March 16 Updates

It's been almost a week since March 16, but it is such a special date that I am still going to use it to mark this batch of updates.

Special Dates

What's so special about March 16? Twenty-one years ago (1987) on this date, my family moved to the U.S. Then 16 years later, or five years ago (2003) on this date, a Sunday, I returned to my home church after a 9-month absence. That started a series of events that eventually brought me back to China.

One date that can rival March 16 is my birthday, October 13. I was, well, born on that date, and when my parents bought their first house in Berkeley, they moved in on October 13, 1990, shortly before I went to Northwestern University near Chicago. Then, more than three years ago, on October 13, 2004, I left California on my way back to China.

Fun Day at the Beach

Before I move on to this year's March 16, allow me to look back at a week ago when my whole project team (plus family) went to the beach to celebrate our software release. At the time we didn't even know yet if the release was successful without much of customer's feedback - so far still quiet, which belongs to the "no news is good news" category - but the whole team was so looking forward to a break. We were the first team to take such a break, and I was very glad that we did it.

Here are a couple of photos:


I think I looked rather cool. :-) So we had BBQ at the beach, took a boat ride into the sea, more BBQ, and played games (including a popular "Killing Game"). When the sun started to go down, we left the beach and hit a local restaurant to have fresh seafood for dinner. Everyone enjoyed it.

But somehow toward the very end, I felt a bit heavy, since such fun was short-lived. We were going back to office the next day, as another release was coming up. Maybe we just need to hit the beach more often.

Coworker's Son

One of our coworkers couldn't join the fun at the beach, as his son was submitted to a hospital two days before our event. The 3-year-old boy had a heart defect at birth, and finally they felt it was time for the boy to have a surgery to fix it.

A few days later we received the news that the surgery was not successful. Luckily the boy was all right; it was just that his problem wasn't fixed. He probably didn't have an open-heart surgery but went with a newer technology.

I told our HR about it, and the next day they sent someone to visit the father and the son. It was in the middle of the day, and we couldn't go alone. We picked a photo from our beach outing and made a greeting card for everyone on the team to sign. (Note the date seems to say 9/3, but actually it was 3/9: an Asian way of showing date.)


Beneath the card I wrote, "Do you know why we didn't have a group photo at the beach? Because you and your family were not there!" (Well, actually we forgot to take one. :-) Then I added a little note, "This is our team's future office!" A nice little dream. Then everyone signed their name inside the card.

Later that evening he called me and thanked everyone for the card.

Mom's Update

A couple of days after that I learned from my sister of my mother's newest update - especially on whether or not she needs a surgery. She went to see a second doctor, who actually did offer a second opinion. As opposed to the first doctor who strongly suggested my mom to go ahead with a surgery as soon as possible, the second doctor actually thought that my mom could wait and see.

I called mom again on March 16 (and of course reminding her of the special date), and she suddenly wasn't sure what to do next. Previously when the first doctor recommended a surgery, she didn't like the idea, but somehow the second opinion didn't seem to bring her much peace either.

I was planning to book a flight home if - or when - my mom would schedule an operation. Now I am still looking at a May-June home visit.

"Eight Immortals"

Our U.S. client sent a big team to visit us the past two weeks. At one point there were eight of them in our office. It was as if the whole U.S. engineering team was in China. In the past I had been the main person to take care of everyone; it would have been impossible with eight of them. Luckily more than half of them had been to Shenzhen (even more than once), and two of them were also originally from China. I didn't have to spend much time with them outside work.

When we first learned that eight of them were coming, I jokingly related it to a Chinese legend in which "eight immortals crossed the sea" (八仙过海). It was quite fitting as they were flying over the Pacific Ocean.

By now the "eight immortals" have just one left in Shenzhen, and most of the rest are probably on an airplane back to the U.S. at this very moment.

Good Friday

Today (March 21) is Good Friday, and I wore this T-shirt to work. I bought it in a NW city during one of my trips there last summer.

I was able to share a little bit about Easter with my project team at our team meeting and, of course, much more extensively later in the evening during the Nicodemus Club activities.

Weekend Traveling

I have not been on an airplane for two months! This weekend that streak is going to end. I will go to Beijing to visit a friend who has been in hospital for almost 4 months! Actually, when the last time I went to Beijing for Thanksgiving, he was still fine. Shortly afterwards, he ran into big trouble.

He has a blood defect that is genetic. The blood would not clot when he is bleeding. In early December his leg began to bleed internally, and he had to submit to a hospital. Since then he has had two operations and changed one hospital, but the problem still hasn't gone away. A few weeks ago I thought about visiting him during the Easter weekend (he is both a coworker in Beijing for the same software company and a brother in Him), but I became so busy afterwards (thanks in no small part to the "eight immortals") that I basically dropped the plan.

But this morning I learned that he was not doing well at all. Since my plan in Shenzhen for weekend changed - there is no urgency for me to be around - I decided to make a trip to Beijing after all. Luckily, as it often happens to me when it comes to traveling :-), I was able to get half-price round-trip tickets at the last minute. I will be going on Saturday and coming back on Sunday.

Please join me to pray for my friend. Before you think that his situation is all bad, please give thanks and praises because during these few months, his parents and two close relatives all came to the Lord.

Women's Day

Today (March 8) is the International Women's Day, which China and several other countries celebrate. Typically it's a half-day holiday for all the working ladies, but this year it happens to be a Saturday. By China's rule, holidays that are not observed by all people will not make up if they happen to fall on weekends. These include the Women's Day, the Youth Day, and the Children's Day.

Our company announced yesterday that we would follow the nationwide rule, which made me somewhat upset. We are a private company, and why can't we observe our own rules and show a little bit more appreciation to the ladies at the office? What's more? Today happened to be a big software release date, and several project teams would need to conduct a "minimum acceptance test," and most testers happened to be ladies. They had to work overtime on their holiday. And they won't get extra time off to make it up?

So I went out my own way and bought them flowers this morning. :-) Guess what? I wasn't the only one who thought of it! Another engineer ordered 2 dozens of red roses and handed them out. I picked white roses from a florist just across street from where I live, but they only had 19 left (I was thinking two dozens too). As it turned out, I was one stem short! Luckily, the 3 ladies on my project team contributed one of their white roses. Talking about team work!

Fast forward to the afternoon. I went out during lunch time for another engagement, and I told the developers and testers that "when I get back, I hope that you are all done and gone." But when I got back at about 4, they were still there. They had finished the testing, and there was one minor bug which was easy to fix, but, as I walked in, they told me, "Jim, we just ran into a big problem a few minutes ago." They had just encountered a "technical difficulties" error.

I am not giving any technical details here, but this issue had bothered us for the past 2 weeks. We thought that we had finally eliminated it, but it seemed to surface again at a bad time! We all wanted to go home early, especially when we were going to have a big day tomorrow (I will probably do a separate entry on that). Now what?

I said, well, we need to do our job; please look into it. But just then, one of the testers exclaimed, "That's strange. How come I don't see the error now?" So all 3 ladies got busy again trying to reproduced the bug, but they couldn't. It just disappeared! With my thick skin, I wouldn't miss such an opportunity. "I am so sorry, ladies," I said, "I should have come back earlier to make the bug gone sooner or even prevent it in the first place."