On Yao Ming and the China pride...

Yao Ming has been the China pride for quite a long time. Ten years, to be exact.

It must not have been an easy feat to have a whole nation's pride and glory in the sport front resting on his lone shoulders. For Asians who generally have shorter, slimmer build, the tall poppy of Yao Ming who breaks away to join the NBA league is something of an anomaly. Surely, there must be another Yao Ming lurking amidst its 1.1 billion population. Even statistics should give it a higher probability to find another Yao Ming....right?

But the Chinese establishment has a way to beat even the remote statistics of Yao Ming. In ten years, China fails to produce another Yao Ming. Now that he's retiring, there is no one he can past the torch to. It's a true pity, that the rigid Chinese establishment has failed to produce more heroes in sports that its denizens so sorely need, in order to hold on to the Chinese pride.

No matter, China can now turns its star-gazing to another sport - tennis. Li Na, the newly minted champion of Australian Open, the first Chinese from China (nope - Michael Chang is technically more American than Chinese) to win any majors, provides the much needed relief for the mainland Chinese populace to feel that they can make it too in the sports arena.

But if the Li Na story is any guidance, it is that her success comes in spite of her breakaway from the official Chinese sports establishment. That says volume about the competence and effectiveness of that establishment. China's 1.1 billion people need better than this, and deserve better than to wait for another 10 years to see if it is capable of producing another Yao Ming or Li Na.

On paper calendars and their electronic equivalence...

Earlier today, I was reading the New York Times article today on paper calendars with interests and amusement.

No doubt there is powerful trend for pushing calendars to the ether virtual world. Most people do that out of convenience which is hard to disprove. Once the calendar is set up online (eg. Google Calendar), you can access any time, anywhere. You can access it with your browser, or smart phone, even regular phone that has online access. You can expose your calendar to privileged few (eg. families and friends). Even in the pre-cloud days, when mostly corporate calendars reside on proprietary servers like emails do (Blackberry, anyone?), you can quite easily sync your PDA with servers. You won't have to worry about losing your Filofax, hence the whole year's worth of your life. No more writing; just typing. Sweet, right?

But of course, when there is push, there is always some pull. Although it's not easy found these days, there are still quite some people who hang on to their paper calendars and address books and alarm clocks, even though you can easily get all these functions in any basic smartphones. There is something to be said, about holding something in your hand, that you know it's real, that this is my calendar and it belongs to me and me alone (rather than some bits and bytes in binary on some no-name servers tucked in some dark corners of who-knows-where the datacenters might reside).

I have to tell you, I too have tried to hang on to paper calendars, for my private reasons. I have soft spots for leather bound journals and diary and address books. I love to touch and smell of leather. I like the physicality of writing in notes and entries with my pen. I really do.

Unfortunately, the goings with electronic calendars are just too strong to resist. I used to use leather-bound yearly calendars, and I hate to have to shelf them once the year is over. There's when I switch to using organizers. But I have to lug the deadweight of my 2-inch thick organizer (with address book, calendar, with journal papers and notes) with me everyday. I have to worry about losing it (yes, I've lost mine before, and it's a royal pain). It wastes papers (thereby, cutting down more trees) and money too for buying inserts. I don't share or expose my calendars to anyone, but now I can plan my calendar forever, rather than one year out. I can set up alerts and reminders of events. And although it takes longer to login and check calendars online than flipping pages, it's worth the efforts.

These days, I've decided to do my own haphazard version of mix-and-match of online and offline calendar for myself. I want the convenience of online calendars (eg. I don't want to have to copy and paste all the important birthdays and anniversary dates at the beginning of each year from one paper calendar to another), but I equally want to use my brain a bit more, lest my brain gets lazy with delegating all the remembering to computers. So, every day, I login to check my daily schedules, plus cursory check on how the weekly and monthly schedules in the coming weeks/months look like. Then, I would write down the daily things to do on a scrap piece of papers. At the end of the day, I can cross what I've done, and I can simply throw out the scrap paper to recycle bin. I can also jog down what's new on the paper, then transpose them to my online calendar at day's end. The semi-automatic calendar updates work for me because I want to force myself to remember some events, rather than delegating to computers totally.

I still miss my leather bound calendars, organizers, address books and all other stuffs that I have now rolled online or in one single gadget. I guess I'll have to live with it. Those previously used (and loved) journals and calendars on my shelf will simply become part of my relics for nostalgia, when I get the time for it.

On the elusive housing recovery...

There are often enough times when I get bored reading business news and market news. You see, I do trading as a side interest, and I read a few newspapers from a few different countries to start my day. You can get an overall picture and a sense of where things are going. To me, it's a much better gauge than the mumble-jumble of those so-called market analysts who would try to find some reasoning - more like excuses - to justify the events of the day as the day wraps up. You see, that's not a very difficult thing to do, since there are always some news that are good, and some news that are bad. All they have to do is to pick and choose which ones fit in the pattern of what has already happened in the market movement during the day. I often find it laughable how business news would follow what has happened in other markets (Europe, Hong Kong and Japan), and say, our markets in US is going to up (or down) because of x-y-z happening in the other markets. So, they say, futures are going up (or down). And then, things in US would blow up in their face, shattering whatever predictions they have made at day start. By end of day, they would wrap up the day and say, no, the market today is actually focusing on something else than we have predicted. In short, they would always have a 50-50 chance to come up with something that can make them look smart ("see, that's what we have predicted!" or "markets look the other day because they are nervous!").

For all that, I prefer to look at the raw data, rather than the gummed-up analysis from these mediocre analysts.

Quite often, raw data are confusing on their own right, depending on what raw data the main media wants to report to the audience (ie. us).

Take the unemployment picture. There's the short term number in unemployment benefits claim (which doesn't look good). There's the longer term number (which looks very weak and wobbly). And then, there is the number of long-term unemployed (ie. those who have exhausted the unemployment benefits and are on their own; in short, they don't count anymore) which everyone seems to suddenly stop reporting on.

And then, there is the number of new jobs created, particularly by private sector. But no one dares to talk about the kind of shitty jobs being created now, in place of the relatively good paying jobs that were lost in this Great Recession. Politicians in Washington don't even want to talk about the number of shitty jobs created. Afterall, there is a natural limit in how much spin doctors can spin a story. So, instead of talking about bad things with no prospects of improving in sight, they would rather stop talking about it.

Barring the dismal employment picture, this recession is all about housing. No one has a freaking clue which industry would emerge from ashes and rise up to take the place of tech (in the go-go days of late 1990s) and housing (in the subsequent years after the tech bubble burst in 2000), and provide the kind of jobs and pay and prospects to the lower strata in society. Everyday, the business and market news cover the same-old, same-old on the foreclosure numbers, price trends of cities and nation wide, new housing starts, existing home sales, yada yada. The way it's going now, you can easily skip 3 months' worth of news, come back in the fall, and the news reports (on these very same topics) would still look the same. *yaaawn*

Don't get me wrong, those raw data have to be collected in order to study the longer term trends. But I don't see how talking repeatedly on the same subject matters and numbers are going to move the needle.

To me, it all comes down to simple math. If you have a property that, over a 10-year period has gone up by 300%, does a downturn of 50% from the peak mean it has come down far enough to become affordable again? This is not a number that I just threw out from a hat. This was how much I have bought (in late 1990s) and sold (in late 2007) my property for in the Northeast.

I like to look for patterns and trends. Nowhere have I seen such fantastic growth in prices (of properties), with little to no support from fundamentals (eg. rental growth) during that same period. The whole housing boom was based on one ponzi scheme, more akin to a big casino gamble.

I don't flip properties. In fact, I've kept property that I sold in 2007 for close than 7 years because I like it. I would still have held on to it, had it not been my husband who was getting tired to the monthly upkeep for a physical property. It doesn't really mean or change a thing for me, because there's no mortgage left on the property. Sure, if you ask me whether I'm glad that I've sold it, I'd tell you I'm glad to have made a 300% profit on that property. It doesn't negate the fact that I still miss the place due to sentimental value. I don't want to sound schmuck about it, for cashing out before the market crash, because I'm no genius. It's all pure chance. Bottomline to me is, while I'm better off now with the proceeds from the sale, I would have been no worse off if I had held on to it.

No one is going to argue against the sweetness of turning 300% yield on an investment. Truth be told, I don't think the place is suddenly worth 300% more than what I'd paid it for. Given the growth of economy over that same period, perhaps a price growth of 50% would have been considered fantastic already, so that a 20-30% downturn in the recession since then would have returned it back to equilibrium. But that would be blasphemous to alot of people who are used to outsized price growth. No one wants to lose the capability of turning their property into a piggybank and a ready ATM machine.

But...nothing of what I said is new. It's just that no one wants to admit to it. No one wants to say outright, that the property market, as depressed as it is now, should still fall another 20-30% or more in some places in order to go back to a more normal curve. Politicians can't tell the emperors (voters) that they have no clothes on. It's downright suicidal.

And so, what do we get? Let's switch off the discussions on unemployment (nothing new); let's not talk about housing (nothing new either); let's forget about market reforms (because no one can fight the lobby groups and big corporate money); don't worry about the wars (which are still raging on); public education does not matter for now. Suddenly all eyes are on deficit and spending.

I can only tell you, I'm very sick and tired of all these ping-pong games between Dem and GOP on the budget talks and possibility of a default. The whole Washington establishment - Congress and White House alike - is so inept to achieve anything remotely useful (except with the focus of scoring political points), it's so freaking disappointing. Such a shame.

But if you must ask me of an opinion, I'd say, spending and entitlement have to be scaled back. Taxes have to be raised somehow. I don't like the idea of the raising the debt ceiling without any serious talks of scaling back. To be sure, there are so many low-hanging fruits of corporate tax subsidy (ethanol, anyone?) that simply don't make sense and should have been rid of long long time ago. While I don't fancy Dem getting any moral high grounds, I simply don't see how GOP could keep singing the moral high tunes of cutting spending while defending their corporate backers of all the subsidy and loopholes. It's truly despicable.

On children's noise level, et al...

I don't normally read much of those news of children-not-welcome stories, like the one about banning young children from restaurant. It's a balancing act between keeping a young child engaged and entertained, while trying to minimize the nuisance to others.

I've been on both sides of the fence. While my kids are getting bigger now, they have been young once. It can get apprehensive, hoping and praying that my kids would cooperate and don't cry or scream in movie theaters or on long-haul flights. When I look at parents or families bringing in very young kids or babies in those situations, I can get apprehensive too, hoping and praying that those kids won't just cry or scream their guts out, and the rest of us would have a bit of quiet time. But then, you can't blame the babies, infants and toddlers for doing for they're doing, when they don't have the ways and means to tell the adults that they don't want to be restricted to the confined space for a prolonged period.

Restaurants and parks, on the other hand, are somewhat different. They are not confined space. And there are plenty of options for parents to bring their kids too. If the kids start acting up in restaurants, one of the adults/parents can always bring the kids outside for a walk to calm the nerve or for distraction. That's what my husband and I always did, and it worked out quite well. So, if a restaurant puts out children-unwelcomed sign, I don't see what the big deal is for the families to bring their business elsewhere where tolerance level for their kids is higher. In short, this kind of stories is not news-worthy to me.

And then, today I read about some Sydney residents complaining about the noise level of children playing in parks. I must say though, that this is getting a bit out of hand. I understand that some people simply can't stand children's crying or screaming. Afterall, that's one of the reasons some adults quoted as rationale for not having kids of their own. Surely, if a park is designed with structures and playthings for kids to kill their energy, can anyone blame the kids for having a blasting fun time and scream their guts out? Honestly, I can't say I do. How does one define the playthings and structures in a park that would limit the kids to play more passively, so that they won't make that much noise? Kids are fairly straightforward animals; they either have a good time, or they don't. If the kids don't enjoy playing in that park, they simply won't want to come. And if the residents have been so worried about it, they should have voiced their concerns before the park was built and/or during the design stage of the park.

You're quite right, in that, I don't have alot of sympathy in the complaints about kids having too much fun in park (hence making too much noise). No doubt, people want more parks and green space; that enhances the environment, thereby boosting property value. There are gives and takes, and times like this, you can't have it both ways, wanting the pie and eating it too. They should have been happy that kids and families are utilizing the parks, rather than thugs and criminals (as alot of idle park space can attract).

On schools stop teaching cursive...

Not until I listened to the Diane Rehm Show on WGBH earlier today did I realize that some schools are planning to stop teaching kids cursive. I must admit, I was flabbergasted when I heard of it.

Many so-called arguments were put forth to support that notion, some of which come straight from fantasyland. It's said that kids need to learn typing more than writing cursive, in order to compete in this digital age. It's said that kids can print and don't need cursive. It's said that kids' learning cursive is a waste of time, during budget crunch time, schools can ill-afford to spend resources on. It's said that with increasing use of electronic media in schools and work environment, kids need to adapt. It's said that some kids simply find it too hard to learn cursive, and they should be left to pick whatever way to write or type. It's even said that in this day and age, when electronic signature is widely accepted, kids won't even need to sign their name anymore. And so on, and so forth.

Thank goodness counter-arguments are abound. It's argued that kids have plenty of opportunities to learn typing (texting, anyone?). It's argued that kids would at least need to sign their name physically with a pen. And while digital media is all around us, it must be recognized that there are many more students who do not have ready access to computers or electronic devices, and who would need to still resort to pens and papers. But the more important and valid point was raised by one of the audience callers to the show, which is that, learning cursive is one important way for kids (at around the age of grade 3-4) to master the fine mortar skills while they are formulating thoughts in their heads. In fact, the last argument was recognized even by the cursive-abolishing proponents that kids have been having increasing difficulty in both thinking and writing/typing at the same time.

The topic of learning cursive hits home to me at this particular juncture, since my kids have showed so much interests in it, and even more pride too in mastering cursive so that they can sign their name!

To be sure, their teachers haven't actually spent that much time in teaching them cursive anyways. Cursive, as an art of writing, is such an integral part of civilization that it would be such a shame and incredible disservice to kids by not teaching them cursive at all. I resent the argument of cursive being too hard for kids. So much of what kids are taught seem to be based on convenience, catering to the kids' liking. If something is deemed too hard for the kids, they should be spared of it. In fact, isn't that the very same argument that alot of parents shy away from pushing their kids to master math and science?

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Incidentally, yesterday I read another article, about a high school teacher getting suspended (but was later reluctantly reinstated) for dissing her own students for being "lazy" and "frightfully dim". I have no doubts that there are students to that caliber. More surprisingly is how some readers' comments from supposedly parents saying that they would pull their kids out from the class, should this teacher be teaching. Sure, parents should be the best champion (our princes and princesses) for their own kids, but have we, collectively as parents, got to a point where we cannot accept potentially truthful comments about our kids?

As another fair-minded reader noted in the forum, kids these days have become so used to entitlement, that everyone has to have a trophy for just being present in a soccer or baseball game. Parents have to understand that, at some point (most likely when kids start middle school), kids are going to get used to the increasingly competitive world. If kids do not master the basic skills and discipline and attitude before they reach grade 5, they would have had serious problems catching up. If parents continue to foster that an entitlement mentality in kids, that they deserve to have good grades just by being there or putting in a less-than-average essay, even if schools and teachers cave in and give them all straight A's, these kids are going to have more problems when (and if) they get to college, or when they start working in the adult world.

On the housing needs in Hong Kong, et al...

I was reading this CNN article about the so-called coffin homes in Hong Kong. This came in close succession with the Wall Street Journal on the same topic just couple of days prior.

I grew up in Hong Kong, and I have my opinion on the issue. To be sure, the wealth gap in Hong Kong has always been big which accounts for one of the priciest in terms of real estate in the world for a very long time. If you think the coffin home phenomenon is new, you're quite wrong.

The lower strata of the society in Hong Kong has always tried to scrap by. In the post-WWII era, there had been lots of squatters who built their sheds on hillside. These squatters suffered various safety concerns, not the least fire hazard (since illegal utility cables were put in to steal electricity from main powerlines), but also the elements (including typhoons and landslides). Over the years, the then colonial British Hong Kong government had tried various means to dismantle these squatters, but they always sprang back to life. Afterall, these people had nowhere to turn to. During the push to build affordable public housing for lower income families, most (if not all) of these squatters were immediately relocated to public housing estates. Even to this day, getting in public housing in Hong Kong is like winning a lottery ticket, because unlike those in US, the public housing projects are very well run in Hong Kong and is very affordable to lower income families. The decent public housing, plus public education, has allowed them pathway to move up the food chain in economic ladders. Indeed, I view this as one of the achievements of the colonial British government in Hong Kong.

One would ask, why the sudden focus on the topic again, decades later now?

There is truth in the statement, that the wealth gap in Hong Kong has become wider. One could say too, that the challenge to the current Hong Kong government (the SAR - Special Administrative Region - that is now part of the greater mainland China) is bigger. The SAR Hong Kong government has tried to maintain the status quo, following the same playbook as the previous colonial British government for Hong Kong. It doesn't quite work out that well though.

There are now influx of immigrants from mainland China to Hong Kong that it's unable to say no to. For its small plot of land, Hong Kong has grown from some 5.5 million in population around 1997 (when its sovereignty was handed over to China by Britain) to more than 7 million now. The huge influx of wealth from mainland China has also created opportunities, but headaches as well, to this old British colony. As the mainland Chinese can pay, property developers would obviously want to cater for them, racing to build more bigger luxury units in Hong Kong. The overall wealth effect that jacks up property prices of almost all real estates further pushes the low income families to the fringe.

You normally would not hear much of the Hong Kong native locals complain too much about it, because they know this has always been the case. The new immigrants from China, some of those who are used to getting help from the government, are not so sanguine about it. They expect to find gold in Hong Kong, and surely they would be sorely disappointed.

I have first-hand observations of this, because when I was small, my mom used to own a building which is subdivided into a number of 1-bedrooms to individual tenants. Obviously these 1-bedrooms were considerably bigger and better than these coffin homes. Afterall, they are 70-100 square feet per, and usually singles or childless couples rented them. Rents were low, but it's a roof over their heads, and it allows them a way station to save up for something better. I remember there were times when I would go with my mom to the building and collect rents at month end. The tenants were decent, honest, working-class folks, and my mom dealt with them with respect. Although my mom had since sold that building, I still have fond memories going there from time to time.

These days, I have no doubts that new immigrants from China would regard those 1-bedrooms with distaste. They would say, they are not treated humanely. They would say, Hong Kong government does not do a good job helping them. They would say, it's not fair for them to have to work so hard, and still live in a tinny-tiny home, when someone else has a mansion. If they think waiting three years for a public housing unit is long, they should ask the locals to see how some had waited for 10+ years for one. Nothing is a given in Hong Kong.

I know I would sound like a Tea Party or even GOP fundamentalist for saying this, but you know what, the government in Hong Kong (before '97) had never given more handouts to its citizens than it is now. In fact, the way that current Hong Kong SAR government bends over to win public approval is sometimes quite laughable, its giving away of HK$6000 for free is a case in point. The colonial Hong Kong government would take decisive actions and push forward with the effort; the current SAR government would take whatever actions that either Beijing, or main media, or poll numbers, would want them to take. It's pathetic.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not really in the Tea Party or GOP camp on principle. Quite far from it, I do believe that the government does have moral responsibility to provide certain safety net to the poorest in society. Providing decent public housing to some of the poorest is desperately needed. For others who simply think, "we want to pay less for housing, and the government should for that," I'd say, m'am, I'd like that too, but that's not what a government is for. Along the same line, I don't agree with the Obama's push to delay or stop foreclosure, in order to keep people in their homes (???). I'd say, dude, if you can't afford it, it's not your home, to start with, and the government has no business keeping you there, just so that you can live there, rent free.

On the Gates philanthropy on education, public school system, et al...

A small disclaimer is in order. I have not been a big fan of Bill Gates, nor most Microsoft software(not the first version of anything anyways). (I'm more in the Steve Jobs' and Apple camp, in terms of innovation.) But one thing that Microsoft has exhibited, that inherits from its founder, is its perseverance and tenacity in pursing something, and the trial-and-error in mastering the execution.

My opinion has since turned around quite some on Gates after his retirement from the commercial world, turning his focus on philanthropy. Although Gates Foundation is still very much a work in progress, I've been impressed by the passion and effort that go with it, even if the impact of success is still oft elusive.

Another plus is Gates' candidness on his foundation's impact to improving the schooling system.

I'm not an educator. I'm a parent with young kids, hence my vested interest in the subject matter. I'm schooled at various stages in four continents, including Asia, Europe, Australia and US; as such, I have my own opinion as a student myself in this domain. Granted that I never pay as much attention to the area of education until I have kids of my own, all the nitty-gritty little details over the years have come back to me.

To compare those various systems that I was exposed to, with what's in US now, I can't help but feeling exasperated by how dysfunctional the US system is.

Before I even get to that, I must say, I never have any preconceived notion on labor unions. I understand how they work; I understand their need of existence, particularly in the turn of the last century when the little people need to band together in order to stem exploitation and to improve their collective bargaining ability. That's especially true for traditionally grueling work like coal mining. I get that.

But what strikes me as particularly dysfunctional in the whole debate of standardized testing students, or measuring/evaluating teacher performance, or the No Child Left Behind Act, is how backward the teacher's union (and other labor unions who chime in to this subject) has handled the whole debate.

I must admit, I can get pretty worked up - angry, even - when I hear all those statements from teacher's union countering the need to measure students performance, that teachers' profession is really different, that you can't simply measure students performance or dream about linking teacher's performance with what students have learnt. Whenever I hear anyone say to me "oh, this is different," like the way analysts tried to justify the ridiculous IPO price for outfits like Webvan that turned out to be big flame-out. The underlying argument for not wanting to measure their performance - Webvan or teachers - is really the same. Although past performance is never a sure thing to measure future success, history does provide a good guidance of what works and what doesn't, and a decent indication to weed out alot of bottom feeders.

To me, all those debates and discussions really come down to this: What is the function of a teacher? Teachers are there to do a job, and that job is to educate the young minds of students. Teachers are not there just to babysit kids and let kids stay in school for 6-8 hours a day doing nothing. That inexplicable link between students performance and teachers performance cannot be explained away, saying it does not matter. Yes, it does matter, hugely.

Granted that there are many exterior and intrinsic factors that impact on students performance too in which teachers cannot control. Parents involvement and expectations on students matter 95% of the time. One cannot expect a student to learn all that s/he can within the 6-8 hours while in school, then stop the learning outside of school. It's indeed unrealistic. That, however, does not remove the need to evaluate teachers' performance. Do we stop measuring the teacher's performance simply because students' family is not helping? The answer is obviously no.

As it is, for all that I hear, that's exactly what teachers' unions are advocating. Their argument is that, since there are other factors that go in to a student's performance, you cannot blame the teacher for not doing his/her job when the student performs poorly in tests. So, the students should not be tested (so that no one would know that the student hasn't learnt anything at all); instead, students should either be moved swiftly up or out of the schooling system. Out of sight; out of mind, and it becomes someone else's problem. And if the students' performance is not measured, neither should the teachers. In short, teachers and school administrations can do whatever they want. All they need (and care about), is their mandatory pay raises, benefits, sick and vacation days.

I have been lucky enough not having to subject myself to failing school systems like those dropout factories mentioned by Gates or the documentary Waiting For Superman. I've had more than enough second hand accounts of such failing schools to get the picture. Whenever I think of such ailment, it's maddening and sickening to me at the same time.

How could teachers' union protect its weakest members who oftentimes have no right to be a teacher at all? How dare the unions risk students' and kids' future by protecting and preserving its self-interests, all in the name of helping the kids. It has nothing to do with the kids, and everything to do with the adults (bad teachers). The position of the unions is that, they don't want to measure teachers' performance because they don't want to distinguish bad teachers from good ones. They don't want the good ones to be rewarded, because it would mean the bad ones would invariably have to be dropped, and then the union membership (and coffer) will drop.

Gates has it absolutely right. No one in their right mind can support the argument that, multiplication in Massachusetts is different from multiplication in Alabahama or New York and others. But that's exactly what's happening now. As public schools fail to educate kids on basic skills like math and reading/writing, they would rather dumb down the standards instead, hence all the push-back of standardized tests for kids (mandate of No Child Left Behind), teachers' evaluation, or even resorting to cheating to juice up the test scores.

Thing is, there are many good teachers, or at least reasonably decent ones. And the advocacy of Gates for standard core curriculum makes alot of sense to me. One way or the other, students and teachers need to be tested on what they have learnt and how well they have taught. I would not accept any argument lesser than that.

What about those students whose family can be so uncooperative that teachers can't do anything about it? Truth be told, there will always cases like that. In some areas like inner city, a large majority of student body falls in that category. How do you help the teachers to help the kids? Teachers can't deal with that alone. School admin and state have to step in.

To be sure, for all those comparison of student test scores between US and Asia and other countries, it probably has ingrained this impression to most Americans or westerners that there's nothing ailing public schools in Asia. That's far from truth. Take the case of Hong Kong, for example. Public schools are categorized into Band 1 (best) to Band 5 (our inner city equivalence of the terribles and our dropout factories in US). It's a nightmare to teach in Band 5 schools. There are even studies about it. Most teachers in Band 5 don't and can't do much teaching. It's discouraging, it's frustrating, sometimes it's even life-threatening (eg. knifes in schools). But mostly, all we hear is the exemplary straight-A students from Asia who are out to take our jobs and the future of our kids. That only shows half of the picture.

It's laudable to have someone as high profile as Gates to push the subject of and the need to improve our public schools, looking at it from all angles (basic research, the financing, alternative schooling avenues like charter schools and parochial schools, the core and variations in curriculum etc). The kind of public debate from politicians, with such near-sighted focus on school vouchers (thereby pretty much giving up hope of ever repairing public schools). Then again, no one wants their kids to be the guinea pigs for any experimental projects, as the Waiting For Superman documentary has rightly pointed out.

I can only hope, that Gates and others who have ambition to do good in this area do not get so discouraged that they would give up on it in the end. The idea of just throwing money (and more money) to the current system, without any change and real reform, is not going to work. It's going to only line the pockets of bad teachers, and kids in bad schools are going to be the ones holding the bags. We can't be complacent to just let it happen. As a society, we simply can't afford to have future generations all falling through cracks like that.

On migraines, and other thoughts...

I was reading the New York Times on Michelle Bachmann's migraine. I have little care about Tea Party (of whom Bachmann is a clear favorite), and I don't want to talk politics today. The report does bring back some old memory on migraine.

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My sister used to have a church friend (Wendy) who was also a family friend. I use past tense because she has passed away some years back. She had had migraine since she's quite young. She had always been told, it's normal since alot of women have it and suffer from it. We all thought it's normal.

A few decades back, my dad suffered from back pain. Occupational hazard, for his line of work. Some acquaintance recommended a doctor in a coastal city in China for treatment. He dutifully bought his own medicine, syringe and all the supplies, and went with my mom to that hospital where this doctor practiced. See, this was before Deng Xiaoping opened the door of China to the outside world, and this hospital was really a rather backward-looking building with no clean supplies. They practice mostly Chinese medicine treatment, and there was very little equipment for diagnosis, like those you would find in modern hospitals in the western world.

Part of the reason why my dad went to China for treatment was that, he had pretty much exhausted all options in modern medicine. He tried therapy; he tried medication, most of which had only provided temporary short-term alleviation, if at all. Eventually, the doctors told my dad that the only option left was to have a major surgery to correct a couple of disks in his lower back, which is a major and costly operation with no guarantee of success, and no guarantee that the issue would recur. The China trip was more like a last resort.

Quite miraculously, the non-invasive treatment (with no diagnosis done on dad whatsoever) worked for dad. The treatment consisted of mostly herbal medicine, and this procedure that uses a primitive suction cup type of glass device on the lower back multiple times a day. Within a few months, the lower back pain went away. It hasn't recurred since then, which has now been more than three decades now. Because of that, my dad has almost come to worship this doctor as some kind of god-like figure. He has since turned himself into a walking proof of the medical marvel that this doctor was capable of, and would recommend the doctor to anyone with any kind of ailment. You see, in Chinese medicine, there is no such thing as specialty - a chinese doctor would treat any ailment. My mom has come to resent the simplistic, single-focus view my dad has, of what this doctor was capable of doing. I would admit, I have my doubts too.

Fast forward a couple of decades. One time, when Wendy was visiting us, she casually mentioned about her migraine that had bothered her since childhood. My dad, being a rather simple innocent man that he is, leaped at the chance to recommend this doctor to Wendy. His enthusiasm was so infectious that she had decided to give it a try. One month into her new marriage, she flew to Hong Kong, bought her medical supplies, and flew to China to see this doctor. (Although China has since improved alot, clean medical supplies can still come up short.) She stayed for a few weeks of non-invasive treatment, got the rest of the herbal medicine supplies, and went back to Hong Kong for recuperation. The treatment, quite remarkably (and almost unremarkably at the same time), was exactly the same as the one that my dad had received a decade earlier, only that his ailment was back pain, and hers was serious migraine. No matter, it's all the same thing to Chinese doctors.

Less than two months into the regiment, Wendy was dead. She died in Hong Kong, in the arms of her husband of less than six months.

It turned out, the autopsy showed that her migraine that had bothered her since childhood had been a result of a benign brain tumor. It had been brewing all these years, but she never got it checked out. Afterall, everyone told her that most women had it, and it was not at all uncommon. She never took it seriously. As in the case of Bachmann and all the subsequent discussions on her "migraine problem," everyone just presumes that it's ok to just take preventive medication to stop the pain.

But of course, the pain is the one power mechanism in which our body tells us, there's something wrong inside our body, and we need to check it out. Wendy never did, apparently. The brain tumor grew, but the migraine had become so familiar to her that she just took it as a matter of course.

There has been saying, that tumor and cancerous cells need protein to feed on. Wendy ate and lived rather healthily, so the brain tumor just grew ever so slowly over time. Unfortunately for her, the herbal medicine from the chinese doctor was so nourishing to her body that it helped feed the brain tumor too. So nourishing, in fact, that the brain tumor was able to grow in a few short months to sufficient size to eventually kill her.

While the causal relationship of her untimely death, and the migraine treatment from the chinese doctor, was not fully established, it was pretty understood that the link between the two was just too strong to ignore. Although Wendy's family was sad, they did not feel bitter or grow hostile to my dad for his almost innocent suggestion on the god-like power of this chinese doctor. They understood it, that he meant to do good, with his well-meaning intentions. Regardless, my dad has felt the guilt to the extent that he never mentions or recommends his chinese doctor to anyone anymore from then on.

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Bachmann's episode and the attitude of the discussions toward her handling of her own migraine problem remind strongly of what happened to Wendy, before and since.

Is migraine really something that we (women, in particular) have to endure? Should we have pushed more for diagnosis, rather than just taking medication to suppress the symptom of pain? I believe, it's a yes and yes, to both questions.

I hope there won't be more repeats of another Wendy, of treatment without diagnosis, be the treatment simply pain-killer or some other form of treatment (invasive or otherwise).

On raising kids in a globalized world...

These days, it's almost fashionable for American parents to feel fear for their kids. Fear for not pushing their kids hard enough. Fear for not having enough extracurricular activities (sports, music). Fear for the kids not having enrolled on sufficient advanced placement classes to jostle their way into one of the Ivy Leagues. Fear for the kids losing out and not being able to compete in the globalized world.

And why not.

Many parents themselves have struggled with the same fear for themselves, not the least due to their own job being outsourced and offshored to another lower-cost country like India and Eastern Europe (for high tech jobs), and China (for manufacturing, of course). The parents themselves have been unable to stem this tide of job loss, and hope their kids would not suffer the same fate (not to mention, excel in this global rat race).

Americans used to have big ego, and rightfully so. The whole world seems to gravitate around them. US is the single largest economy (and consumers) in the world. It has high paying jobs. It has the deepest and most liquid financial markets. USD is global currency. Everyone has to learn English in order to keep up with it. Americans are kings and princelings.

How time has changed. The Great Recession that was brought on by the subprime mortgage mess starting in 2008 has brought the greatest economy to its knee, and no one has any freaking clue how to fix it. Washington (White House and Congress alike) is paralyzed on how best to handle it. Meanwhile, the debt ceiling is nigh, and all we hear is the bickering on whether and how to increase the debt ceiling so that US government (and Americans) can continue borrowing. No matter that credit agency threatens the same treatment to US treasury (ie. downgrade) as the Greek sovereign debts have suffered. All these must have brought on an incredible amount of self-doubt and soul-searching among alot of Americans, even though politicians are unable or unwilling to do so.

Add to that is the rise of Dragon in the East - that great big middle kingdom that only a few centuries ago, had the same belief that it too was the center of the universe (hence, the name middle kingdom). Indeed, the more than meteoric rise to economic power in just a few short decades since Deng Xiaoping opened its door to the outside world, is nothing to snort about. No matter that China can and has borrowed hugely from the lessons learnt by the western world in the hard way, and can take/borrow/coerce the technological know-how from the West to perfect its industries (including manufacturing and financial).

And then there is the so-called Tiger Mom book that claims to have found the exact recipe to rearing the perfect student ripe for Ivy League. It matters little, that it's the mother who was doing all the choosing ("kid, you are doing violin") and pushing (how about 4 hours violin practice every night) and thinking (you're going to apply to Harvard). No doubt it'll churn out technocrats. Afterall, just looking at the huge number of university graduates with technical degrees in China and India is enough to give any American parents shudder, if not an outright cold.

Equally ironic is the almost action-and-reaction kind of New Yorker column of JT Tran on the bamboo ceiling. The hard question to ask, and the cold reality to face, is, what happens to the straight-A, Ivy League kiddo graduates from parental wings, to reeeeally compete in this globalized world. While some people don't want to admit it, or acknowledge that he has hit on an equally raw nerve of Asian Americans, even second and subsequent generations, that there's this unseen, untalked of, bamboo ceiling that they have to break through. No violin lesson, or Ivy League diploma, is going to give cover to sonny for too long. Afterall, there's only one Yo Yo Ma. (No, Lang Lang is more a loud performer than a true pianist.) Can the kids really think for themselves? Can the Amy Chua kids do that?

These days too, it's fashionable to get johnnys or marys Mandarin-speaking nanny. Full immersion. Kids have to learn Mandarin to succeed in this global world! Much as learning Japanese was fashionable, 30 years before. And why not, Japan was on its way to overtake America in every conceivable ways. If you don't learn Japanese, you can't compete. It's not cheap doing all these full immersion thing of course, but parents have to make do.

For those who have even more resources, you have to relocate your butts to the East. Full immersion to the language is not enough. Full immersion to the culture is the key, as we're told.

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I always look at all these with mild amusement. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for quite a number of the propositions. Learning a second language is always a good thing. Knowing different cultures is even better. I, too, have two young kids who would one day join this global rat race. I would be lying if I say I don't give a damn. I certainly do; but with my own flavor.

I grew up in a highly homogeneous society in Asia. We learn English early on, but learning a language without understanding the culture is like perfecting the skills of reciting A-Z, without knowing how to use that to make meaningful words with the letters. My parents are not highly educated. While they have high expectations for us the kids to do well in school, they never push us to do any extracurricular activities. I master my English because I find the language interesting, and it's a medium that I went on to master other more interesting stuffs (watching sitcoms - ha!). But it wasn't until I started schooling in a western country (on my own initiative) that I was forced to learn more of the actual culture, not just the manufactured ones from Hollywood or MTV. I went on to work in four different continents in high tech jobs for the past 20 years. I won't say I'm successful in mastering this globalized world, but I'd say, I'm fairly comfortable going from one country (and culture) to another with ease.

My parents never push me to do any of these. I follow my interests, and life takes interesting turn. The closest description to that, is the connecting the dots comments by Steve Job's immensely insightful and inspiring commencement speech at Stanford. As he so precisely nailed it, you can't connect the dots looking forward (as the Amy Chua types would want to have you believe that she can). It's when you look back that you can connect the dots. I know exactly what Jobs meant by that, because looking back, it's as if by God's providence, that I would do this and that in my life. In fact, I too had taken a couple of years of sojourn working different jobs before going back to college to study computer science. While it might feel as if I've lost (and wasted) those couple of years in career building, I feel that those early years of work have allowed me to see things differently, an almost different perspective on the highly organized things of 0's and 1's binary facts in computer science. I was much more grounded. And I was able to build my later life and work, leveraging on those early years too.

The difficulty (and a life challenge, no less) of child rearing is that, you can't tell the kids what to love and not love. I find it almost sad, that parents would pave an exacting path for their kids to follow. In the Asian world of childrearing, particularly in this competitive globalized world, Asian parents (I should say, parents in Asia) do not allow any margin of errors. I understand the tug and pull, and the inherent contradictions of that, because looking at my extended families in Asia now, with nephews around the same age as my young kids, I can see how much more pressure that they're under. Homework and practice for 4-6 hours every night (excluding dinner time) are not uncommon. That's what it takes to have a robo-serial standardized test buster. Kids are taught not to think, not even feel, but just do. That's what it takes to solve as many equations within a 5 minutes cramp. It drills into you.

When I look back at articles like this one, that talks about immersing kids in the culture. I sometimes secretly wonder, what kind of identity would the kid has of him/herself. It goes back to my own experience, and the self-doubt and searching of one's own identity in shifting cultures. I can tell you that, if I have not had those few years of sojourn, I would not have been as sure of myself, of who I am. Sometimes blending in - the more clinical term for it, is assimilation into a society and culture - is good; it's even necessary. But if you're not sure of yourself; if you don't even know who you are or what you're made of, you'll become another drifter.

From time to time, I wish I could teach the kids the kind of experience that I've immersed in, to learn different cultures, to experience life, while at the same time, pursuing a fruitful career. But I don't want to choose for them. I've made a conscientious decision, that I would allow them exposure to as many activities as they fancy, and let them choose. After that, it's their life they have to decide; it's their life they need to lead.

It's sad that, so many have been taken in by the Amy Chua style parenting, as if it's gospel. It's equally sad for others to rebuff her in a knee-jerk reaction, saying they'll let their kids do whatever they want. Therein lies the issue. As parents, we're not supposed to just let kids do whatever. But neither should we restrict them so much that there's no room for them to choose, let alone think for themselves.

It's a fine balance that each parent has to find, in order to get to that nirvana of controlled chaos. I'm still learning that with my kids, and each day is a bright new day (as my son puts it).

On name change and marriage...

I respect customs and traditions of other cultures, much as I expect others to respect mine. But that doesn't lessen the absurdity that I sometimes secretly feel about some of the practices. Name change of the bride after marriage to match that of her husband is one of those.

In Asia, no one expects the woman to change her name upon marriage. Like the Chinese, people would call you Mrs so-and-so (the husband's last name), or add the Husband last name to the full name of the wife. But it's all that's for - during greetings and social interactions. Nothing is necessary on papers.

My first encounter on how strongly the West feels about this issue was some years back, when a friend of mine was getting married. She's marrying to an very open-minded guy. She wanted to keep her last name; he had no problem with that at all. But of course, there's always problem. And the problem was the in-laws (to be). Both in-laws felt so strongly that their future daughter-in-law was to carry their family name, that they refused to attend their wedding. In fact, the in-laws even threatened to disown the son for marrying a woman who wouldn't change her last name to bear the husband's last name. The in-laws and the son had stopped all communications.

Both being grad students at an Ivy League at the time, the couple didn't agree with the in-laws. The guy sided with the wife. They decided to live their own life. The way the husband saw it was that, he felt no animosity against his own parents, but he didn't agree with their position. He said, they (his parents) would just have to deal with it, because this is his wife, not theirs. If they wanted to make up, they know how to find him (he's studying/working on campus anyways). If not, so be it.

Such as the way it should be.

So, this morning, when I read this column on Wall Street Journal about the big fuss of name change again, that incident of my friend came rushing back to me. Almost two decades later, it still baffles me.

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Perhaps I was lucky not to have to confront with such issues. I do have some appreciation on how much a hassle a name change involves.

I've always kept the same name that my parents gave me. I always thought, this is the name my parents gave me, and this is who I am. Socially, people know me by my English name, but on papers, I've always kept my ethnic name. That does come with its own difficulty. My ethnic name is rather hard to pronounce, and others always mistake my name as a guy's name. I always find it amusing, when I see mass-marketers mix-and-match my name and my husband's name this way and that, butchering us to make up one identities. Sometimes, he would have my last name; sometimes, I would have his last name; sometimes, my middle name (from my ethnic name) would become my first or last name; same goes with my husband. I don't care about junk mails, but when it's things like tax records, or bank details, and some such, it's not so funny.

Finally, couple of years ago, I decided to bite the bullet. Rather than having someone butchered my name for me, I would add some clarity to it. After using my English informally (or sometimes doing double-quote my English name, to denote it as my nickname) for more than two decades now, I've decided that this name should become part of my permanent fixture. I've decided to take it up as English name, then putting my regular ethnic name as my middle name, and my last name would stay the same. My parents have no issue with it at all. My husband is all for it.

One morning, I went to the City Hall to enquire about it, and was referred to the court house (where all the personal and public records were kept). When I announced my intention to change name (which I thought should be fairly straightforward) to the clerk, she asked me if I filled out the form yet. I said no; and was given a fairly simple form to fill...except that it requires the signature of my husband!!! I asked the clerk, why do I need my husband's signature (ie. approval) for a name change. I was told, that's the law - when a married woman wants a name change, it has to have the husband's signature (as if he's her legal guardian or something). I asked her, would the husband need the wife's signature if he changes his name? The answer was no.

I must tell you, I'm more than mildly annoyed about this. I'm an adult with good standing on my own right. Why do I need to get someone else's signature to signify my actions, one way or the other, simply because I'm married to a man? I took the form and went home. I was still seething about the injustice of it, on how men and women are treated.

While my husband understands and sympathizes it all, his philosophy is, let's get it over and done with, then we won't have to worry about it, even though it won't solve any of the underlying injustice, which is a fight for another day.

I finally relented, signed the damn form, with the grudging approval seal of husband's signature on it. The rest went through relatively painlessly. I submitted the signed form, paid the small fee, and got the name change certificate rightaway. To be sure, there're hassles to be had (ie. change all the names on ALL the documents and papers). All in all, it probably took me close to a year, before I finally change my name on everything, including some obscure docs that I rarely remember.

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Looking back, I won't force the requirement of name change on anyone at all. To the customs and traditions of bride taking up the groom's last name, I'd say, it's long overdue to update such outdated customs. There is no need to "brand" the wife in such offensive way as to claim her as his. If the wife wants to be branded, fine; if not, it should be her personal choice. No one should ever be forced upon to make such decision as to change one's own identity. Period.

On cutting my own hair...

I used to have long hair way back when, but I've long given up on it after my first child was born. I don't have time to deal with it. Plus I don't need guys to look at or compliment my long straight jet black hair. I wish I have come to realize the big market (and needs) for selling or donating hair since my hair used to garner so much compliment that I wish I have found better use of the hair after they were cut. It's too late now. Still, I love my short hair. It's one of the best things I've discovered. I don't even need to comb my hair. I don't have to worry about strong wind blowing this way and that, and I forget to bring my scrunchie to tie up my hair. Yes, the compliments were nice, but I've come to appreciate efficiency and convenience much more. Plus, I don't need guys looking at me anymore. Leave that to the younger women. :)

Don't get me wrong, my long hair never gave me much hassle. I never need to use hairdryer, and I never really need to comb or brush it. Afterall, the weight of the hair itself and the natural straightness would ensure it that once the hair is dried, they just came straight down my back. I only comb my hair when I like to play with my hair. I must admit it too, that there are so many more ways to play with one's hair - tie it up this way and that, french braid, ponytail, pigtail, bun, all up or separate sideway, add to those the variety of scrunchies and clips and headbands, the possibilities are endless. Ah, how I miss those, but I don't have time for them anymore.

I don't know about you, but I've always had a haircut problem. I need a haircut every three months or so. With the short hair now, three months are about the most I can stretch it out to. I can't even begin to count how many hair salons I've tried, but rarely do they cut it to my liking. What most hair stylists fail to see it from my perspective is that, I want my hair to be really short. These days, with the pixie cut back in vogue, it at least makes it easier to explain the kind of layering I want it. Still, pixie cut is still too long for me in the back and on the side. Most stylists can't possibly give me a boy cut, but that's much closer to what I want than they are willing to deliver. While I understand their concerns (since there's no turning back, should they cut my hair too short, and I could get very upset with them), it doesn't lessen the frustration.

And so, it was almost a godsend to discover this hair salon near chinatown, where two male salonists provide haircuts to men and women alike. I have come to like my back to be cut using razors. Having said that, the haircuts were never exactly perfect. In particular, the spots above the ears were always insufficiently thinned, so that I always have to do some trimming afterwards. Still, this hair salon was the closest I could find that gave a haircut I want, so I stick with them.

The other problem with this hair salon was that, I don't live anywhere near chinatown, so every three months, I had to make special trips to chinatown to get my haircuts over the weekends. Funny thing is, weekends were always either very busy, or very quiet. When it's busy, the waiting time was long. When it's quiet, all there were left in the shop were the assistants who did only hair wash and sweeping floor. I'd had my fair share of angst, when I got to the hair salon, and was quickly shoved through the hair wash, waiting for hours for the salonists to show up. Their rationale must be that, once customers got their hair all wet, they became captive audience and would have to wait, no matter what.

Parking is such a pain in chinatown. I drag the prospect every time when it's close to the haircut time because it could mean I would get not only a haircut, but a parking ticket as well.

So then, earlier this year, the awakening was finally here. I took the train to the city (since I didn't want to drive and have to find parking), walked to chinatown, just to discover the shock that the hair salon had closed down. It must have been around for more than ten years now. I thought their business was ok; I guess it's not good enough.

I dragged my feet back home with such heavy heart. You can't imagine the drag I was going through, and the prospect that I have to go through the same looking-and-searching and trial-and-error, in order to find any hair salon. I was quite fed up with it.

I did some thinking when I got home. I have become quite determined that I don't want to be held hostage by that again, that I can get a perfect haircut, whenever I want it. I think back to how the guys cut my hair, and ask myself, is there anything I can (or cannot do). I go to google and youtube to check how people do it. Some of the very professional looking salonists disgust me because their hands and scissors move about so furiously fast that I know I could never do on my own head. But then, the now defunct hair salonists in chinatown were never that fast, and they did my short haircut ok; hence, I've come to rest on the comfort that if the chinatown guys could do it, I should be able to do too. I know I won't be able to use razors, so I look online for alternatives.

One thing I distinctly remember was how the chinatown guys thin and layer my hair using a pair of shear scissors, yet so little hair came off in each cut. I have a pair of shear scissors at home too, but each cut always see large chunks of hair coming off with it. I realize it must be a different kind of shear scissors than mine. And then, I found the online forum with people having the same issue. The cause? The salonists were using double-shear whereas I was using single-shear scissors. Double-shear scissors cut far less hair in each cut, allowing much easier and more time for trimming, thinning, and layering. I went to ebay and bought a pair of double-shear scisorrs, and was waiting for it with trepidation.

When the pair of double-shear scissors finally arrives, I handle it with such apprehension. My 1-2 weeks of wait time were cutting close, and I was pass the three months' mark and needed a haircut badly. So, one night, after dinner, I locked myself in the bathroom. With a mirror in front of me, armed with a few pairs of scissors (single-shear, double-shear, straight blade), a comb, another hand-held mirror for checking the back of my hair, with even duster and dustpan for cleanup, I was quite determined that, one way or the other, hair will come off. I had to strip (as my arms needed to raise during the cutting) first, then sat straight on a low-back chair, and stared at myself in the mirror.

And cut, I did. With the double-shear in my right hand, my left hand started feeling the back tentatively. I could easily find the lower back of my hair where it needed thinning and layering very badly. That's where I would start. After a few cuts, I became much more confident, since the double-shear scissors indeed cut much less hair than the single-shears. The layering felt right to my left hand after the few cuts. It bears out with verifying by two mirrors, one in front and one from the back. I realized then, that I have a winner.

In the end, I got the perfect haircut that I've always been wanting. I can't believe my own eyes. :) Granted that the chinatown guys could finish the job in less than 10 minutes, and it took me over an hour. It's quite tiring. But I can't tell you how much satisfaction I've got when it's all done. I finally, finally find my perfect short haircut, that I can have it whenever I want it. For all that, it's free!!! You can't beat that.

Secretly, I know my family has the brave side in us all. Back then my younger sister had the same courage to cut her own hair too. (She also had a short haircut in high school.) When I told her about my endeavor, she told me, her motivation was exactly the same as mine. She was kind of forced into it, since she couldn't find anyone or anywhere who could give her a haircut that she wanted.

So, now, I'm free. I won't be held hostage to a less than perfect service. I won't need to make trips to the hair salon every three months for my pilgrimage. And it costs me nothing. Now, I can give myself small trims every now and then. I won't have to wait until the hair gets in my eyes or neck, which gets me so worked up that I would endure another trip to chinatown because the hair annoyance outweighs convenience. I won't have to make such decisions anymore. I was so proud of myself, for the rather professional looking haircut.

It's so awesome.

On the recent price hike of Netflix...

I've been with Netflix for some seven years now. It's been a fun ride. I got tired of having to physically go to DVD stores for rental and returns; the late fees were even more tiresome. I guess they have to make their money somewhere.

Netflix has been reasonable. The delivery and processing are fast. If I time it right, I usually get new DVD in the mail every other day. Not bad, aye. Netflix has always been laser-focused on what their core competency is. I like it that they don't get distracted by all the social networking hype. Heck, they even got rid of their community feature which got alot of subscribers mad. But I don't mind it at all. Afterall, I keep my movie queues, and I find the movies and TV shows and documentaries I like. I have little care about anyone else. The recommendation engine by Netflix is decent. So, I can't complain. In fact, Netflix has been quite fair-minded. There were a few occasions in which the Netflix website was down, and I got refund even without prompting. I can tell you, that's a rarity in the corporate world. Try telling that to the big telco; my calls get dropped from time to time, and my complaints won't even get answered satisfactorily by their support, and you can very much forget about refund.

Not sure if you know the background of the recent spat of Netflix users. A little while back (it might have been a year or so ago), Netflix wants to jostle its way into online streaming. It aggressively expands its online streaming catalog, steadily improves the streaming quality. Any subscribers can get the online streaming for free. Netflix has become such a force to behold, that movie studios and cable companies must be trembling with fear.

So then, yesterday I got email notifications from Netflix, saying that they have decided to split the DVD rental service with online streaming. In short, no more free lunch. In the parlour of Google, no more beta version of the real thing. With it, comes price change. I've been on the cheapest plan, $9.99 a month for unlimited DVD, one DVD at a time. With the split, my DVD only plan would actually see price reduced to $7.99 a month. But for those people who want online streaming too - those who would scream "I WANT TO SEE IT NOW!" no doubt - they'll have to fork out another $7.99 a month for the streaming-only subscription.

To be sure, I've become a bit spoilt and pampered by Netflix with its free lunch. Granted that its DVD catalog and streaming catalog are quite different. As much as Netflix has tried to paint that picture, you can most likely find only old movies and TV shows on its streaming catalog. No doubt the movie studios will see to it, that Netflix doesn't get the streaming rights of the latest and greatest movies just hot off the theatre. For me, I like classics, old movies, and documentaries. So, the online streaming free lunch allows me to watch it on my laptop whenever I get bored from work. I'm a patient person; I can still wait for the DVD for latest movies in the mail. I have no problem with that.

Apparently, once something is given out for free, people take it for granted, like it's their birthright. Such is the case with the ferocious attacks to Netflix about its price change, or pseudo price hike of some 60%, as they see it, since they would have to pay double (for 2 plans, one for DVD, one for streaming) instead of just one plan.

I find it all rather amusing. For all the threats of defecting and cancelation of their Netflix subscription, I wonder how many of those would actually carry it through. Afterall, if they have been on the cheapest plan (like I do, paying $9.99 a month), the price change would mean ($7.99 x 2) - $9.99, which comes down to an extra $5.99 a month. If they truly love the streaming service, is $5.99 really that big a deal? Most people pay more than that to buy chips or snacks or even coffee. This is perhaps the biggest cheapskate in my most recent memory.

Price change or not, I'm actually rather secretly glad about this split of subscription plans. The DVD-only plan has worked quite well for me. It's delay gratification; in between the waiting time, I can truly focus on doing some real work (since watching movies is my main entertainment). The instant gratification from its Instant Viewing feature means that I spend more time watching movies than doing real work, which is...not good for me, and I know it. Imagine, instead of doing work or reading a book, I would watch 2-4 movies or documentaries every night. It's free afterall, and I almost feel some obligation to watch in order to get my money's worth (!!!). Twisted logic, isn't it. :)

For that very private reason of mine, I'm only too glad to oblige to Netflix, by telling Netflix that I don't really need online streaming. Yeah yeah, call me old-fashioned. I don't like or believe in social networking. And I don't really want online streaming that much afterall. As such, I change my subscription, and change it back to DVD-only, starting next month. For all that, I get price reduction (from $9.99 to $7.99 a month). All the more reason. :)

Now, I'm happy to have all my time at night again, for some work done, or a few books, or even more chitchats with family. It's a good decision for me. Thanks, Netflix. :)


PS - Granted that I'm in the top 0.001% of movie reviewer ranking on Netflix, I don't think I'll miss writing reviews too much.

On merits and stigma of vocational school...

It's always refreshing whenever one reads articles or reporting that makes senses. The New York Times article on vocational school today is one of those.

I never understand why everyone's dead set on insisting 4-year college degree for all kids - and I mean, all kids. Have those in authority ever considered the fact that not all kids are cut out to take the college track? Granted that basic literacy is fundamental to all kids, that does not equate to pushing all kids down the college path. By talking up the value proposition of 4-year college, it's synonymous to talking down all other possible alternatives, vocation and trade schools being one of those. It's a huge disservice to kids who could feel like a failure, taking the trade school path, instead of the traditional path high school to college to Wall Street job.

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This whole thing reminds me of this kid (who is now a middle-aged man) of a family friend. Some background of him is in order.

The family is solidly middle class. The father was a professional driver. Being the eldest among 5 siblings, the mother had high hopes on him. High hopes, in a sense that, she wanted him to soar from their blue collar root. She actually counseled this kid to not follow the path of trade school or vocational school, even though it's very clear all these times that he's not the academic type. She wanted him to have a white collar job, be in suit and tie, go to air-conditioned office and work without breaking a sweat. That's her ideal of the eldest son, their first-born.

In a way, I don't blame the mother. She had very little education or aspiration outside of the narrowest vision of what she saw on TV - yes, she found her inspirations for the son from TV soap opera. She did the best she could at the time.

My mom used to converse every now and then with this family. Although my mom came from similar humble roots, she's much more open-minded and pragmatic. What she saw in this kid is that, he's not the reading material, and it could be a lost cause trying to push him down the white collar path. From my mom's perspective, he could be much better off going to trade school or vocational school, acquiring a life skill that would set him to a very solid path in blue collar life. To my mom, there's no stigma in being blue collar. A good job is a good job, is a good job. I remember my mom even told his mom, "look, he could even have his own car repair shop or more!"

But his mom would have none of that for her son. In fact, there's a bit of a fall-out between the two mothers, because his mom saw my mom's counsel as nothing more than "putting his son in his place (a very blue collar one, no less)," while the children in our family are all on the path of regular college education. She wanted her son to do that too, and she saw my mom's advice (advice that was unasked for) to ill-serve her son.

Fast forward another 10 years. All children in our family finished college. Myself and all siblings are in different fields, some of us even relocate to other western countries. That sets the jealousy of this mother in high gear. Now she not only wanted her son (and other younger kids too) to not only have white collar jobs, but be able to move to other western countries. To alot of Asian families, the ability to migrate to western countries like US or Canada or Australia is an ultimate goal. They view the western countries being superior in all respects, including living environment, salary level, wealth accumulation, and more. The rise of economic power in Asia, in particular, China, and the Great Recession in the US, might have tampered their expectations. But if you ask 100 families in Asia, you would very likely find that 99+ of them want to migrate to the west, or at least have their kids received a prized education in a western country.

Looking back, I must say, I feel sorry for this son. He had tried (and failed) to live up to his mother's expectation. He narrowly graduated from high school, and found a first job in a call center. When his mother broke the news to my mom on the phone, boosting that he's working in an AC office that requires him in white shirt and slack everyday, my mom couldn't help but shake her head. Still, my mom was graceful enough to congratulate her and the son. Perhaps that's truly what his mother considered as a remarkable accomplishment, rightly or not.

But, working in a call center doesn't really require that much skill. (Not as much as car repair or electrician or plumber anyways, all of such jobs cannot be outsourced or offshored.) He was subsequently downsized, tried to go back to school and learn PC repair. His mother called up my mom, telling her that he's now in the computer business. She wanted to keep up the appearances, and talked up the possibility because at the time, I was in software development in US earning six-figure salary. When my mom told me about it, I asked her how that mother knew I was earning a six-figure salary? My mom said, I told her. I admonished my mom for doing that, not least due to imaginary and real hint of boasting about the success (or simply, "making it") of one's child, thereby tacitly encouraging the comparison of different children. I hate that.

In any event, the son got his certificate in PC repair. It's unclear if he was ever able to get in computer repair. When the financial crisis hit Asia in '97, he was downsized once again. The middle-aged son now works as a security guard. Having not too much to boast about, the mother now focuses on the youngest daughter who marries a photographer and has migrated to California. When my mom told me about it, I told her I do not want her to keep talking about her kids (ie. us) and all the things we've done, because I don't want this mother to keep pushing or expecting her kids to mimic someone else's path in life.

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At times, when I look back on the paths that this son has chosen, we can say with higher confidence that, should he have gone to a trade or vocational school and acquired a life skill, he would not likely be bouncing from one job to another. Like the 19-year-old mentioned in the New York Times article, if anyone (like the Obama administration) uses him as a statistics, he would have been deemed as a failure. The reality is quite far from it. This kid is able to acquire a skill that he likes, which allows him to see a brighter future in life. Success breeds success, and now he can even see himself following further degree in college, because he now has some skills to build on, some skills that the society needs. Would a traditional four-year college degree have given him that kind of satisfaction and motivation in life? I highly doubt that.

In a way, if the now middle-aged man of the family friend had had that kind of encouragement, he would likely have followed a much more satisfying life than what he has now. And no, he's not married yet, because he can't afford to start a family. How sad.

And for those in authority, who continuously talks down the viability of vocational or trade school, I'd say, shame on you. Reinforce basic literacy (math and reading) in elementray school, but that is not mutually exclusive from vocational school. Not everyone is cut out to be a hedge fund manager or Wall St type that earns millions sitting in office contributing very little in real life except moving money around. (Yes, I'm being critical or exaggerate a bit here, but let's face it, alot of fund managers and traders, particularly mediocre ones, do exactly that.) Give the kids the choice, and don't deem them as failure, because they are far from it.

On what college degree (or life choice) one should make...

In this day and age, when economy is in doldrums, everyone feels crappy. Top that up with the uncertainty and high anxiety to whatever choice in college major, and how much a college degree costs (measured in terms of student loan that one has to carry for life), that's enough to make headline news in places like Yahoo Finance, like, The College Degrees That You Have Gotten, or The Top Paying Jobs In America.

For those who are to make the choice, or to try to get in a field that might pay off in the longer term, this must've sounded all so confusing. Everyone seems to have a different ticks on things. There are also those who proclaim that College Degree Is Useless.

Although my kids are not coming of age yet, I'm forever mindful of that. Afterall, I myself am still in this life journey. Granted that you could say I luck out. I chose a field (computer science) that I like which turns out to be in high demands for the past 15 years or so. The field was also highly transportable from one country to another, allowing me to relocate with ease. I've always wondered the what-ifs, should I have chosen law or journalism instead (which were the other two fields I was considering).

But one thing is quite clear. We have to start out with something that we like. My parents, being older generations from Asia, are forever mindful of money and the payoff. (In hindsight, that's not a sole phenomenon with Asian parents alone, if we consider the amount of attention and write-up in the news of the cost-effectiveness and comparison in America.) For them, the best paying jobs are the best jobs to be had. I remember one time, my mom told me how much so-and-so's daughter is making this-and-that much, as a therapist to disabled children. I remember, my first response to my mom was, I hope she enjoys her work and truly loves working with children and helping others. I told my mom, imagine how it's like, locked in a room, most likely windowless, 8-10 hours a day, 5 days a week. Fat paycheck only comes once or twice a month, but she's doing that 40+ hours a week. She'd better enjoy it, otherwise it'd be torture, no matter how much it's paid. That response gave a 15-second pause to my mom; to that, she replied, "you're probably right." Mind you, my mother is a very strong-willed woman, and she doesn't admit error in judgment that easier. To her credit, she's also relatively open-minded, given her age.

I have no care about that Amy Chua's Tiger Mom thing. (And yes, I read her book, for good measure, in order to be sure I'm fair-minded to my critique about her so-called parenting which is ridiculous.) My guiding principle is that, kids need to have sufficient exposure to try different things. That way, they'll find their own interests, desire and passion, and then they follow it. When they settle on something, they'd better give their 120% to see it through. As a parent, I don't want to be making life choice for the kids (which they'll likely regret later on in life). I don't want them to make life choice based solely on immediate monetary rewards. Just ask Steve Jobs, as illustrated by his excellent 2005 commencement speech at Stanford.

But there are certain basic building blocks in life that, if not mastered early on in life, will become very hard (if at all) to be mastered as one gets older. Math proficiency is one. Science is another. Reading and writing skills are a must. Whether one follows through with a math/science degree is a different matter - that's a path that the kid makes for him/herself. But if kids don't master math/science when they're young, they basically shut out at least half of college majors that are available, and almost all the good-paying jobs these days (which is important for those who look at the salary charts to discover their path in life). The latter argument doesn't carry too much weight for me, as the former one, which is that, one has to keep all options open. In other words, be open-minded, and be prepared so that one can make whatever choice when one feels like it, without being hamstrung by the SAT.

Since my kids are still young, I really would have no clue what they would want to do. Apart from pushing them to discover their own interests (whatever that might be), do their best (and I expect the best out of them), master the basics (math/reading/writing/science), do at least one sport activity, and do at least one music. The rest they can choose.

Having said that, some kids might not find their calling early in life. Heck, some people never find their calling in their entire life (!). But I wouldn't want their life choice to be solely based on near-term monetary gains. That's just too shortsighted to me.

On the death of wristwatches...or not.

Reading the New York Times article on resurgence of wristwatches among the younger generations today brings a not-so-surprising smile to me today. While the article focuses mainly on men, the same can be said of women to a large extent from that same generations. Afterall, even one of my sisters has ditched her wristwatch more than a decade ago, though for a rather different, if not cosmetic, reason. She doesn't want her arm to be tanned with a wristwatch shadow on it. No matter.

I've stuck by my watch all these times. With the flood of all-things-digital, alot of the gadgets have consolidated. The more utilitarian, commodity-type, functions like alarm clock and calculator were long gone, and have long been incorporated into the smartphones (and the PDA's before them), for all the good reasons. Less space, less bulky gadgets that we need to carry on the road, less battery required. And, who cares about what alarm clock or calculator others use anyways?

Ah, but, wristwatches are quite a different matter. Someone once said to me, if you want to see the taste and style of a man, you only need to look at the necktie they wear and the watch on their wrist. Of course there were other discerning factors, a well-tailored suit, for example. But you can go easily go out to a tailor shop and get a tailor-made suite. Neckties and wristwatches are a different matter. They require you to go out and choose, that in and of itself show the taste and style of the man.

Times have changed. Cool jobs for men don't often require formal wear, so there goes the necktie thing. Men's fashion has become one big sloppy affair, with men dressing more and more like women (men in skinny jeans! men going to facial treatment!). As the article has rightly noted, most younger men in their 20s and even 30s grow up with electronic gadgets. They might not care much about wristwatches since all they need (games, music, phone, clock, alarms, calculator, notebook, phonebook, browser, and more) come in one tinny-tiny gadget. The logic goes, that they would never need to look back to the bygone days for things like vinyl record players, walkman, and some such. It was due time to declare death of wristwatches.

Call me old-fashioned. I like wristwatches. I always have. While I can't think in the men's shoes, I can't say I would give up my wristwatch for my smartphone. True, strictly speaking, I don't need my watch since I won't leave home without my smartphone. But my watch is much much more than just for telling time. My watch is about the only thing that truly follows me since it's worn on my wrist (technically, so are my ring and earrings). I can't say the same about my phone. (Yes, I've lost my phone before, and it's a royal pain.) And I have always believed that my watch represents part of who I am. One other thing is, I truly enjoy the craftsmanship and beauty of a good watch. Vintage is even better.

As such, I like Patek Philippe and Rolex. I reserve the Patek for more special occasion, and Rolex and Cartier are for everyday use. My Breguet is even more special to me than Patek, and it sits mostly in my collection for my private appreciation. No cool gadget is going to beat that. They are like old friends that stay with me. You can't say the same about your iPhone or drod phone that you'll likely ditch or upgrade in less than a couple of years.

As the article has attested to it, these men in the younger generations are now coming to rediscover the coolness in wristwatches, it being a fashion in its own right. It's about time. My only question to these men is, what takes them so long to rediscover the coolness of wristwatch, dude?