Auld Lang Syne

(Well, this is not original at all. Lyrics of a song that many of you are familiar with...feel like singing it as 2007 leaves and 2008 arrives.)

Should old acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind?
Should old acquaintance be forgot and days of auld lang syne?
For auld lang syne, my dear, for auld lang syne.
We'll take a cup of kindness yet, for auld lang syne.

Should old acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind?
Should old acquaintance be forgot and days of auld lang syne?
And here's a hand, my trusty friend, and give us a hand o' thine.
We'll take a right good-will draught for auld lang syne.

Happy New Year, everyone!

Merry Christmas

Here is a photo taken directly from my parents' living room:

Allow me to explain a little bit. On the left is a Christmas tree. It's a plastic one, and my parents have used it every year since...well, maybe since the new millennium. On the right is a fireplace...I mean, a fireplace shown on a TV screen. I got this DVD recently that shows just a burning fireplace with Christmas songs playing on the background.

So there you have it: Christmas tree and fireplace, all fake. But the Christmas season is real. Some highlights since I returned to the Bay Area for the holidays:

• The first weekend I got to host a few Chinese coworkers who had spent 6 weeks in the U.S. on a business trip. They were on their way back to Shenzhen, and I showed them the beautiful city of San Francisco. The most momerable event, however, was when I took them to my home group for a fun Christmas party. They enjoyed the food (which, of course, is my home group's trademark), and they participated in a game in which everyone built his or her own little house using graham crackers (replacing gingerbread) and candies. Everyone had fun.
  
• On that Sunday, after seeing my Chinese coworkers off at the airport, I went back to my home church for the worship service. That always excited me. And on this day, my home group had the honor to light the Advent candles, and I was in town just in time to be part of it.
• Meanwhile, there was a special Christmas party going on back in China. The Nicodemus Club and the English Corner co-hosted the annual little event in the office. One big difference this year was that the club chairperson (me) was not there at all, and everyone else stepped up - and, boy, what a different that made! I won't give you the details, but by end of the evening, a dozen of my Chinese coworkers I now can call brothers and sisters (there were about a dozen others from outside our company made the same decision that evening)!
• For me, while warmed by the good news, I truly enjoyed the peacefulness of the season back home. There is a Presbyterian church near where my parents live in San Jose, and I went to their Christmas Eve candlelight service. I didn't know anybody there, but we all knew Him. That's what this season is all about, isn't it?
• On Christmas Day, I took my parents to the East Bay for a visit. We went to the Berkeley house that they sold in September; it was sold to an investor and he hasn't done anything major yet. We also visited a couple of relatives. Then we were supposed to meet a few other relatives in Oakland Chinatown. Somehow we missed them, while the whole Chinatown was packed! All the stores were open and people were everywhere. On our way back, my mom took an interest in Wal-Mart (due to their recent ads on TV) and we drove by one nearby. The huge parking lot was all empty. Now this was more like a Christmas Day!

11/11

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. :-)

Managing with Joy

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.

American Gangster

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.)