Month: January 2020

福 Fú- Blessings

/ Kay Loke / Leave a comment

26/01/2020

Yesterday, according to the Luna calendar was the first day of the Chinese New Year. Traditionally. this is the primary festival celebration of the year for all Chinese speaking people around the world, including also the Korean and Vietnamese.

The greetings of ‘Kung Cai Fai Chai‘ has found in the Western dictionary, and the most familiar written word for the occasion is the Chinese character of ‘福‘ that sounds ‘Fú,’ which means ‘blessing,”fortune,’ or ‘simply good luck.’ As a noun, it represents the Chinese ideograph and often pictographs.

The etymology of the word is fascinating, it includes two parts that are ‘礻,’ and ‘畐,’ And ‘礻‘ is the radical of the word in the Chinese dictionary. Each part has had its distinctive connotations that invoke other than its primary and literal meaning:

‘礻’ – pronounce ‘shi’ simply means ‘to show.’ and ‘畐’ has a Chinese numeric ‘one (一)，the Chinese word of mouth (口) and the character of land, field (田). And the ‘one mouth’ is not about potation, drink but it denotes ‘one parcel of land.’ It’s not hard to image, what a great blessing/fortune in the agricultural society if one who had a piece of land to show off in any farming community.

However, I had no intention to expound the root meaning of the word any longer and deeper, but wish to the spiritual significant of it in the Bible. Without being presumptuous or starting to pray for wisdom, one of the most heartwarming hymns ‘Count Your Blessings,’ immediately come to my mind. My heart’s desire was to find the perfect scripture in the Bible to validate the word of ‘land.’ And in HIS mercy, here below are what landed on me :

Deuteronomy 28:8 NIV

‘ The LORD will decree a blessing on your barns and everything to which you put your hand, the LORD, your God, will bless you in the land HE is giving you.’

Leviticus 26:4,5,10
‘Then I will give you rain in due season, and the land shall yield her increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit…

As the new year celebration continues that the same shall go to your blessings (福)。

Stayed Tune!

‘The Good Doctors’

/ Kay Loke / Leave a comment

14/01/2020

The rating of ‘The Good Doctors’ is on fire worldwide according to ABC network, and it has been into its 3rd seasons. Thankful to the smart TV recording feature, I have not missed one episode, and it enables me to watch a few of the moving episodes more than once. As a TCM practitioner, I have had keen synergy to watch medical drama series other than documentary. I love ‘The Good Doctors,’ a medical drama series, which the writers have made it incredibly attractive about life, joy, team works, friendship, family, love, heartbreak and so forth for a superbly intelligent, exhilarating TV series.

This is an ingenious adaptation of an award-winning South Korean TV show of the same title. A few of Asian casts in it. I was able also to grasp some of the Asian value systems and mentalities that were subtlety in the dialogues. All the ‘good doctors’ in the show are surgical residents surgeons, and Dr Murphy ( Freddie Highmore) has Autism savant disorder. I don’t know how shall autism be truthfully shown. Still, I like to watch how Murphy has difficulties to pick up social cues in his dealing with other doctors, his patients and even with his girlfriend. His performance is a natural for that role, so that it has become the real Autistic behaviour for me to consider.

I esteem especially the researches that have done behind the scene on technical aspects in the ORs. It has weighted on Murphy to come out with many insightful diagnoses, untested surgical procedures, an Autistic person, can definitely be a skilful good doctor to save lives. I wonder would the real Surgeons in life watch the show and think of some of those surgical trials that are on display? It brought warmth to my heart to see forgiveness at the end of a long stringent, dysfunctional mother/daughter (Dr Brown) relationship. To be able to see how the tie of an abusive father/son (Dr Murphy) ended and to see how a reconciliation took place in a broken marriage (Dr Park).

Without showing any graphic bed scene, how one-story sent out the dumbfound warning on the devastating emotional consequence over a one-night stand affair (Dr Brown), with embarrassment, shame and quilt Brown plays out so well on her grave, inner emotion. A few stories, so familiar, few of overachieved lady Dr and professionals who chose to follow their career paths over love of their dream (Dr Lim, especially). It’s elating to see stories of how good doctors making peace with their past (Dr Glassman and Dr Murphy). A scene of how a church Pastor’s reflection on the faith-healing/modern medicine and death. And the corollary, we saw how the good doctor has to deal with his quilt and self-condemnation when his patient died on his table (Dr Melendez).

One of the most profound stories is how a wife refused to doubt her once an alcoholic husband, even the test report said otherwise. It led two good doctors to run further tests. In the end, it was the wife’s faith that saved not only her husband’s life but also a lesson for good doctors to take into their hearts. That’s for good doctors to be mindful on possible human error or oversights on medical screenings. The last episode before the 2019 holiday season would make all the viewers in the world on a high expanse that’s whether or not Dr Murphy would be ready for sex? I suspect with a little certainty of my sixth sense that Murphy would break Carly, his girlfriend’s heart.

It’s intriguing for me to note that being a Murphy’s flatmate, the writers didn’t use ‘Leah (sound the same),’ but ‘Lea‘ to name her, did they know the root meaning of Leah as the name of Jacobs’ wife, in the bible? I have yet had so much to share of how much I have enjoyed to watch the show and I highly recommend people to find a way to watch it. We can’t knock success, can we? If all good things on earth are from above (James 1:17 NIV), then, in this case, the success of this medical TV drama can only prove one thing for me that my Saviour lives.

James 1:17 NIV

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.