Today (November 11, or 11/11) is actually a special day in China, the "Singles Day." That is because in Chinese, a single person, especially one who has entered marriage age but still unmarried, is often referred to as a guang gun (光棍), which literally means "bare stick." Four 1's in a row do look like sticks, don't they?
I am thinking that in four years we will have 11/11/11. :-)
The first week with the new project team went great. It is in fact a relatively new experience for me. Even though I have been an "engineering manager" for a while, this is the first time that I manage a team of this size (over 15). In fact, my job title remains as "product manager", and if you look at our company's org chart, there is no one directly under my supervision, while I am a "shared asset" to all project teams.
It's not exactly that I wanted to lead a team (I know how hard you have to work), but when the opportunity presented itself, I did give some thoughts on how to make a difference (I shared this a little bit in a couple of earlier entries). At the end, I decided that it's going to be fun and joyful.
I know it sounds odd to say that I decided to have joy. Doesn't joy come naturally? Well, if you know me - or if you know the serious side of me - you know that it does take me some effort, but that's exactly why I find it worthwhile to try. I am the same type as this group of engineers! If I can have fun, so can they.
Today (Friday) I shared with them the meaning of TGIF at the beginning of our morning team meeting. Before we talked anything about work, I shared with them a few fun things about how Americans spend Fridays. For a moment it didn't feel like an engineering meeting; it was such a pleasure to see those smiles. Then we talked about work and our plan. At the end, I mentioned that initially I had hoped to invite them to lunch today, but due to a demo requested by our U.S. client at noon, I decided to move the lunch to Monday.
They seemed quiet, so I said, "Why, didn't you hear what I just said?" They replied that they were just stunned. They didn't expect it, and it had never happened before. (Now, that was stunning.)
You know what the best part was?
Toward the end of the day, I tried to wrap up everything early, because Friday night is Nicodemus night. But you know, as a project manager, you are supposed to stay behind to see how everyone finishes his or her work and then you compile a status report. It so happened that the workload was a bit heavy for the team today, and it was clear that we wouldn't have an early finish.
I went upstairs to start the Nicodemus club activities. A brother began to lead the praise songs. I went back downstairs to check the team. They were almost all still there, and their collective message to me was, Jim, we've got everything covered - you just go back upstairs to run the activities! (I finished my work afterwards.)
I cannot say that a working day like this is all fun, but when working with a team like this, I couldn't help but to feel joy.
I watched the movie American Gangster last night...Wait! You say, this movie is still in the theaters in the U.S., and it's not distributed in China. How did you get to watch it last night (assuming you are in China)? For those of you who have lived or visited China, you probably know the answer; that is one of the reasons I am posting this entry.
First, back to the movie. I thought it was a very well made movie. It's not the type of movie that I am always interested in - mafia, crime, etc. - but I did enjoy, for example, The Godfather. I enjoyed it because of the great acting and the attention to details (that's credited to the director, I'd say). For the same reasons, I enjoyed American Gangster last night. It was worth every fen that I paid.
That brought up the second topic. I didn't pay that many fens for this movie. Now you know that I am talking about the cheap DVDs sold on the streets of Shenzhen (or elsewhere in China). Yes, it's my bad to directly support the pirating industry, but the greater vice - for me anyway - is how often I couldn't resist the low price and bought DVDs that I would later regret. Imagine the time that I also spend on them!
On a lighter note, the covers for these DVDs of foreign movies sometimes can be quite funny. One time on a back cover I read the following English summary of a movie, "This is easily the worst movie I've seen this year..." Doesn't sound like what you'd like to put on if you want to sell it! (It was probably a user comment direclty from IMDb.com.)
Last week when I got back home one day, there was a notice on the door. It was from the apartment building management, asking me to provide the reading of the water meter for the month. (It was at the end of October.)
I thought that was a piece of cake, but for whatever reason I procrastinated. Finally during the weekend I was going to get it done. I found the water meter and opened the cover. There it was, with all sorts of things for me to read. There were some digits, and there were some dials. With all the technical background that I had, I suddenly got confused. How do I read this thing? Do I only report those digits, or do I only report the reading from those dials? Or both?
With all the technical background that I had, I came up with an idea. I took a picture of the water meter with a digital camera. Then I went downstairs and showed the photo to the maintenance guy, who taught me how to correctly read it. He also had a big smile the whole time. (He would expect most people to call him to go upstairs if they didn't know how to read it, he said.)
This reminds me of a story. A few people went for a job interview. To test their know-hows, the hiring party handed them each a pocket watch and asked them to find a way to measure the height of a building. They went ahead and put in use all their knowledge in physics and mathematics (you know, gravity). Except one guy, who didn't do any of those, but he was the one who at the end came up with the most accurate number. How did you do it? He was asked. "Oh, I found the building manager and said to him, 'If you tell me the height of the building, I will give you this pocket watch.'"
As of now, I still can create and edit blog entries on this site - but it continues to be blocked in China, thus I cannot read my own blog as easily as you do. (Then again, I write these down for you to read.)
There are, of course, blog sites that are not blocked in China - yet. Take Yahoo, for example, is pushing out its blog site. It's currently still in beta, and it only has a traditional Chinese version since it's being developed by Yahoo Hong Kong. It has all the fancy features, taking advantage some of the newest and coolest web technologies.
I am reluctant to jump over because 1) My friends back home (U.S.) may have a difficult time with the Chinese interface even though I could write everything in English; 2) I am not attracted by the flashy interface since all I need is something simple. It's like with my cell phone: It's old, but it makes calls and sends text messages. That's all I need. Likewise, I will stick with this blog site for now.
The reason I bring up this Yahoo Blog site is that it is developed, in a big part, by my Chinese coworkers! One division in our company, a software outsourcing company, is doing the development and testing for Yahoo Hong Kong and Yahoo Taiwan. I paid a visit to them the other day and saw the things that they had done. It was pretty neat.
