WHAT UP HOMESLICES.

Change is healthy! :)

An Empire State of Mind (Pt. 3)

The people are what makes home a home, no?

I wasn't planning on going back to New York at all this school year, but my waipo (外婆) passed away at the age of 100, and I thought it'd be best to be there for my mom and the rest of the family. According to Chinese custom, any death over the age of 80 is considered a "xi zang" (喜葬), meaning that it should be a celebration of that person's longevity and accomplishments. We weren't allowed to wear black (I wore dark purple because I really couldn't wrap my head around it, but my mom wore yellow).

My waipo was from Nanchang, Jiangxi. She was uneducated yet wickedly intelligent, escaped China during the Civil War, brought up 6 children, and lived in the United States for over 30 years. My waipo did what she thought was best for herself and her family. She was very good to me and I have nothing but fond memories of her, but was far from a perfect woman. This experience taught me that people's merits are illustrated most clearly at their passing.

My cousin Scott, his wife Laura, and one of their daughters, Megan.

My mom and her three sisters.

Me and my brother. :)

Next stop: my wonderful and artistic yeye (爺爺) and nainai (奶奶)! They're simply my most favorite people in the entire world... it was so nice being able to drop in on them. :) I love them into itty bitty bits!!!!!!!!!!!!

"I look like a mess! I'm going to look so ugly!"

"It's fine! Look at yeye, you can't look worse than him." (seriously.)

My grandmother used to work mostly with watercolor, but she's been doing a lot of oil paintings recently. This is her homework project... painting rabbits for the new year. There's some major western-chinese style (con)fusion going on here, hahaha.

My grandfather doing his thang.

I was also very lucky to be able to meet up with a few of my best friends while in New York. Katherine, Vicki, Chris, Alice, Fred... thanks for dealing with my crazy schedule! :D

New York is always a total whirlwind because it's hard to be able to catch up with everyone that you care about, and then even if you manage to accomplish that, it always feels like once is not enough! I always have to ration my time so carefully such that being back is never a relaxed affair, but since I probably won't be moving back anywhere in the near future, this is the mode of operation going forth. Eventually New York will probably seem less and less of a home, but there's always a reason to make a pilgrimage so long as the people that I care about are still there.

But you know, you guys could also come visit me too...! All right, Nanjing isn't the pimpest place, but one day you can chill with me on my yacht and we can go catch badass fish like marlin and tuna... :) And then we can have our on-board sushi chef prepare maguro and otoro on the spot! ONE DAY!!!! *shakes fist at the skies*

An Empire State of Mind (Pt. 2)

What I saw in New York.

Hello, home.

Brrr!!! There were times during this trip that I seriously thought I was suffering from frostbite and I'd find a random loose toe or two when I took my boots off.

Raw and gritty New York City.

My least preferred mode (but only choice) of travel. The 7 train @ Main Street Station... a modern Ellis Island. Flushing's perpetual state of decay never ceases to surprise me, yet the influx of fresh immigrants each year always breathes much needed vitality into this stinkhole.

Kew Gardens after the Nth snowstorm of 2010/2011.

My mom now lives near Forest Park, my favorite place to run when the weather's nice. In the wintertime, the snow actually manages to stay white and pure for more than a few hours. After living in Manhattan for so many years, I had forgotten how pretty snow could be. It's extra pretty when you aren't the unlucky bastard shoveling it, hahaha. :)

I grew up in Queens, lived in Fresh Meadows, traversed Flushing countless times. This time around I only went into the city a few times just to see friends. I spent most of my time at home with my mom and family. Although I went to high school and college in the city and lived in Manhattan for almost 3 years afterwards, I identify with these scenes the most. I'm really not that glamorous New York City gal.

An Empire State of Mind (Pt. 1)

2011: Happy Year of the Rabbit!

Outside the Shanghai train station.

The depressed mascot/migrant worker (most likely) was shuffling outside the department store entrance with its head down the entire time, and people would squeal and take photos with it. (Analogy: Would you take your picture with a mangy dog?) Then it'd continue to shuffle, shuffle, shuffle, pause... turn around, shuffle shuffle... hope you caught a break this year, buddy.

My Winter Break adventures were officially a total bust. I arrived back in Nanjing last night. Today I came to HNC to run a few errands and bumped into a couple of classmates who managed to go to some amazing places -- Yunnan, Rajasthan, (one of my friends is even in Cameroon)... oh I just wish I went somewhere I've never been before!!!! But no, my entire break was spent in Shanghai, Hong Kong, New York, and Taipei. Still a fair amount of travel and I actually thought that it was time well-spent in SHA/HK/NYC/TPE, but I was really itching to go somewhere new. :( Whine, whine. I guess the crappiest part of the whole deal was that I was fully prepared to go backpacking, so all I had with me were one suit, one pair of work pumps (Asia Career Trek, see below), my most unflattering hiking clothes, and one pair of worn-ass Timberlands. That's it. Now I understand how people survive with only one week's worth of clothes for their entire lives. Timbz in tha club! Timbz during teatime! Timbz at expensive restaurants! It works... because you HAVE to make it work, biatches!

Anyway, my travel plans were dashed this break because: 1) I had to go back to New York for just one week to take care of family, and 2) the darned summer job search. For both these reasons, we stayed anchored to Hong Kong for way longer than intended. On the flip side, the last 5 weeks have been extraordinarily enlightening in other ways... and I feel like I've gained a considerable amount of clarity for the future.

I spent my first week of break on SAIS's Asia Career Trek, which was a 5 ULTRA PACKED roadshow-like ordeal, where we met with over 30 employers in Shanghai and Hong Kong. I wasn't really sure what to expect coming in to the trek, particularly because I had some work experience under my belt already (and that makes you somewhat jaded, picky, and a bit snobby). However, I have to say that I learned something valuable from each different destination (city, employer, industry group). The Asia Career Trek was seriously kick-ass and extremely well-executed and I recommend all SAISers to apply next year! I also recommend women to be prepared to wear your heels for a week straight for over 12 hours a day. If your feet aren't bound, they sure will feel like it at the end of the trek (when in China?).

My personal takeaways were:

• Even though everyone scares you about needing a native Chinese fluency level to work in the mainland, the reality is that it's really not that bad. Most high-level jobs use English and Chinese mixed together, even in jobs located in Shanghai (not Hong Kong). Speaking is also exponentially more important than reading/writing, and if you've passed 4th level college Chinese then you've probably got the goods. If you've gone to ICLP, then you're golden. If you've gone to HNC, then you are the coming of the second messiah.
• Although Shanghai is quickly catching up to Hong Kong in terms of sophistication and importance, there is still a considerable disparity in terms of opportunity especially in the finance sector, whether or not you can speak Chinese fluently. This is because of the many restrictions the Chinese goverment places on the financial sector (making their products pretty vanilla, lacking complexity), thus Hong Kong is still a much better place to start out for finance.
• Getting a job the official route, i.e. HR and resume drops, are pretty darn ineffective. Networking is definitely the way of the wise. I was very lucky to receive an offer through a SAIS alum.
• There's all this talk about incoming local talent in the media. Yes, there's a ton of highly intelligent mainland Chinese graduates every year, but each employer still emphasized that there's still a LACK OF TALENT in China. The hard truth is there's still a gap in soft and hard skills that employers are looking for, so we (Westerners looking for a break in China) are still in tha money, babyyyy~~~!
• Sorry friends, I do dearly miss you all but I definitely want to stay in Asia. Not sure where still, but I just can't go back yet.

Next: my trip back home to New York...

Happy Lunar New Year!

HAPPY LUNAR NEW YEAR (or Chinese New Year for the Sino-centric)!

I'm in Taiwan spending CNY and my birthday with my dad and family. I was born on CNY so it's quite easy for them to remember. :)

Why is it that birthdays matter less and less each year? My hypothesis is that when we're little, our world is also very small, so the space that we take up in that world tends to be proportionally rather large. Our parents dote on us 24/7, our tight clique of friends all revolve around the same theme and priorities. We feel like we are important, and we actually are, in our world. But as we grow older, our world gradually expands outward, and the radius between the nucleus of our world (ourselves) and the perimeter of this world gains more and more distance.

So we shrink proportionally in turn...
At least this is how I feel? I don't speak for all 27 year olds of course. :)

I went to the temple last night and picked out my fortune for the year. I was really nervous, quite silly actually since I'd like to say that I don't believe in this sort of stuff. First you throw out these red crescent wooden things ("babui" in Taiwanese), and you keep on tossing them on the floor until you get one facing up and one facing down (that means "yes"), then you go to the big canister filled with sticks and pick one out. It'll have a number and you'll take it to the nearby cabinet and open the drawer with your number. It'll have your fortune... quite fun and nerve-wracking!

I can't tell you how relieved I was when I got a good fortune. I would have been pretty depressed if it said that I was going to have a shitty year... as if things weren't hard enough! It's just superstition, I know, but when you already feel like a speck in the world, sometimes you just need a little faith.

Hiatus

Hi, my blog will be on hiatus for around 6 weeks because of extensive travel plans (and because I left my ginormous 18 inch "portable" laptop in Nanjing). I'll be in the following places, if you happen to be in these areas around the same time, let me know!

January 9th - 17th (Shanghai, HK)

January 18th - 23rd (New York)

January 24th (HK)

January 25th - 30th (Szechuan, Yunnan)

January 31st - February 7th (Taipei)

February 8th - February 14th (Guangzhou for 1 day, travel up eastern coast of China)

All I have is this ridiculously heavy 23kg backpacker's bag with the scrubbiest clothes because I was originally planning to make a trip through southern China by ear, but certain plans have changed. Anyway, the best way to reach me is through email (not Facebook because it's blocked here in China and I don't have VPN now).

Hope that we have a chance to meet up! :)

Ni Hao, 2011!

My first blog post of 2011!

A kind of boring one at that. :p

I had a great New Year's in Shanghai just chilling -- didn't do anything spectacular like go out dancing or drinking... just stayed home with the big boy and watched like 4 movies in a row and ate really awesome food with his family. It seems like the cool-people flock all migrated to Taipei for NYE2010, I would have loved to join the crowd but this thing called "budget" is putting a total sprain on my game!

Final stretch, baby -- today I took my International Trade final and gave my Game Theory presentation. I think I did all right for Trade, considering that I had to type it all in Chinese. As for Game Theory... well let's just say that I still need to work on my Chinese public speaking skills. I seriously barely understood MYSELF while I was up there... like I was up there emitting what probably seemed to be random gutteral noises as I thought to myself, "I have no clue what I'm trying get across... how fast can I get to the last slide? What is the meaning of life? I'm totally getting a C on this. Is it time for lunch?" Oh well, a brain can only process so much... unless you're Jack Bauer, Chuck Norris, or IBM's Big Blue. So one more Chinese Foreign Policy paper left and then I'm done! BOOM.

On the top of Purple Mountain, Nanjing.

I was thinking about what picture could best accompany this first post of 2011, and immediately this one popped into my head. Gene and I were showing his friends Marshall and Sue-lin around Nanjing (which didn't impress them much) and we somehow ended up on top of Purple Mountain (紫金山) after a cable-car ride that was literally 40 minutes long. Half-way through as we were sitting on this rusty ski-lift I seriously started contemplating jumping (and timing it so I could land on some thick brush, and then roll away like a ninja). When we finally got to the top, we were able to see the whole of Nanjing... covered in a thick haze and thus a very orange sunset. And then there was this tree at the end of the trail, bound with colorful strips of the plastic you find wrapped around soda and water bottles, garbage really, but still beautiful... an appropriate China-type of wishing tree.

If I had some garbage on hand I would have totally tied it up there too! Hahaha.

I told myself at the end of 2009 that I wanted to end up in China, and miraculously here I am. There are many times that this place makes me absolutely frustrated, frantic, furious... like when I got pickpocketed on the bus last week when my bag was actually zipped up, or when the company I'm interning for decides that it's appropriate to call me in the middle of class (or during my finals today, WTF!), or when it seems like all pedestrians have a death wish while crossing the street. But there are redeeming points in China, like how people here are so warm and personable once they consider you a friend (this is what they call guanxi 关系, and yes it really matters), how rules don't actually apply here and hacking the system is common, how your paltry American savings still goes a long way for a high standard of life. All in all, China is a really messy place. It's a place that hasn't made up its mind what it really wants to be yet. And that's okay by me, at least while I still have the patience for this type of BS. :)

Oh and what the hell about China declaring Skype illegal now?!!!

It's just another one of those moments, here in China. :p

Blerghhhhhh...........