海洋公園的故事就像一齣老套粵語片，一個人貪慕虛榮、樂而忘本的典型收場。我們的海洋公園40多年來，憑著以海洋生態環境保育為本位，扮演自然教育的角色，培養不少本地海洋環保人才，贏得不少讚譽。中學時每次到海洋公園參觀水母館、鯊魚館、水族館都感到興奮，十幾年前依然購買家庭年票支持公園，當時也沒有多少遊客，公園還是可以維持營運。
這幾年，海洋公園瘋狂擴張，見錢開眼，大搞酒店、娛樂餐飲設施，轉型為專注招呼大陸遊客的公園，續漸脫離本位，教育次要，本地人不再入園。嗚呼哀哉！今天終於窮途末路，到立法會向納稅人討53億來償還債務和寧養一年，好讓它找個方法起死回生或等待奇蹟的出現。從感情出發，海洋公園這個不肖子還是要救的，但他能否浪子回頭，從新定位就不存厚望了！
在歐洲，重點文化教育景點不會因為遊客多而瘋狂擴大，只會跟你說「Sorry! Today's quota is full!」只有粗鄙的遊客景點才會不顧一切的迎合遊客口味，務求賓至如歸，他們的定位就是生意至上，無可厚非。但我們的海洋公園應該是這樣的嗎？
2020年5月13日
Donald Trump announces today that he will close all US borders with Europe except UK for the next 30 days in response to the threats of a severe outbreak of the New Coronavirus disease. Closing borders has proven effectiveness in cutting off the transmission chains of this contagious disease. Taiwan was the first to shut its borders completely with China including Hong Kong and Macau, and has so far remained relatively unaffected by the virus. Many countries have also partially closed their borders with China and other regions where an outbreak is known to occur.
Contagion always has a spreading end and a receiving end. If you're infected, you become a spreader and you should quarantine yourself to reduce the chance of infecting other people, or at least wear a mask. That's a responsible thing to do. But if you're healthy and wear a mask, you are protecting yourself against possible infection. Extending this logic to a national level, however, we only saw countries close their borders to protect themselves against inbound transmission, but there is not a single responsible nation who has closed its borders to prevent outbound transmission, which is what infected individuals are asked to do. Even more regretful is the irresponsible coercion to make other countries not to cut access when you knew you had an outbreak, using some totally irrelevant excuses such as racial discrimination claims or just being unkind (不厚道1—a shameful remark by a nation's spokesman). Of course the real motivation could be economical, or a narrow-minded national pride mentality, or simply selfishness.
The worst among all is the behavior of WHO, who is supposed to stand on the side of protecting people's health but had chosen to play down the situation at the early phase of the outbreak in China, and even advised countries to be cautious about making travel bans that would promote racial discrimination. Despite racial discrimination being none of WHO's business, such advice issued at the early outbreak stage was totally inappropriate and definitely not helpful in containing the virus. Instead, what WHO should and ought to do was to advise its member nations to quarantine themselves (shutting their own borders) should an outbreak occur.
The world is doomed as a result of the poor judgement of WHO and the apparent political bias of the leadership. After these few months, we clearly see the ugliness of the "big" nations, and we also know we should not take WHO's advice seriously if you still wish to survive with good health!
March 12, 2020
_________________1 「回應美國提升中國旅遊警示 華春瑩：美國實在太不厚道」— Citizen News, February 1, 2020
A novel coronavirus began to spread from Wuhan in December 2019, and now infected cases are confirmed in almost every province in China; and in the past 10 days has flown to other Asian countries and across the Pacific as well, with over 7000 people infected globally so far. Hong Kong has imported 10 cases via its many ports directly bordering with the mainland. Though Hong Kong people are vigilant of the outbreak, the painful memory of SARS has created tremendous stress and fear. The question is: will Hong Kong repeat history and be in for another severe outbreak?
Here is my quick and crude analysis, based on limited data
From 22/1 to 29/1, the number of confirmed cases in HK grew from 0 to 10.
23/1 +2 cases, total=2
24/1 +3 cases, total=5
26/1 +3 cases, total=8
29/1 +2 cases, total=10
My model is based on the simple rationale that new cases are related to existing cases, both within HK and imported from Wuhan. To keep it simple, I assume the bigger Wuhan area being the entire mainland. So, for Hong Kong, it is sufficient to assume just Hong Kong-Wuhan(=Mainland) interaction. So, how fast our number grows depends on
1. our own number
2. Wuhan’s number
3. recovery rate (awareness, protection, etc)
Yes, this is essentially a simplified "SIR" model*, as the academics used to call it. So, I am just pulling out the following simple equation, assuming that the incubation period is 10 days, i.e., in any day, people who can infect you are actually 10 times more than the infected number because they do not have symptom in the first ~10 days after being infected. This is just
RateHK(t) = αHK * (10) * NHK + βHK * τHK * 10 * NW – γ * (NHK+NW)
where
RateHK(t) = rate of increase of infected cases, i.e., number of new cases per day;
NHK = number of infected cases in HK;
NW = number of infected cases in Wuhan (mainland);
α, β = infection rates;
γ = recovery rate;
τ = traffic factor (with this parameter, I can extend the model to other cities of the entire China).
Or equivalently, by redefining parameters for simplicity's sake (only for HK anyway), we have
RateHK(t) = ΑHK * NHK + ΒHK * NW – Γ * (NHK+NW)
Now, filling in the past data (limited though), the average rates in 22-23/1, 23-24/1 and 24-26/1 are
RateHK(ave) = 2 = ΑHK * 2 + ΒHK * 4000 – ΓHK * 0.05 * 4002
RateHK(ave) = 3 = ΑHK * 5 + ΒHK * 4500 – ΓHK * 0.1* 5005
RateHK(ave) = 1.5 = ΑHK * 8 + ΒHK * 6000 – ΓHK * 0.5 * 6008
The factor 0.05, 0.1 and 0.5 in the third term is to adjust the society’s awareness of self-protection that retards the transmission rate. At the beginning, awareness was very poor in the mainland, I would say 0.05 as the factor of awareness that reduces the recovery rate. Then, in later few days, people get better educated, say being improved to 0.1. Then, at the latest time, I assume that most are vigilant, hence 0.5. This factor is necessary unless we make alpha and beta time-varying to address the same effect.
Solving the equations from the data, we get ΑHK = 0.405, ΒHK = 0.0003782, and ΓHK = 0.0016.
So, here we go (assuming full awareness of self-protection):
RateHK = 0.405 NHK + 0.0003782 NW – 0.0016 * 1.0 * (NHK+NW)
Just a bit of nasty arithmetics, averaging over next 30 days, NHK should be adjusted to NHK(now) + RateHK*15. So, the next 30 days, we have
RateHK = 0.405 (NHK(now)+RateHK*15) + 0.0003782 NW – 0.0016 * 1.0 * (NHK(now)+RateHK*15+NW)
Assume Wuhan’s outbreak continues in the next 4 weeks. Let’s speculate 3 scenarios, depending on the mainland situation and assuming that our borders remain opened (at least our CE had insisted it be so).
WORST: For extreme outbreak, let NW = 100000 average in Feb.
POOR: For severe outbreak, let NW = 50000 average in Feb
HOPEFUL: If outbreak in Wuhan (mainland) is under control, let NW = 10000 average in Feb.
PREDICTION of Rate_HK for next 30 days:
WORST: RateHK = 15 cases per day
POOR: RateHK = 7 cases per day
HOPEFUL: RateHK = 0 cases per day (as RateHK < 0)
I don't have enough data to establish a confidence level. Perhaps somewhere between HOPEFUL and POOR is the most likely event, as the mainland number continues to soar over 10,000!
I must also confess that I did not consider the contact network and individual behavior in the above analysis. So, not perfect though, still I would say they aren't completely unreasonable estimates.
30 January 2020
__________________*M. Small, P. Shi and C. K. Tse, "Plausible Models for Propagation of the SARS Virus," IEICE Transactions on Fundamentals of Electronics Communications and Computer Sciences, vol. E87-A, no. 9, pp. 2379-2386, September 2004.M. Small, C. K. Tse, and D.M. Walker, "Super-spreaders and the rate of transmission of the SARS virus," Physica D, vol. 215, pp. 146-158, March 2006.
黃霑在憶述他為電影《笑傲江湖》配樂時，說導演徐克要求他譜寫主題曲， 並指定主題曲必須配合電影中的一幕講及兩位武林高手（曲洋、劉正風）與令狐沖在船上即興創奏出來的樂曲。出自高手的必定是偉大的音樂，黃霑絞盡腦汁寫了好幾首給徐克，都不獲接受，最後黃霑從古書《樂志》中的一句「大樂必易」得到了靈感！
中國最古老的音樂旋律基本上只有五個音階，即是 宮、商、角、徵、羽（do、re、mi、so、la），黃霑就直接將五個音階從高到低依序排下來，la---so-mi--re--do--，mi---re-do--La--So--，就這樣寫出了「滄海一聲笑，滔滔兩岸潮」，然後，再由低至高、高至低隨便反覆的滑行幾次，就這樣完成了這首在中、港、台都極為流行的經典名曲。
聖誕節期間，聽到收音機播出耳熟能詳的 "Joy to the World"，此曲是公認的經典，幾乎地球上每個角落都有當地語言的版本，中文版叫「普世歡騰」。細心聆聽，發現 "Joy to the World, the Lord is come" 的旋律跟「滄海一聲笑」有異曲同工之妙。C 大調八個音階從高到低依序排列， do--ti--la-so--- fa-mi--re--do，然後，旋律照樣由低至高、高至低隨意反覆滑行！"Joy to the World" 同樣是「大樂必易」的經典例子！
2020年1月8日
過去六個月，香港經歷了前所未有的社會動盪，由最初的「反修例」示威，到目前以「守護香港」為目標的大規模反建制運動。市民所提出的五大訴求，以至在區議會選舉所反映的民意取向，歸根究底是對「一國兩制」投下的不信任票和對抗拒文化入侵所作出的自然反應。太陽底下無新事，從歷史的角度來看，大家所看到的將會是一個「融合」的過程而已。
100年前的香港人主要是新界原居民和漁民（水上人），英國人侵佔了香港後，香港人也曾經激烈的反抗過，最終也「融合」了英國人的統治和生活模式。從文化融合的角度來看，1950–1960年代從大陸湧入了大批有學識、有資金、有技術和來自不同背景的移民，同樣對當時的香港人也帶來巨大的文化衝擊。回想起來，過程也是典型的「衝擊、排斥和融合」的三部曲，當年的新界原居民當然認為他們才是真正的香港人，突然變成少數，感到「被侵略」是可以理解的，他們也曾經激烈地保衛他們相信的傳統權益，政府亦在所謂「丁屋」政策上給予讓步 。香港社會在1970-1980年代也經過多方面的融合，最終產生了香港的一派本土文化和接受了西方的一套價值觀。回歸後的10年，中港文化融合的速度相對較慢，文化衝擊和排斥也相對輕微。到了第二個10年，中央的政策明顯有所改變，加強推動中港融合，可惜操之過急，拿捏欠穩。中央的重點是「一國」，香港人卻把「兩制」視為命根，由於中央和香港人對「高度自治」的理解存在巨大分歧，造成香港人對管治的不信任和對現行制度的否定， 特區政府夾在香港人與中央之間，無法化解矛盾。
從歷史的角度來看，文化融合是不停循環的演化過程，只有動態，沒有穩態。過去五千年來，中國經歷過無數次文化融合，每次都出現不同程度的動盪，過程也必定包括衝擊和排斥的階段，才可達到融合的目標 。香港人正在重新走過一個文化融合的循環週期，而且還處於週期的初段。這六個月的動盪，也許是為新一波的文化融合揭開序幕。再過多20年，香港的政治體制、官場文化、經商模式、教育方針、行政制度、法治制度、辦事手法、媒體報導方式，以至娛樂形式、生活習慣等等，統統跟內地真正的融合起來，新一代香港人取代原有的香港人，矛盾自然消失，天下自然太平！
但變幻原是永恆，真實的世界又豈有永久的太平！衝擊、排斥和融合將會循環不息，而我們今天就站在其中一個循環週期的前段，見證了必然的動盪過程。
2019年12月10日
