oliviatamccue

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Feb 22

Year of Snake in Hong Kong

by ccue

I was in Hong Kong during Chinese New year, when the Zodiac switch from year of Dragon to the year of Snake.

This trip renews appreciation of the tradition.  It is heart-warming that the tradition remains strong in the celebration of Chinese New Year.  Yet, it is such a contrast to its lack of,  in the Bay Area.

Public holiday 

As the New Year falls on Sunday, it gives 3 days of public holidays in Hong Kong and work resumes on the 5th day of the New Year.  Public holiday makes one of the biggest differences in the upkeep of any traditions.  It allows people the enjoyment of not only the holidays, but also the pleasure to look forward to the holidays.

Feast, Feast and More Feasts

Eating is an important element in celebrations!  Chinese New year can be seen as a series of days looking awfully similar, and is almost comforting to see the pattern.  For three days from New Year eve, the New year day to the second day, the day typically includes gatherings in the morning, visits each other or to close relatives, big family lunch, some break in the day, then a family dinner.  With the subtle society change towards reduced home cooking, most restaurants have been booked days if not weeks ahead of time, creating such an atmosphere of prosperity.  A set dinner for 10 – 12 in a modest restaurant would charge HKD 3000+ plus; more towards HKD 4000 if not more, that is about USD 500+.  It typically would have the tender roasted pig, a whole fish, a whole chicken, vegetables, luxurious soup such as Shark Fin or so, seafood, fried rice, noodles, desert.  Counting the number of family meals, not a cheap festival.

The season of giving – red envelope

It is reported some kids accumulate fortune from red envelopes over the years. my estimate for a middle-class family, each kid could earn about HKD 3000 or so each year, about USD 400 or so.  I stand to be corrected for more accurate averages.  Keeping to the tradition is the super polite gesture when people are giving out red envelopes; and then shuffling extra ones to thank others.  It is almost an endless giving – first parents give red envelopes to their children; family A would give red envelope to family B’s unmarried children; family B would do the reverse;  then family A gives red envelopes to the very elderly of family B; family B of course returns; family A gives red envelopes to family B for the gifts they have bought; so you can expect what family B would do.  Such a display of “gift giving etiquettes”  and at times it would take a while to settle down the giving and receiving parts.  It tells a lot about the tradition and culture.   If family A and B choose to go out dinner together, it would be another etiquette display on who could have the honor to pay the bill !   Extra red envelopes to the waiter, waitress, janitor in restaurants; or to the security, janitor and other in the apartment buildings; or whoever.

When do we see folks freely give out money to strangers as a tradition in anywhere, any time?  Not to mention that everyone is greeting everyone with nice words like “You would get rich, you would be healthy, you would be prosperous for the whole year”

It is pretty special.

The Market, the Parade, Firework and the TV shows for the public 

Entrepreneurs bid for booths in open markets, that open just during the few days before the Chinese new year, to sell stuff; it surprised me often on what makes the best-selling products, typically not the type of products that one would keep  or look again outside of the season, like shaped balloons, or good fortune tiny wind-mills.

New year day, has the evening “chariots-Parade” attracting about 180,000 people; Next day, the fire work display attracts about 300,000 live viewers; these are not big number in the densely populated city of Hong Kong though.   The evening TV channels are typically monopolized with variety shows of music, fortune-telling and funny performances.  The fortune tellers would talk about the fortune trends for folks with different zodiac and different years of birth.

Because of family dinners, the early bedders tend to miss out a few events.

Third day of the New year

Tradition indicates that it would be easy to get into arguments on the 3rd day.

Such a smart tradition to give people a break (to rest)!

So is my flight back to the Bay Area

***

Dear Diary

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Feb 22

Unfinished Book on Higgs Boson Particle

by ccue

If you are looking for a book that trains your brain muscle and rekindle your lost ally of curiosity, this is a book to consider.

What is this book?  “The particle at the end of the universe : how the hunt for the Higgs
boson leads us to the edge of a new world”  by Sean Carroll.

It is a book on the journey of the discovery of the Higgs Boson particle.  If this particle name sounds Greek to you, how about the other particles like electrons, protons or neutrons?   Isn’t it amazing that the world is just made of a few basic particles yet yield such a pleasing variety for our eyes?

The author has done a cool job in journeying this discovery of the particle and its relationship to what makes up the mass of matters.  He makes a seemingly PHD topic to quite an enjoyable read and is a test to the readers’ curiosity about what the world is made of.

Why would anyone care about the discovery of this new particle explaining the mass of matters and could also be proved later to be not completely right?  This is not the kind of discovery straight to cancer cure, a new cool gadget or the like.   Yet consider the discovery of Electricity centuries ago, how much do we rely on it on our daily life today? In its early journey of discovery, Electricity was little more than an intellectual curiosity.

Our innate curiosity has beaten us  by pressures of real life.  We stop long time ago asking how the world work, and rather figuring out how to make it work for us.

It is a refreshing but a sophisticated read.

It is on my list of the few books that I plan to continue its read when the library check-out has been due.

Book Review - English, Chinese, Computer, Literature...

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Feb 2

Goals setting, are we serious?

by ccue

January 2013 is part of the history.   Aside from the unbelievable run in the stock market, are your year resolution and new goals done and dusted?  Are we serious in achieving them?

Goal settings and the commitment to achieve them do not come hand-in-hand; and at times, people set goals that are shy of the real purpose.  It is easy to think that we want something when we do not really want it.   Let’s use “obesity” as the situation.  More  research is showing that obesity is a growing problem for the younger generation.  We may wish for healthy weight and yet wish more for the pleasure in food.  We may wish for health but wish more for little exercise to keep up.

Some people set their goals around weight.   How is the goal to “achieve the optimal weight” compared to the goal to “reduce the weight by 10 or 20 or 30 pounds”?   There are many success stories around “weight loss in such and such period of time” and the impressive differences in the “before and after look”.

Say the goal is to “reduce the weight by 10 or 20 or 30 pounds”, there are numerous commercial products.   So a person gets from 200 pounds to 170 pounds, very impressive.   At 170 pounds, the goal is done and dusted.   What happens next, the goal no longer exists, and chances are the weight is back up to closer to 200 pounds sooner or later. Then it becomes the goal again and it can be achieved again.

Say the goal is to “achieve optimal weight”, it is a scary goal to declare, it is a different approach and level of commitment.  It is no long like a project that has start and end; and at the end, one can revert.  It requires an ongoing effort and attention; and may even a change of living style and habit to achieve and sustain.

The common goal of job seeker is “to find a job”.  Obviously so.  Is the goal to get a job ASAP or to land on something that is in line with the overall career objective.   It requires different commitment and willingness for the latter one.

Career Management

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Feb 2

Is it our ability or our desire?

by ccue

I was in a conversation that comes up once in a while to mature job seeker.  Tough questions like “how do you see yourself compete with younger ones?”, or other more politically correct questions.  The perception is that one learns faster when we are young;  young guns are better; and there are scientific evidence that our brains cells stop to grow at certain age, so on and forth.

If you know of a professional tennis player, chances are that you have heard of “Roger Federer”.   According to some poll, he is the second most respectable person just behind Nelson Mandela. (by the way, the movie Invictus on Mandela is a good one).   Even if it is debatable if Roger Federer gains that level of global respect,  his record is not controversial.    He has countless records on the number of tennis tournaments won, 17 majors won, 300+ weeks at number one  on the ultra-competitive individual sport of tennis.  In short, his number of records is by itself a record.   How does he sustain the level of excellence, now at age 31 approaching 32?  At age 31 in 2012, he regained the number 1 spot from the generation in the age of 25 or 26; and he is a better player than a few years ago.   How could he go against the natural path when tennis professional are thinking of hanging up the rackets after 30?  I believe his secret is his passion in what he is doing, his motivation and belief to be better, more so than his own natural talent.  Many accomplished tennis stars lose the passion and motivation, and rapidly comes down. It is not a skill deterioration, it is the going away of the desire.

In our career, when we lose the passion, motivation and the belief, it becomes harder to compete.

To those tough questions “how could you compete?”  I believe it is not the ability but the desire and motivation.  Assuming you apply for the position, it may already prove the desire is there.

To the contrary, one has the ability to learn smarter, faster, grasp the big picture and apply the learning better with experience, but we don’t see that happen often.    It may not be the ability but the desire and motivation.

Most people have a much longer career than the short tennis career.  The challenge is – how do we keep  up our interest and motivation?  Next time when the tough question shows up, it may become your shining moment.

Career Management

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