Women's Talks

Sometimes you just can't ignore the productivity that women's casual chat can bring up...

Earlier tonight I had dinner with 2 of my coworkers. C got married a couple of months ago and M will be married next month.

I told them about my worries in finding jobs in US next year, then immediately M popped up this idea of opening a mommy postpartum care center. It's inspired by the head of our dept who just sent his wife to New York for confinement. It seems a trend for rich people in Taiwan to get a US-citizenship baby in this way. So M believed the mommy care center should be a good business in the near future.

C nodded her head and suggested that both of them can be the first customers to me. Then C & M started to talk about the time for pregnancy and how to get the business started and how much capital we need to invest and how the service will be and how we sell the ideas..... From the experience we can even write a book about maternity in US in general, and another book about preparation for maternity in US, and the third book about tips for mommy-to-be to live in US, and the forth about how mommies spend time in US, and the fifth.... and the sixth.........

Then the topic moved on to garage sell. C suggested me carrying some chinese-style stuff like cellphone decors to US from China, which some coworker can get and carry back to me in her China trip, then i sell them in weekend flea market or garage sell. M said she can help me collect the orders of US brand stuff from girls in the company, then i carry back for them when i come back in several months for new visa....

Then M recalled that her friend's friend is selling home-made dumpling (水餃) to chinese & japanese families in her neighborhood after moving to US. So we started to think of other stuffs i can sell except for dumpling and it came up things like oyster noodles (蚵仔麵線) and fried chicken steak (炸雞排)....

Before we called it a day we were all happy to have found new goals for each of us and cheered with one another to work together for another brand new year. M got to plan for her pregnancy, C got to convince her husband for maternity in US, and me got to work hard for the moving...

You see, women's chat can sometimes change the world!:P No matter the plans work or not, the girls did have cheered me up. I'm really appreciated it and again surprised at the creativity that all my lovely coworkers possess!:D

Post-trip note

When our shuttle bus drove us back to the hotel from the airport in the dark evening, my impression of palau was "god... how are we gonna spend A WEEK in this barren land?" (這麼黑, 難不成每天在飯店炒飯?) There's nothing aside the street but only jungles, there's no street lamps nor traffic lights, there're few shops and even few houses. It was not the first time i spent vacation on islands. Despite of Bali- the most favorite island by most tourists, i've also been to Boracay in philippines and Sabah in malaysia. Sabah also doesn't have much stuff, but at least there're street lamps. While Asad and the driver chatted more and more excitedly, i started to plan after-dusk activities for the future 6 days.

The reality proved that i was worrying too much. The days we had in that week was like getting up at 7am, breakfast around 8am, having fun until 5pm, showering & resting for 1 hr, dining around 7pm, a short walk & shopping for 1 hr, then passing out around 9pm. I'd never go to bed at 9pm in normal life, even tho 7am getup sometimes happened. I was also surprised at my body clock. It spontaniously woke up before alarm rang every morning. We were like living in farmer's life in back days- 日出而作, 日入而息, no late tv, no internet, no night market, no clubbing.

The trip everyday was also substantial and full of fun. It never gave you a min to feel bored. The food seemed to be always sufficient for the day and we never felt hungry. What surprised and touched me the most is how local people treasure their environment and their positive mind of preserving their home nature and culture. The most importantly, a lot of them choose to come back to these small islands in young age after educated or travelling overseas, and one of them told us the reason: in palau you never need to worry about 3 meals everyday, cuz at least you have fish...

Being a world traveller sometimes i got to spend in a foreign country for several months with only a luggage of necessity. There had been almost 2 years i got only 2 luggages with me and settled in England. I moved out of my grandma's with only half amount of clothes in my closet, and for the rest half i never wore them again in 5 years.

Material life seems very important if you never live with only 1 luggage of stuff, or with no luggage, and seems a GREAT deal if you live in certain places, hang out with certain groups, and do certain comparison. When i worked in HK, i found 80% of girls (even half of guys) in the street carrying a brand bag: coach, gucci, LV..., 60% of my female coworkers wearing dimond rings or watches, 3 out of 5 male coworkers wearing expensive shoes & carrying most updated mobile phones. After 1 week i convinced myself those brand stuffs are necessity in life, at least everyone should get 1 to show his taste and social class. I started to dream of gucci bags, dior sunglasses, dimond necklace, omega watch... even when i went to SF i still thought of visiting a coach store as US price would be lower than anywhere else...

Then i travelled to palau, this barren island. Walking in the street with t-shirt shorts and flipflops, i kept thinking, would anyone here care if i was wearing prada or carrying gucci bag? (Maybe those yacht owners but they showed up only once in a while.) When we were swimming in the ocean with our hands held, i kept thinking, would it matter that where we live or how much fortune we make? The furture security is more important, or current dream accomplishment? The US tycoon spent the whole life digging fortune to pursue mexican fisherman's life style at the end, which one would i want to be?


The news just reported that the risen globel warming might speed up the extinct of human beings... I guess i'd rather be the mexican fisherman.

We went on a trip to Palau

for 7 days and this is how the trip was like...

The Industrial City

And Xmas tree is no longer the only decoration in shopping mall....

A Week in San Francisco

-- Moon raisen at sunset in SF

I'm back in San Francisco again, accidentally and unexpectedly. I'm staying in San Bruno Courtyard Marriot again, surprisingly and coincidentally. SF has been very cooperative that welcoming us with sunshine, clear sky, and comfortably chill; and after the custome guy threw me dozens of questions I, again, luckily got a 6 month stay stamp this time altho I'm only here for a week. The hotel is only a few miles away from SFO airport, and the high decibel sound of airplanes' engine can be heard clearly from our room. The moon is fully round these days, and raisen right outside of our window every evening.

Being in a non-tourist area, I'm a bit unconfident with "being a foreign tourist". Local people are doing their daily duties: working, shopping, driving, eating, partying, simply hanging out, while I'm jobless and vacationing here. We went to check out some apartment complexes and met some hardworking leasing guys who still worked on Sunday. This kind of apartment managing job looks like another type of house keeping mixed with real estate agent, I kept wondering if I was capable to do the job as a foreigner if there's a chance. Bluffing my people is easy, but bluffing in another language to another culture will be another story. But if my college buddy is capable to bluff Thais in Bangkok (at least he hasn't been kicked out from the GM position yet for 6 months already), why ain't I?

I guess I'm just not ready for retirement yet.