Far Away From Home

I am going to sneak out of Shanghai again for a few days, to the province JiangXi to Pingxiang, to the mountain WuGongShan. I do not know if I will see anything scary, but then I want to see!

Snakes, leopards, and tigers!

Am I going to see them?! Let’s see if I come back alive!

Onwards to JiangXi I go!

明天週末，依然上班。我放棄休息時間，頹廢一夜，K房片刻，巧遇啓蒙老師，竟然有另一番體會，或許我要重新考慮一下自己的未來。激勵他人，我倒是做過不少，被人間接提點至此，實在是難得。

這一夜歡躍歌聲，也許影響我一生未來。

我公司絕對唔係咁豐富

老細澤心仁厚，為免各位戰友國慶捱餓捱渴，特別下令厚待我等一眾小人物，來緊既國慶十一黃金週，來個包飲包食包行！

當然，老細既意思並非叫你去遊埠時吃喝玩樂、坐First「卡屎」、豪比貼士、燒盡銀紙，而係叫你加班坐定定，「我地比其他公司加班服務更加周到！」。加班只係屬於「自願性質」，不過大家呢期咁趕咁忙，得閒死唔得閒病，若果閣下既造化令到美國既人睇唔起中國人既辦事效率，又或者你唔做就無人識做既話，睇怕呢個班都似乎唔加唔得！

尋日 Peter Chen (發明 Entity-Relationship Model 的人) 都話　「受人錢財，替人消災！」！佢岩晒！

我既小隊都有幾位人兄「自告」奮勇參加咗「自願加班」計劃。嘩，好驚呀。

“From Japan! From Japan!”, the salesman preaches.

Try randomly enter retail shops from the average commoners to the splurging ones, be it furniture or technology products, you will find a good number of them telling you it is made in elsewhere you know so you know its credibility, except China. That is all you need to know. The country name is enough to charm you into believing it is safe.

And “Made in China” means that you should avoid it, get away from it right now, and dump it right away!

As a Chinese, I can tell you it is kind of sad to hear that. Implicitly, even the locals know “Made in China” is a synonym of bad quality. The last time I was scouting for a house, I was preached repeatedly with tiles from Germany, taps from Sweden and air conditioners from Japan. I know some part of the house must be from China, but that certainly is not a point of interest, like affairs you would not want to mention of. “Made in China” has made itself a synonym of piracy and low-quality. Fabulous.

Why? Why such well known issues is unaddressed?

I am no good in this, but I guess corruption and culture. Corruption, well, we all know the government officials are good at getting cash, and cash hides a lot of things. Find a piece of newspaper and get the evidence, you should have no trouble picking a few. Culture, as my friend LP mentioned, why have not the CEO come out to apologize, instead of hiding and blaming other causes immediately without solid evidence? Because, Chinese culture, in chess terms, likes to trade a rook for a king, and, in idioms, “sacrifice the little for the grand”. That was rooted from the far old ancient history.

Sad but true. It will still be like that for a while. And, if you do not know, bonus for you, there are pirated pirate goods as well. Isn’t that incredible?

有甚麼原因會令一個人離開了一家公司想再入內工作?

除了錢，似乎是工作自身了。

我就認識朋友在香港入了 H 公司而往後轉職，在對付了一些似乎是不惑高齡的 Cobol 語言（注：是一門沒人再會用的東西， 極不人性。) 就完全對香港的環境絕望。說出來，也不會有人為他出頭。我說過，香港不是 I.T. 人的覓食地域，大部份努力皆是徒然的，他走得快，可能是明智抉擇。

把公司的暑期工當作賤價工人差使，向來不是好計策，除了是不想他再回來，才會想把他用盡至極虐待至死，原因是若果人材因此而得到一個印象是：「嘩！不是吧，每天都要這樣子？三個月就夠了！轉職了轉職了！一輩子還可以的嗎？！」那他一定給打死也不會願意吃回頭草。以前一直有留意，似乎不少外資公司都有不成文規矩，絕不會虧待暑期工，為甚麼呢？

社會呀社會，沒可能是沒利益在內的。想呀想。

若然閣下是在美國中國英國的名牌大學的學生，討價還價的籌碼可就不一樣了，若果給了苦差，大可以向大學學系或教授直接訴苦，在教授感到「甚麼！我的頂尖學生竟然給派去幹這等苦差？！當我是甚麼？我怎樣可以向其他人炫耀？！」後，一於來個同歸於盡：不再介紹學生來貴公司，留他們做研究更好。既然不能得失教授，似乎公司也很識趣地按排盡可能有趣有難度的給學生做，以免做得不開心，不止損失了一位人材，還失去了人材的水源。

站在校方角度，教授不但可以炫耀自己學生做過甚麼有難度有意義有名氣的工作，而且又能在每年的開放日大大隻字寫在顯眼的地方，把那些不懂世故的準大學生和不懂行情的父母騙進來，人材的水源之路由此開拓。

站在公司角度，每年為了不能失去一堆名流大學而竭盡所能地按排有趣的工作，好讓這些暑期工感到好受，若是人材，就可以再招覽到手。聘請人招請了人材，等於為老闆找到人材，讓自己又多一個功勞，作為理由可以升職，更重要的是招覽新人有助推行水漲船高之利，令自己可以一升再升。

站在學生角度，可以享受過程，更可以滿足自己的自尊心，做了些有意義的事情，最重要是寫在履歷表而不失禮人的經驗，為未來打開更美好的前途。他們感到的是不知為甚麼名牌大學總是能有點保障可以進駐名牌公司，而且工作不會很無聊的。在聽了全職的師兄說某公司很刻薄員工後，是否應該進這家公司就算了？

最後，結果是「刀切豆腐三邊滑，一家便宜三家著」。

大家真係要好小心買野，同保護自己嘅電腦，昨夜有朋友問我「我新買部 router，你話有無問題？不如你試下攻擊？」，跟住我用咗兩分鐘就幫佢改咗密碼。為咗確認事成，我仲將佢一啲內部電腦資訊寫返比佢睇。

重點係，我由頭到尾係唔知佢既密碼。

點做？詳情如此。呢個係我另外專寫電腦安全嘅扑。

我朋友回應「嘩！你咁同偷睇人沖涼有咩分別？！」。好在佢無講係偷睇「良家婦女」啫！所以，建議大家得閒要檢查自己部機有多危險。問題產品係 Gigabyte 嘅 GN-B46B，認住唔好買喇！

以往多次給人維修電腦，留意到大部分人有同樣問題，就是話語極度簡潔，務求要氣死那個沒義務幫他們的人。

「開不了，怎麼辦？」「看不到，怎麼辦？」「中毒，怎麼辦？」以上三句的變種特別常見，看似沒問題，但是有的。問題在哪裡呢？就是以上幾句也不說說究竟出了甚麼事，連詳細一點的介紹也沒有。對於這麼沒訊息的求救，我等電腦人更是不會花費心機去幫忙，直接拒絕。

如果你不懂燒菜，「先醃至出味，要可口可以先打鬆它，油滾了後，加兩茶匙糖， 六成熟左右最美味。」。但說出來的人，看似全套菜譜，但醃用甚麼醃？打鬆？怎樣打？油滾？怎樣看？茶匙？一茶匙是多大？糖，大概是白糖吧？六成熟？怎樣看？即是多久？本人真是不大清楚了，那時候的我們就如此一樣驚歎。

又或是，港澳旅遊為例，「維尼斯人怎樣去？哦，簡單，棺財車。」棺財車？原來講者是指那些像那真的棺財車的旅遊巴，皆因前頭突了個小車頭，像澳門數年前的五號巴士。那在哪裡上車？當然是大家熟知的碼頭呀，酒店等。喔，不好意思，忘了你不知道！

最後一個，在危難時打電話給親人說一句「救命！救我呀！我不想死！！！」，也不說說在哪裡，就掛線，想怎樣救？連發生甚麼事也不知，聽者只能慌著猜度。

所以，如果你跟人溝通時，請不要把你以為他知的訊息刪走，亦不要以為他是聽你的聲音或文字就能洞識一切，若果可以的話，還用幹電腦這麼苦？不如去做賭神、占卜師好了。所以，溝通時不要先入為主以為維修人員是跟你的電腦心連心，他們連自己的也不太能做到呀。[1]

民間多盛傳及盡信我等計算機科學生及計算機工程師在大學裡頭是學維修電腦的，但事實是並沒有一分一刻是教授如何維修電腦，我們學的是另外一種層次，兩者是完全兩道專業來的，所以若果你信錯了這種民間傳說，我就以傳說中的人的身份告訴你：你們大錯特錯了。

—

[1] - 能做到的是叫 Hacker 水準級的人，這裡的 Hacker 並不是指攻擊他人的人，不要再誤信傳媒的錯誤訊息。

Hong Kong is well-known for conveying an important message : money! And you must have it not for living comfortably, but living humanely.

Hong Kong is a city well-known for its poor respect and compensation to I.T. personnel, unless you are the exceptional and lucky few who made it to the investment banks. Otherwise, you are probably in demise. Can we go elsewhere?

—

Historically, artists cluster to Florence 500 years ago, Shanghai businessmen cluster to Hong Kong at the early 20th century. Until the contemporary, I.T. personnel goes to Silicon Valley, and still a lot of business personnel goes to Hong Kong. Apparently, a lot of people are leaving their hometowns for opportunities, and Hong Kong is considered one of the place of opportunities. This can be testified by its foreign investments and international reputation and fame, and also its cultural diversity that sprouted over the century.

It is common for mainlanders in China to move to Beijing and Shanghai from afar, living their homeland, to look for opportunities. Now, if foreigners have come to Hong Kong for opportunities and mainlanders moved to Bejing and Shanghai for opportunities, apply the same case to local I.T. personnel, why they do not explore elsewhere out of Hong Kong?

Put aside family matters. Let’s talk about the two main incentives for a job : money and fun. Without money, and if you have none originally, however fun, it will not be attractive. Without fun, the capable people who got the money will not even consider the job. However, being a year in Shanghai I can tell you that there are fun jobs in Shanghai and Beijing. So, we will rule out the problem of fun.

—

Money, the root of all evil.

Apparently, money matters. The average monthly salary in China of an I.T. undergraduate of a local firm is only about CNY $3000~$4000, which is the same as a decade ago. The rest is mathematics. It is then obvious why Hong Kong I.T. personnel would most likely refuse to go to China, because the compensation is inhumane to their standards. If you were to pick between a job of HKD $12000 and CNY $4000, which would you pick?

Think deeply. Tax in China is higher than that in Hong Kong, and then you have to rent a house and all the daily consumptions and such. Lastly, add to the fact some friends of yours doing a similar job in Hong Kong earning a triple of your monthly salary, and he might still stick to his home and save the daily consumptions, and then also pay less of the tax though he gets a better salary. Lastly, bonus information for you, the living standards in Shanghai surpasses than of Hong Kong. Will you still pick the job in China?

—

Over the other facet of the planet, we have United Kingdom and United States, which are both good places for I.T. personnel to hang out at. Yet, both of them do not offer easy entry. Both of them require the employer to demonstrate that the applicant for the job is not available in their country, and even companies such as Microsoft and Google that big are not exempted from the rules.

Moreover, getting a job in other cities and countries is not just a click to submit resume and the employer saying okay. From the perspective of the employer, why hire a foreigner for all the hassle and could even introduce communication problems? You certainly must have a strong reason to justify yourself.

Now, remember you are a fresh undergraduate or just a few years of experience. If you have some really outstanding special abilities, that works. But that seems unlikely for most people. Remember, this is only one of those tough obstacles to hurdle over.

—

Now, you are left with very few choices : Build your own company, strive to get into some investment bank, or pray for the luck so you get escorted to the foreign lands. For the first, it is definitely not easy. For the second, this is our primary assumption you cannot get into one, right? Lastly, this is hoping you got into a company who can sent you afar, if not into China.

Can we go elsewhere? Yes, but certainly not as easy as suggested, due to differences in compensation and the entry bar for the prospective countries. And if this path is such a difficult one, it is most likely barred from the commoners, and even above average.

It is not just that you want to go elsewhere, then you can get out. Heard of a spelling P-R-I-S-O-N?

Auckland 00:00。

小茶壺，生日快樂！

之餘、不要只在這天快樂。

給妳所有祝福。

白白豬。

話說有日同朋友極度肚餓，去「大娘水餃」叫咗幾碟雲飩，點知難食程度令人噴血，反應是將所有可以諗到嘅形容詞都用盡。原來都幾多，如下列十款：

「好唔掂喎！」
－唔OK咁解，即係唔到水準，但係叫做放得入口。

「咁難食既！」
－有時食啲豬仔骨、蔗、或者硬到石頭既車厘哥夫紐結糖，食得咁辛苦，好難食。如果一碟如雲飩咁易食既野，肯定係關味道事喇。

「食得好辛苦！」
－當你叫點咗野食，由肚變唔肚，唔想浪費金錢浪費食物，就唯有頂硬上，講返呢句差唔多。

「仲慘過食屎！」
－雖則好多人都無食過，又或者講者唔小心試過下（水箱太勁！），跟住發表如此嘔心既讚嘆。比屎更難吃，實在不容易！

「食到想死！」
－民以食為天，居然食野食到想死，呢餐大概都真係幾難食。

「點食呀？」
－咁唔好味既野，令在場人仕質疑有無唔係用口食既方法去呑食呢道菜，唔通唔係用口食既？

「人食架？」
－動物唔識烹調，世世代代獨孤一味，悶到死，所以人食到唔開胃既野，可以比動物食，雖然有時動物都會反胃…

「餿！」
－豬食既野，對普通人來講，係一堆垃圾一般嘅野，形容食物如此，即係垃圾甚至不如。

「食得架？」
－食物，當然係食得，反問一道食物「係可以吃的嗎」其實就是質疑呢道菜係唔食物之餘，暗喻係連動物都唔會想食。

「嘩！自己走返出來既？！」
－呢句係當食物達到太難食既程度，吐出口外時，老屈件食物自己唔願意入口既講法，相當過盞！

以上係當時同朋友諗到既形容詞，唔知大家對住難食既野，又會有咩反應呢？或者大家有咩好句都可以分享下！