On the last day of 2008, I was in Interlaken, Switzerland, a very small village that I circled it in about an hour by walking. Yes, it is much smaller than Macau, and it is not even a town.
Interlaken is a very small place, and a very slow place. If I am correct, there is only one supermarket in the village and you can memorize the streets on day one. Everything is slow and is completely against my biological clock pace.
On the countdown day, as you might have guessed, there is no equivalence of the crowd in Macau Tower or Leal Senado’s Square here, but only a score of musicians and a horde of townsfolk. They do not get any celebrities or show stages. There was some small scale fireworks display ( that I missed ), but nothing more. The countdown is simple enough – each in a bar or cafe screaming “Happy New Year” to each other, and then came a dozen of drinks which they treat as water. Compared to what I have had in Macau, it was shockingly plain.
It has been ages for me citizens to find rest in a slow paced place, and now I have realized I can only live in places as fast as Hong Kong, or faster.
In certain stages of our life, we make hefty decisions such as picking the right profession, dumping a relationship, where you live, who do you marry, resigning a good job, having a child or not, and many others. Few of them are of my age’s concern. Yet, having been around for two decades, I have gone through similar experiences of my average age. As we mature, we learn to consider for externalities when we make a decision. One of these decisions that bother us is whether or not to pursue our dream or not.
Strange. Why would anyone not pursue after his own heart?
There are times when we work towards something seemingly hopeless, and sometimes ultimately doomed. At this time, your parents, friends and mate toss at you their disagreements with phrases such as “Stupid!” and the deadly “Be mature and realistic”, unless you succeeded. With such a supportive group and people whose total knowledge and lifespan exceeds that of you, and presumbly with good will, how could you go against them and not defy your heart?
The platitude is that you should never give up. However, we do not live in the pleasure of idealogy. Which then, the reality follows : If many of our loved ones warns us to withdraw, we best take heed. Gotcha! Now you have just gone against your heart. But what if you truly desires it from the roots of your heart? You will then regret over not having done it. Worse, you found out that you should have done it. You come back to the same decision a decade later, and realized you stagnated a decade. Now the guilt comes to haunt you. Not them. Yup. The guilt haunts YOU, not those who convinced you to go astray the path.
How long will the guilt haunt you? Depends, maybe not for life, but it is already painful if the guilt haunts you for half a decade. Now, if picking a profession is quite a difficult thing for non-mainstream choices such as being a software developer in Hong Kong, or be a Biochemist in Macau, or want to work as an author, or be frank and admit to your sexual orientation, and many others. You really have strong reasons to not follow your heart. But if they turn out to be your heart truest call, this can haunt you for ages.
The following is a boring story about me. When I made the decision to come to Shanghai, I effectively and consciously gave up a lot of things I concern in Hong Kong and Macau. It was not just the salary that was significantly different, but think about the guilt that you cannot look after your sick mother, or unable to participate in your friends event, as well as leaving your mate, and living alone sometimes questioning in despair, and much more. Even until this moment, I am still on my journey to pursue my dream – a desire that sprouted deep inside my heart – but it can end up in disaster or just wrong. Security, and computers, and it is just not the best place in Hong Kong, and I cruelly made a decision. Banks fire administrators and programmers only to leave their banks for hackers to take advantage. True, I can still get a life in Hong Kong, but it is just not the right place to start. Hong Kong is a large city. Unfortunately, it is not tailored for information security. Now I am in Shanghai, because I am after my heart’s calling, I do not cry at the Sunday nights prior to work. You might have heard work must be boring, but I discovered in my life otherwise it is quite worth anticipating. After one year, I discovered another team which I should have been in is actually much more fruitful in career development, and I am sure I am almost considered stupid and foolish to join a team that bears dimmer future, relatively. However, I know in some sense that getting promoted quicker in that team will just bring upon another detour of a year or two, and which will just bring me back to the security team I am in now – the starting position I was in a year ago. Note, I am not satisfied yet.
“Be mature” is a very severely abused term the people around us placed upon us to coerce us to do things they see unfit, much as critics phrasing “how unprofessional” to experts but without substantial and concrete evidence. The people around teach us to be “mature” to not be selfish and not “act just in your own best interests”. Yet, in some case, I believe we should be solely responsible for our own life. We cannot just live up to what others expect of us.
It is true that externalities must be considered, such as divorcing and hence neglecting your kids. At some stage, you will be tied with so much weight that you can no longer move freely. If you know that you cannot walk on your own legs six months later, what will you do? It is highly unlikely you will experience a miracle, but you might. However, for me, I assume no miracles, and I will walk as much as I want to before I cannot. I do not want to cry in my wheelchair moaning : I should have walked much more frantically before I cannot walk.
“If you suddenly found yourself living as an ape, you could accept the life of an ape and devote yourself to eating bananas all day and try to be a good ape, or you could attempt to become more than an ape and evolve into a human. Once you did that, all your ape goals and accomplishments would seem utterly meaningless compared to your new human capabilities.” If you feel wrong to be an ape, get a change.
If you believe you do not deserve crying in your laps, once in a while questioning whether or not you are doing the right thing, you should bear in mind you should follow what your heart desires. Did you wonder why you must live upon the judgement of the others, and feel so unhappy when the others do not approve of you, and thus making your day? If you want to get rid of such harsh feelings, get out of the path others have set for you.
好喇，係咪唔知我寫咩呢？正常，明既話你就肯定係做呢行，明既話而唔係做呢行，睇怕你都係入錯行！呢啲就係我地平時見到有個程式炒咗之後，要做既一件事。都幾恐怖架！除咗呢啲之外，對於一個程式點可以做到支持到一日幾百萬人咁，都係我地既工作，即係好似 Google Search 同 Live Search，唔簡單架。順帶一提，通常小企既開發工程小隊，通常會認為最好有齋以上三個職位，先至健全既！
There is an informal poll on Transparency International, home of the international non-governmental organization addressing corruption. Of course, I took my vote to get some numbers, and saw the results :
Results
Note: Transparency International online Polls are not statistically valid representations of our website users nor intend to guide or represent public opinion in any way.
In your view, how corrupt is your country?
Extremely
50%
Votes: 2209
Somewhat
24%
Votes: 1062
Not very
16%
Votes: 708
Not at all
9%
Votes: 413
4404 total votes
That is a surprisingly a lot : 25% for “not at all” and “not very” together. Bribery is improved when I find that it is harder to buy car licenses in Shanghai. For instance, car license exams, computers take over places where human corruption is more likely, and you cannot bribe computers easily when the testers have no control but press a “Start” button. Anyway, it is still not too hard to do so in nearby provinces like ZheJiang (浙江), and bribery still takes place from places down from schools up to police institutions, and much worse. These are common folks knowledge, ask them and they can tell you with vivid descriptions and examples.
Don’t take the above poll results for granted, of course. You never know who’s behind the votes. We might have some *cough* *cough* spies *cough* *shrugs*…
I love the fact that there is improvement in China on corruption, but seriously we need event more improvement. I wonder, if that fundamentally flawed “inspection exemption” is just a production of bribery and corruption?
China, can you still proceed further so much on the corruption model?
In New York ten months ago, there was this freeze mob that started everything. A freeze mob is an activity when a large number of people agree to stop for a few minutes at some predetermined time at a highly trafficked area, and then resume their activities as if nothing happened.
What a city is capable of!
That is why I love living in a modern city. Cities were described as a cold place where we know none of our neighbourhood, when everyone is tasked to mechanize and automate their rigid smiles, and not without the most evil intention. Yet, without over-amplifying the extremities, and at the expense of some properties of a small society, we gain in more elements of a growing metropolis. Go to the old place sometime later, and you discover something that surprisingly blend well into the city. Go to a square and look at that large show you chanced upon, and how interesting things are running so well. Go out and get to know different people, and you might find someone with your interests after your own heart.
There are opportunities too, and if you want to do a freeze mob in Macau, you can! In Hong Kong, you can! In Shanghai, you can! If you want to do a mass dance, you can!
If you find a city too bored, maybe you have missed something out there?
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On 22 Nov 2008, a freeze mob in Shanghai happened while I was in Macau.
On 27 Nov 2008, a freeze mob in Macau happened while I am in Shanghai now.
I missed both of them! Damn! I want to join as well.
Who wants to do it? Code the solution for the infamous Halting Problem for $300 ~ $1000. =)
( For humans : This problem has been proven to have no solution. So, this job is stupid. )
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Project Name
Bug Finder
Budget
$ 300-1000
Description
The purpose of this project is to create a debugger program. This program will take as input the source code another program, and will analyze that other program and determine if it will run to completion, or have an error, or go into an infinite loop.
To state that another way, given a function f and input x, determine if f(x) will halt.
You ask : With a day job, how can I travel and experience more?
As a day-job worker, I work in an office in general, and has to work extensively over-time occasionally, how could I sneak out?
It is not easy. My annual leaves are very limited. But since I really love travelling, there are still tricks to employ.
Try your neighborhood first
I have visited a few places over this year, but a few only – Beijing (北京), HangZhou (杭州), JiangXi (江西). Also playing in different places in and near Shanghai (上海), such as Yangcheng Lake (陽澄湖), ZhuJiaJiao(朱家角), and HuangShan(黃山). They are all close to Shanghai in some sense.
A weekend has two days
My trips were mostly done over the weekend, or plus a day more for HuangShan. It is exhausting, but you can also take a splurge.
Be efficient
I am only free in Beijing for a day and a night. But I made it to the SiMaTai (司馬台) section of Great Wall (萬里長城) and TianAnMen (天安門), and of course the food & beverage of WangFuJian (王府井) and HouHai (後海). I even have had theBeijing roast ducks! Yummy! Be efficient, and this goes the same for everything.
Go again
As you have guessed, one day and a night is not enough for Beijing. I didn’t make it into the Forbidden City (故宮) or see the raise of the China flag. Therefore, I will have to go to Beijing again.
Work during Travel
Seriously. We are in the Internet Age. Being based in Shanghai, I am now in Macau at my very own room connecting to my own desktop in office – working. Maybe you can find a job where you can work outside of office. Like Christine Gilbert said, travelling around the world does not mean quitting your job now. Of course, not all jobs work this way, but you can certainly try.
For some of us, we have only a few days to travel over the year. However, maybe the rest of you actually have a choice to sneak out.
Photo by Daniel Arndt
English