I will be in Hangzhou on May 24 for the developer conference organized by Alibaba. Drop me a note if you will be there as well.
Here’s the link to subscribe (Chinese). Hope to see you there.
http://info.china.alibaba.com/html/wx/index.html
p.s. quite some presentations will be in English. They will be given by foreign technologists/professionals.
I have to confess that I didn’t get high ratings often on writing classes in Chinese when I was in school until the last year of high school when I had to prepare for the college entrance exam. Recently I started to understand the importance of writing. So I think writing more often is a good idea. For my own good. I think I’ll keep writing in both Chinese and English, depends on my thinking process.
By Aug 2008, I will be back in China for 3 years. It’s been a exciting and somewhat difficult experience. But I have learned a lot about my own country. It’s been doing me a lot of good. If I stayed in Europe, it could be harder for me to adjust to the life here when I return later.
It’s still hard for me to judge where exactly the opportunity for China is since I only worked for two employers, and they are both Dutch companies. I somehow feel starting up business should be the best idea. Chinese government has some program to promote business created by Chinese student returned from overseas. I looked into some of the specifics in the program and made some contact. I think with the right people and right project the success factor is quite high. Keep watching and keep looking. And of course, more importantly, start doing and learning by doing:).
There’s been some intensive traveling this winter. It’s a good opportunity for me to experience different winter lifes in Normandy France, Shanghai and Hunan China.
Among the three, life in France is no doubt the physically the most comfortable one. Hunan is spiritually the best place for me to stay. France is most developed and Hunan where I was born and raised is unfortunately the least developed. I lived in Europe before. Naturally there were certain habits that I picked up there. Such as, shower in the morning rather than evening, take my coat/jacket off after entering the house/apartment, shower daily, drink bottled water/soda, put bags on the ground while sitting. Those are the obvious ones I can think of now.
After returning to China, I go back to shower in the evening, but occasionally I have the surge to shower in the morning, so now I shower about 30% of the time in the morning. I shower about every 1.5 days. I keep my jacket on after returning to my apartment because the temperature in my apartment is not warm enough to take my jacket off. For those who have never been to China might ask, why not turn on the radiator, I have to tell the truth, because there is no radiator. I drink boiled/hot water because bottled water is too cold. I still put my bags on the ground in my apartment but I try to avoid that while outside, because the ground is gross, everybody in China knows it.
On average, I make about 1 call on my gsm per 3 days in Europe. I make about 3 calls per day in China:D. 1 sms per 3 days in Europe, about 5 sms per day in China. More blogging in Europe. Less blogging and more human interactions in China.
I drank cold Cola during tea break in Europe. I drink heated Tea in Shanghai for tea break.
I go home immediately after work in Europe and avoid outside when it’s dark. I feel comfortable most of the time outside in the evenings in Shanghai and Hunan.
I do grocery in Carrefour about once a week in France. I do grocery in convenient store, fruit stand, Watson’s (European equivalent of Kruidvat) and everywhere once every 2-3 days in Shanghai.
I talk to my parents once a week, barely talk to my school friends in Europe, occasionally socialize. I talk to my parents whenever I want, call my school friends often. Meet friends in Shanghai once a while.
A: I probably have invested thousands of dollars in getting anxiety, self-doubt and disappointment.
B: At least, you invested in hope, didn’t you?
A: G….
Key takeaway: There is no guarantee in life, work hard and hope for the best. Most importantly, enjoy life:D. As the famous Chiense proverb goes: “One Horse Lost May Be a Herd of Them Gained” (塞翁失马， 焉知非福？). Moreover, patience is virtue.
Nowadays many people would debate that having a kick-ass idea is less important than having a team to execute an idea well. Some say ideas are like cockroaches. When you see one Web 2.0 company implement one idea, probably you will see hundreds more doing the same thing. This may sounds true during the Internet bubbles in 2001, 2002. I would rather say, doing the right things is more important than doing the things right.
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这周发生了许多事情， 呵呵。 首先就是法国的铁路罢工， 接着学生也开始罢课。 我周二到达巴黎， 周三就铁路罢工， 我还是很幸运的顺利到达了Caen卡昂， 位于巴黎以西225公里的小镇。
一来就听说这边的芯片设计全部要转移到印度的班加罗尔（Bangalore）去。 周四同事们在工会的带领下在办公楼前集会了1小时， 随后去了接待大厅， 随后同事们紧张而有序的回归了正常的工作。
目前法国的裁员名单和未来项目的安排还没出来。 这边的人事正在积极的为将要失去工作的同事们找新的位子。 有位沮丧的同事过来跟我说：“我得去中国找份工了。 我跟他说我这段时间说得最多的是：“I am sorry”。 除了同情， 我帮不上什么忙， 毕竟也是来学他们的东西。
我刚好赶上了这里的雨季， 卡昂位于诺曼底省， 就是二战盟军登陆的地方， 冬天很冷， 因为靠海的关系， 虽然气温能达到零度以下但是下雪不多。 阴雨的天，应运了这里阴晦的前途。
从我住的小公寓的窗口望出去， 今天天气不错： 
It’s a busy day today. The recently hired general manager of my business unit visits
Bonus Picture: My crab rice:). I love cooking and I love innovative cuisines.
The title is not exactly what I plan to write in this post. I meant to write a post for a while about jobs, my decision to come back to China after graduated in Belgium, some of my experience working in Shanghai and some other job related topics. Recently I got quite inspired by some of the events as following:
So as the first of the series I wrote my motivation of writing such series. In the coming series I will be telling my reason for coming back fresh graduated and some of my views on Chinese/Shanghai (technical) job market. Stay tuned :).
