After a widely-considered-to-be-successful opening ceremonies (except for the fireworks snafu), the city was in a celebratory mood. Even more, businesses which had been struggling because the promised crowds of rich foreigners did not arrive** were slavering at the thought of rich Beijingers heading out and spending some cash.

My birthday happened ( Read more... )

My previous posts have focused on the run-up to the Olympics, as well as some of the surrounding phenomena and architecture. In this post, I want to talk about Aug 8, 2008, otherwise known as 8/8/08.

First off, “8″ is considered a lucky number in Chinese, because (depending on the dialect) it is pronounced similarly to the word 福 (“luck”, or “ ( Read more... )

Since we’re talking about the “friendlies“, more properly called the Fuwa (“good luck dolls”), I should mention that in 2008 they were everywhere in Beijing. By the time we’d returned in 2011, many of the Fuwa photos had been allowed to sun fade or had been removed (and the current plushie obsession appears to be Angry Birds) but at the time, they ( Read more... )

When we were living in Beijing in 2008, I used to joke to Albert that Beijing’s motto could be “Home of the Shitty Job.” As I’d mentioned in a previous post, many tasks which are typically automated (or done infrequently) became full-fledged jobs in Beijing. At first, it was uncomfortable (I had to interact with so many people!), but as time ( Read more... )

As you might expect from stereotypes, construction quality - and, indeed, the quality of many things ranging from shoes to customer service - is poor when compared to American standards. Although China’s building construction quality is fine for the “90% case” (ie, just standing there), it’s in the remaining 10% that the differences become clear ( Read more... )

China, as a whole, is a booming place. But Beijing, pre-Olympics, was an insanely busy place for construction.

There were, obviously, the Olympic venues being built: various stadia, tracks, velodromes, and so on. But there was also the infrastructure to support all those athletes: the villages, training centers, the parks (and the water pipes to ( Read more... )

Wow, it’s been over 2 years since my last post here. I doubt anybody’s reading this blog anymore. Nevertheless, this blog was conceived as a way of documenting my experience in Beijing and I only made it halfway, to August 2008. It’s time to pick this up again, and finish documenting the latter part of 2008.

Why now? Well, by the time I’d left ( Read more... )

One of the reasons I left my old team was how frenetic its product vision was. Yes, it was very very exciting; but at the same time, it was also constantly in flux.

The other reason was the amount of machismo and sheer force of will necessary to survive that team; I didn't have it. And so I left, because it wasn't doing my stress level or career ( Read more... )

[ Count me in on the LJ resurgence! Unfortunately, I'll be on vacation for the next 3 weeks. But to tide me over, here's a barely-proofread draft that I've been meaning to publish for months ]

I read Randy Pausch's The Last Lecture a few years back, when I was grappling with the death of a family member ( Read more... )

Ok, I know I'm pretty late to the party, but the 9/11 commission report had always struck me as a "too long; didn't read" kind of a document. And, with a name like that, it's gotta be dry to boot ( Read more... )