulating the use of (gender) pronouns. As you may already know, some US states such as New York and most of Canada have added pronoun laws in their human rights codes or anti-discrimination laws. Whereas "misgendering" people--aka not addressing people by their preferred pronouns--b...

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About the author Privacy policies, terms, and conditions   This is not for people who dream big and aims to be a world-famous writer. I am not qualified to give advice on that. People like J.K. Rowling and Stephen King do. For over decade, I have been earning side incomes as a writer and thoroughly enjoying the process. This has made my life more satisfying and its dark moments more bearable. If you want to do what I am doing, consider these tips: 1. Develop your own niche and pitch your ideas to mainstream newspapers. I have published numerous opinion pieces in major Canadian and Hong Kong newspapers (both English and Chinese) through this strategy alone. The great thing about these channels is that they no doubt have wide readerships. Your pieces may get criticized. Yet it is known to be competitive to publish in these places: you feel prestigious just to be able to associate with high-profile and accomplished people. The downside is that y...

About the author Privacy policies, terms, and conditions   For a long time I have missed the smell of books, new and old, as well as that of newspapers. As I am completing a big project I treated myself to some book-scented fragrance that I recently found while Internet-shopping. While this might seem like a new thing, there are already several brands to choose from. I settled on one that is made in Germany, that looks elegant and that I thought would compliment my night table.  Here you go ~  Durfkerze: Aromantische Bibliothek : This lit candle added a warm glow to my room as I was writing away on a cozy evening.  As the scent of burnt wood weaved in and out of my nostrils, I felt like I was in my school days, huddled in a corner of an old library on a wintry day. *** In recent years, many Hong Kong youngsters have been keen on portraying themselves as literati (the "learned class" or intellectual circle consisting of well-educat...

About the author Privacy policies, terms, and conditions I finally found time to write about Keung To, a singer and main vocalist of the Hong Kong boy band club known as "Mirror."  I normally do not spare time for singers and actors in Hong Kong, except those who impress me somehow.  The fact that many of those artistes-would-be are of the lowest quality, in terms of talent and looks, has almost never bothered me. Yet this Keung To is a complete farce, whereas his fans and admirers, many of whom are women past middle age, and who have long formed a cult reminiscent of zombies in apocalyptic movies, are annoying and worrisome enough to warrant a blog post. *** While Keung To's lack of natural talent may not be his fault, the fact that he seemingly has not improved over the past few days and still sings and dances at the abysmal level is shocking. l watched a couple of his live performances.  What perplexed me was that he often cou...

About the author Privacy policies, terms, and conditions American economist Richard Posner's economic formula on free speech can be highly useful in determining whether laws are good, which, from an economic perspective, means economically efficient.  It was inspired by Judge Learned Hand's simpler formula, which compares the harms of the expression (L), discounted by probability (P), to the costs of suppressing it (V, which is equivalent to the social values of the expression).  Posner improved Judge Learned Hand's formula by adding "legal error costs" (E) to the costs of suppressing the expression, given that it can be challenging to distinguish harmful expressions that need to be suppressed and good ones that are not meant to be suppressed. In addition, given that the foreseeable harms may not happen immediately and may instead take place over a long period, the harms, measured in dollar terms, need to be discounted to the...

About the author Privacy policies, terms, and conditions   Fujian/Hokkien fried rice--one of my favorite dishes at Chinese restaurants. Where should I begin? While I was at Vancouver's  ETEA , I remembered another family-run restaurant, called  "No. 10 Restaurant,"   at 10 Hogarth Place, London , which I visited multiple times in March 2023. It is in a hectic district in the capital of my great motherland. When I was at it, the restaurant was very small. It had only a few tables, with seats for about 20 people in total.  The Chinese name of the place was 粗茶淡飯, which can be literally translated as "plain (or even more literally--coarse) tea, bland rice," a very humble and self-deprecating expression alluding to the host's admission that he or she doesn't have a lot of money and resources and so can only afford cheap ingredients to prepare food for the guests.  (This was how it looked like this before renovation.) I ord...

About the author Privacy policies, terms, and conditions I have always been a cat lover. I have not centered my blog around cats because I have been the cat mom of very few cats.  I therefore lack the experience and expertise to offer much valuable advice to fellow cat moms out there. I decided to write about a peculiar cat behavior-- "hop-greeting" --which has intrigued many cat owners, but which, as my internet research has indicated, very few extensive posts have discussed. *** I first noticed this cat behavior during my numerous interactions with a male cat called Lester while living in a Cambridge neighborhood in year 2005, well before I had ever owned a cat before.  That happened well before I became Jade's cat mom. Lester was a very friendly cat, which I mistook as a stray in the beginning. Having noticed him a few times near where I lived, I went out to look for him and feed him every day. He ran to me every time he spotted me...