More Updates, Finally

I am now back in the Bay Area, and I realize - actually, I have been fully aware - that I haven't blogged for nearly two months. Time to share some stories, and I don't even know where to begin!

Olympic Torch (Shenzhen)

Okay, let me start by telling the story of the Olympic Torch going through Shenzhen. It occurred on May 8. Originally, it was to start at 8:00 AM, and the route would go through my apartment! I could directly watch the main boulevard where the torch was supposed to go through from my 10th-floor balcony. In addition, our company figured that with the 8 o'clock start, all traffic to work was going to be bad, thus everyone got half a day off. I was getting ready from early morning on, taking photo shots of the main boulevard, hopefully to capture the changes throughout the day.

But then, the torch never came.

What happened? On the same morning, a team decided to climb to the top of the Mount Everest with another torch. CCTV live broadcast the climb and pushed the Shenzhen start to noon. The shortened schedule resulted in a shorten route, and the torch never came to my apartment.

At least I was waiting in the comfort of my own place. Thousands of people were waiting downstairs, under bright sunshine, for hours in vain.

Hospital Visit (Beijing)

My friend Albert's situation didn't improve, and doctors, after several reviews, had all agreed that amputation was the way to go. Albert was to make a decision soon.

Since I'd be going back to the U.S. in about a week (on May 14), I decided to see Albert one more time. I was able to get half-price on round-trip tickets to Beijing for the weekend at the last minute, and I was on my way.

He was in a much better spirit than I last saw him (Easter Sunday), and people around him, including his wife, all appeared to be calmer. It was a time of mutual encouragement. For most of us, it was hard to move our eyes away from a difficult situation - we tend to focus on suffering or misery - while losing perspectives of the whole picture.

Little did we know, something big was about to happen in China. It would force all of us to look at things differently.

The Earthquake (Sichuan)

Monday (May 12) afternoon, news broke out that an earthquake had occurred in Sichuan. Having heard such news quite frequently lately, most of us were a bit numb. Other than asking around if anyone had family or friends in Sichuan, we simply moved along with our daily work.

But the death toll continued to climb and reports were getting more and more serious. By end of the day, everyone was stunned.

A week later (May 19), the whole nation started a 3-day mourning period, and on the minute exactly a week from the earthquake, the whole nation observed 3 minutes of silence. (I was already back in the U.S., but I happened to be still up working at that moment. I was in sync with everything my Chinese coworkers were doing.)

By the time of this blog entry (May 23 China Time), the total number of dead and missing has reached over 80,000.

People in China have responded tremedously. I've never seen so many people coming together with such a unified thought: Save the victims and rebuild their homes. The year 2008 will be remembered for many big events in China, but I wonder, between the Olympics and the earthquake, which event truly pulled the great nation together.

Touring the City (1) (San Francisco)

On a lighter note, after returning to the U.S., I promptly became the tour guide for my Chinese coworkers who had been in the U.S. for a business trip. They were on their way back to China - and indeed much of our conversations was about the earthquake - and I hosted them in the Bay Area. Two interesting notes:

1) On Friday afternoon we visited Google. Previously I had took some Chinese coworkers (also on business trips) to this famous company, but each time it was on a Saturday, and almost nobody was around for the weekend.

Friday afternoon was a different scene, but I didn't quite realize this fact. I led them into the campus as if we were working there. We took up a few bicycles and began to ride around. It was nice. Then I asked someone - in uniform - to take a picture for us.

"No, I cannot do that," he replied in a serious tone. Oh my, that was when I realized that something was wrong. "Are you employees here?" "No." "Are you visiting Google employees here?" "No." "Then you are not supposed to be here."

For the rest of our "visit," security guards' eyes were all on us. There was even a security vehicle that followed us all the way to where I parked!

2) There appeared to be some doubts in their minds about the Golden Gate Bridge. "What's so special about it?" They heard a lot about it and had seen photos. "Wait until you actually see it" was my reply.

We got there on a Saturday morning, and while we were still on the freeway, the bridge appeared, with the main body surrounded by a belt of fog. Yet it was a very bright day, and the top of the bridge completely bathed in the sunshine. It was a perfect combination. My coworkers were simply stunned, almost speechless.

The Bridge never disappoints.

Touring the City (2) (Chicago)

Then I was on my way to Chicago! Two of my coworkers returned to China on Sunday, and one stayed for his prolonged vacation. We were invited to visit a couple in Illinois, who once worked in Shenzhen and became good friends of ours. Two interesting notes for this trip:

1) Chicago left quite an impression to my coworker. First of all, it surprised him. He was expecting a totally modern city, but at the end, he appreciated more the parts that showcased the history of the city, including the seemingly old train system.

We took "L" to downtown, went up the Sears Tower, hopped on a bus to go through the Magnificent Mile on Michigan Ave, had Chicago-style pizza for dinner, and got on "L" again back to Midway Airport, before renting a car for the rest of the trip.

The ride from Chicago to Champaign, where our friends live, was also marvelous. The flat and wide farmland was an eye-opener for my coworker.

2) Seeing old friends was the most precious! Seeing them with their new-born babies - twins! - was even more special. The twins were a boy and a girl, and our immediate assignment was to come up with Chinese names for the babies before we would leave.

(Being Caucasians, they learned limited Mandarin while living in China, and one of the pleasant surprises from our visit was that they found that they didn't lose that much.)

We had light meals (including a BBQ at their backyard), and we chatted a lot. The rest of the time we just watched the babies cry and smile. The whole thing wasn't at all some all-out party, but our visit was filled with peace and joy.

At the end we came up with Chinese names for the twins. We inserted the words "love" and "holy" into their names, and they sounded like their English names. Their parents liked the names. I hope that they will too when they grow up.