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."

Updates

I am sick at home today. :-( That gives me the opportunity to update my blog, which has been idle for a month, or since coming back from the U.S. I guess it's bad timing to get sick on the Valentine's Day. I had a lot of plans - big plans - and now I had to cancel them and break some hearts. (Just kidding. :-)

This reminds me that I almost didn't get sick at all the entire year of 2007! It was my lucky year.

The past month seemed very long to me; it happened to be a month sandwiched by the New Year and the Chinese New Year. You can imagine how busy one could get.

Early in the Morning

I didn't need to make any adjustment for the time-zone difference when I returned, since immediately I had to work on odd hours, like early in the morning or late in the night, to have meetings with our U.S. client. The following picture of a taxi receipt showed that one day I went to work at 5:30 AM. It wasn't the only day that I went before 6 AM.

But guess what happened when I showed it to our finance department to get reimbursement for my overtime work? "Big deal!" one gal said, "Another department reported that they went home at 7 AM!" Gee, I won't get into competing for that. Okay, no more bragging.

Singapore

Then I spent a weekend in Singapore. The weather was just perfect, and my winning streak of "bringing good weather to a city" continued. Oh wait, did I just say no more bragging?

I met some wonderful friends who went on the summer orphanage trips with me the past few years. I heard more stories from the NW. As I looked ahead to a new year, if anything, this trip seemed to tip the scale between whether to stay put at where I were, or was it time for me to move toward the NW. I kept asking myself, "Your best years are right in front of you. How and where do you want to spend them?" My friends, are you asking the same question?

Of course, there was the food of Singapore. I was treated with some incredible local delicacies.

The Hostel

Shortly after returning from Singapore, I continued to be busy at work. Then some friends began to going through Shenzhen, mostly en route to Hong Kong. I tried my best to be a nice host. Picking them up at the airport, showing them around the city a little bit, having dim sum or other food that they preferred, and even pointing to them my apartment.

But I would not actually take them to inside! My excuse was, "Oh, it was so messy, and you don't want to see it." Most of them politely complied. This particular friend, however, had "booked" my place two months ago. I thought I would have enough time to clean up my little apartment, but I never really got the time - or I was just not motivated - so two days before he came, my place was still not ready.

Then, another friend arrived ahead of him, and he booked a hostel in Shenzhen. I took him there, and I was very impressed by the accomodation. It was not very spacious, as you wouldn't expect from a hostel, but it was very clean and neat. In other words, much better a place than my place to spend a night. (Okay, my bed is quite all right, but I am not going to share it with anyone. Or, he can sleep in my bed and I go to the hostel. There was just no room for two.) So after settling down that friend, I went back and emailed the friend who was about to come, "Please?" He finally agreed.

Next time you know what to expect when you go through Shenzhen. :-)

Project Management

Since I returned to China, I assumed the official role of the project manager for a key project. It was a bit overwhelming, but I held on two things: 1) Be nice to my engineers. No matter how much pressure I was getting from above, I wouldn't dump it directly to the team. I shared the situations with them, but our focus was on the solutions, not the problems. (Of course, that's a lot easier said than done.) 2) Be honest to my upper management. Not in a direct way, but just like I wouldn't dump all the pressure to my team, I wouldn't take in all of it by myself either.

There was an interesting scenario when the Chinese New Year was near. Most people wanted to go back to their hometowns. But for the project, we really needed some people to stay behind. It was very difficult for me to refuse their application for time off; I wanted them to have a good rest and return to work with more energy (well, that might be a bit of wishful thinking, but hey, it's holiday time). As it turned out, the biggest snow storms in decades attacked most parts in China, and some of my engineers ended up changing their plans and stayed in Shenzhen. They came to office to join me, which was quite fun. (Really.)

Rest in Hong Kong

A bunch of us (including the friends mentioned above) went to Hong Kong for the Chinese New Year. We stayed at an absolutely gorgeous university campus for a few days. The program was great, and we got some much needed rest. The only complaint was that it was a bit too cold, even in Hong Kong. Actually, people in the south have a much harder time to cope with the cold weather because they typically don't experience it.

My most memorable experience during this retreat was some of the life stories that I heard, including those from the guest speaker, whom, incidentally, I had met more than 3 years ago before I moved to China. She was blind, but she could "see" a lot better than many of us.

Parents' Health

While I was in Hong Kong, I received an email from my sister in San Jose, saying that the hospital spotted something in my mom's kidney. Initially (this was before I left the Bay Area) they thought it might be kidney stone, but they weren't sure, thus my mom wouldn't go for an operation. (She was actually quite irritated by all the different check-ups by the hospital.) But now, after another check, it appeared that it was mostly like a tumor based on the size and location of it. It had about 90% chance of being cancerous, but it would be in really early stage, and an operation would eliminate it.

I called my mom a couple of times since then, and it wasn't conclusive yet. She sounded fine, but once an operation is set, I will decide what to do - maybe making a quick home trip. Of course, I already started doing something. Would you please join me in pr*yer.

My dad, meanwhile, is doing quite all right.

Valentine's Day

So that brings you up to date. I am making adjustments during this new year season, and the biggest challenge is still how I should focus. "How and where to spend my best years" is a big question, but "how to spend each and every day" is just as crucial a question - and perhaps more practical.

Finally, again, this is the Valentine's Day. Here is a little poem that I'd like to share with you.

It's that time of the year again,
Let's forget all the pain.
O, warriors of the brave hearts -
Victories are yours to gain.

Every year every where at this time,
Young and old celebrate the Valentine.
O, when will peace come to heart?
Until you find yours I find mine.

70 and Counting

Just arrived in Hong Kong, entering this entry while waiting for shuttle going to Shenzhen. It was my 70th time flying across the Pacific Ocean. More than half of the flights were business trips to China between 7~10 years ago; I have been going between the two continents at least once a year since. After moving to Shenzhen, two home visits a year add 4 times across the Pacific to the total. By this rate, in 7~8 years I shall reach the number 100.

In addition, I've flown over the Atlantic Ocean twice, the Indian Ocean zero times, and the Arctic Ocean zero times. Now you see that I don't really have much to brag about. :-)

Year 2008 in Preview

(The above is a drawing of Christmas trees and gifts by my niece Kadia. She will be 4 years old in a month.)

Year 2008 is one week old, and we already know everything that is going to happen this year, right? Actually, when I was doing the review list for Year 2007 (previous post), I realized that 3-4 out of the 5 things, I didn't foresee. Nonetheless, here are 5 things that I look forward to this year.

1. Olympics volunteering

It has always been one of my dreams to be part of the Olympics, and of course the opportunities come again this year. I registered to be an international volunteer, but so far I haven't heard anything back yet. (The cutoff date for international registration is March.) I probably will be more proactive once I get back to Shenzhen, giving them a call or two to express my desire.

Perhaps I will have a better chance to volunteer for the Special Olympics, which is right after the Summer Olympics, also in Beijing.

2. More traveling - to the NW

My weekend traveling will likely continue (since I now have mastered the art). In fact, I already booked a trip to Singapore in January, meeting a bunch of friends from the summer orphanage programs. It seems that we won't have a summer camp this year, however.

On the other hand, I most likely will go on my other annual trip, the English teaching trip in October. Oh, in case you haven't heard yet, in China they will take out the May holiday "golden week." Instead, they will have all the traditional holidays including Mid-autumn Festival, Dragon Boat Festival, and Qing Ming (Tomb Sweeping Day) as public holidays.

I should make at least one other trip to the NW in 2008 since now I have friends living there.

3. One more province

And I look forward to adding another province to my list of "places in China that I have been to." The last three years since I moved to Shenzhen, I added one province each year: Guangxi in 2005, Qinghai in 2006, and Hainan in 2007. In total I have been to 24 provinces (or regions and cities at the same level) in China, with 10 to go.

Which one is the next? Yunnan? Hunan? Hubei? Or one of the northeastern provinces?

4. Three Kingdoms movie

I am a big fan of the Chinese classic novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Three Kingdoms to Chinese people is like Lord of the Rings to the English-speaking people. That's why I am so look forward to this movie they are going to push out in summer called Red Cliff, which tells the story of one of the major battles of that era. It's directed by John Woo. They have just finished the filming a month ago (you can tell I am following it), and it's in post-production. It is the most expensive Chinese movie that has ever been made.

How big a fan I am of Three Kingdoms? Way back in the early 1990's, when the Internet was new (no World Wide Web yet) and Chinese language first appeared on the Internet, the first electronic version of the novel (partial) was published on the Net by a computer science student in Northwestern University named Jim. I typed in 23 out of the 120 chapters character by character, including 8 chapters on the Battle of Red Cliff.

5. Balanced lifestyle (or...)

Maybe I should put something specific here instead of a general phrase like "balanced lifestyle." Well, you all see that the way that I have been working, including doing His work, is not entirely healthy. I don't regret for any of the effort that I put in, but I've got to remember that this is for the long haul. In fact, you all know that I am a marathon runner, not a sprinter.

So, anything specific? How about going on a date? I didn't do that during the whole 3 years in Shenzhen. Maybe that could be a goal for 2008? One date? Two? Two and half? Sometimes you could have one that's counted as "negative one," in which case you will need a couple more to end up positive. Yeah, dating should definitely put some balance into my life. (Pause) Or is it going to actually throw me further out of balance? :-)

Kidding aside, my dear friends, you know what's on my heart. Thank you for your prayers!