Needs vs Wants

I saw this on a friend's wechat account the other day.

Internet is so pervasive these days that I cant even remember a time without WIFI.

*shudder*

Walking Adventures #1

I saw this guy. Sitting at the middle of the crossing below an expressway. Surfing.

Maybe the reception is better. Id have to check but maybe the expressway's call Information Superhighway.

Hearty Cake

Saw this cake at a rather popular cake shop in Shanghai the other day.

The caption says:

“When you give your heart, it should be forever. And when you give this ventricularly replete replica, chances are you won’t see it again either – it’s love at first bite.”

Walking the Walk

With the better weather, plus the desire to escape the taxi queues, burn more calories and save some taxi money (not much really...S$4 one way), I have started to work home from work.

The idea just came to me one day when I got to the taxi stand. Queue too long. Whipped out my Baidu maps to see how far home is (3.2km) and check if I was wearing comfortable shoes. All check.

MOVE!

The journey took an hour. I didnt think it'd take so long. It's only 3.2km. I know I walk very slowly but this is rather absurd.

So I have been walking home in the last 5 days. Pretty fun really. I get to see the microcosms of Shanghai life. Im sure I'll get to see more material that I can post here.

Lesson Time

I wrote this to my team the other day. I have pasted this here so that you all can learn as well:

“Hi team

Given that we work for an American company located in China, I would like to share with you some pointers on how best to communicate in English so that we all improve together. At the same time, I hope that you can give me some pointers in how to communicate in Chinese as well so that I can learn together with you.

1.    When updating Salesforce, don’t say “our legal”. I know in Chinese it’s “我们的法务部”. In English, it’s different. It’s enough to just say “Awaiting Legal’s comments”.

2.    Capital letters should only be used in names or defined words （定义词）in contracts. For example, “Fudan University is a good university” or “The Chengdu Second Ring Road is a major ring road that connects Chengdu to Chongqing”. Note how the same words in the same sentence may sometimes have capital letters, sometimes not. Think it through. Ask yourself “Is this word a name of something?”

3.    There is no “s” in the word “feedback”. “Feedbacks” is a wrong word.

4.    Fonts – When emailing, please make sure that if you copy and paste something from somewhere, the entire text in the email is in the same font size and color. It’s unprofessional to have many fonts and different colors in one email. It’s ok sometimes to have one or two colors but please 适可而止.

I will continue to add to this list as and when I think of more.”

Weathered Down

Some of you have been asking me about the weather. I hope this isnt cos I have been talking so much about it.

It has been quite cooling the past week.

34-36 degrees in the day time.

The Singaporeans all cheered. It's kinda odd really because 34-36 in Singapore is very hot.

I guess it's all relative.

You know... when...

You know you have arrived when you have one of these...

A handsfree mic that is attached to your phone. 

 

Unless, of course, you are a telephone operator. Then you’d have gotten this on the first day you arrive .. at work.

Top 10 Nasty Bosses

1. The Ego-Tripper - a boss that is arrogant, shows off at any opportunity and is in constant need of boosting his or her ego
2. The Coward - a boss that takes on no accountability and often hides behind others
3. The Micromanager - a boss that believes he knows how others should do their job, who can't trust people to just get on with their job and instead and micro-manages everything they do
4. The Incapable - a boss that has been promoted beyond his or her capabilities, has no clue how to do the job and has lost all respect of subordinates and co-workers
5. The Over-friendly Mate - a boss that inappropriately wants to be your best mate or nearest friend
6. The Bad Communicator - a boss that is unable to communicate anything effectively, be it the corporate strategy or individual performance feedback
7. The Plagiarizer - a boss that takes credit for other people's work or ideas and passes it off as his own (especially to his or her boss)
8. The Negative - a boss that just can't say anything positive and instead turns everything into doom-and-gloom
9. The Ego-Centric - a boss that doesn't care about the people who work for him and is not interested in helping, coaching and developing anyone else but himself
10. The Criticizer- a boss that is quick to criticize mistakes others make and is unable to provide constructive feedback

Showered

Sometimes, in fact most times, I think I'm a rather observant person.

Sometimes, Im proven wrong. This is a picture of our shower in our apartment.

There is a rain shower head at the top and there is a movable hose head in the middle portion.

For some reason, after I started using the movable hose to shower cos it has a higher pressure, I have never used the shower head, up to a point where I didnt even know the rainshower head existed! I know I didnt know it existed because Someone asked me about it and i said we didnt have a rainshower head!!

Gosh, sometimes, once we block something out, conscious or unconsciously, it can be so blocked out!

That's so weird!

Now, there's a post it on the shower door that says "SHOWER HEAD! SHOWER HEAD! SHOWER HEAD!" to remind me it's there.

Down and Back!

Sorry I have been away.

I reformatted my Mac over the last few days cos it was getting sluggish.

I hope you have been able to find other alternatives to my blog during this downtime.

Weather Woes II

Im a little embarrassed to keep talking about the weather but there's just so many associated happenings due to the weather.

Someone has been here in Shanghai for one month now. This coincided with the heat wave, so when Someone's home, the air con is switched on in the living room.

This has resulted in last month's electricity bill to shoot up more about 2.5 times than the preceding months to S$140. Siong man. Hope this doesnt keep up for long.

Word Up!

I rarely come across a word that I don’t know the meaning of these days, especially now that I’m in China.

Just saw this word the other day.

Conviviality

It looks kinda simple but Im not even sure how to pronounce it.

Kwa Kwa

With the hot weather outside and the cold temperatures in the office, my team has been falling sick here and there.

Usually I don’t care and I never really did think that health would affect productivity that greatly until now.

So the other day, I asked my assistant to order some red ginseng tea for my team and for each, a tube of the fizzy vitamin thing you can put in plain water.

I told her to just distribute to them directly if and when the stuff arrive.

I got a note on a box this morning at work.

I then realised that Someone also ordered something else and sent it to my office.

The something else was this:

I had posted this before. It was something women can put in their nether regions to pee standing up.

And Someone ordered SEVEN!!

I bet my assistant must have been shocked to see that it wasnt the red ginseng tea she was expecting. Kwa kwa.

Satisfied!

I wanted to go for steak for my birthday as I had steak and scallops craving after watching Hell's Kitchen.

Chose a new hotel's steakhouse as per a friend's recommendation.

Odd to serve the lobster bisque in a Chinese teapot.

Scallop! But unfortunately, not as big as Hell's Kitchen.

I like it that you can choose the knives.

Here's what i ordered. 500g of rib eye on the bone. A little bit too much really.

Weather Woes I

10 months in Shanghai and I’m still trying to get a grip of the weather.

It typically shows 40 degrees and never higher. It sometimes feels actually higher than that. I once in Dubai once and it was 45 degrees but Shanghai’s “40” felt hotter.

I later found out why. If the stated temperature goes above 40 degrees, the government is obligated to pay rebates to the factories and junior workers. That’s why the official temperature is never higher than 40 degrees. That’s some scary shit.

Along with summer comes a more wet climate. That’s why there is more mould recently. We try to counter this with more of the Hungry Hippo dehumidifiers in cupboards and all. But yet at the same time, people, including myself in the office and in the bedroom, are still switching on our humidifiers to moisten the air. It’s all very confusing to me really.