Presentation

I saw a very good article on the power of publicity. The key takeaway is that regardless of how good your product/service is, if it is not properly presented to the mass, it will still be ignored.

看到一篇很好的文章，与大家分享：

现年39岁的约书亚·贝尔是美国灸手可热的音乐大师。他4岁开始学琴，14岁就与费城管弦乐团合作演出，之后曾在世界各地巡回演奏，被视为“同代中最好的小提琴家之一。他曾为多部著名电影配乐，并因演奏奥斯卡名片《红色小提琴》音乐而得过格莱美大奖。

贝尔的演出酬金平均每分钟高达1000美元。他在华盛顿百年礼堂举行演奏会时，演奏会的门票最低也要100美元一张，尽管如此，门票仍然销售一空。

这位富有浪漫气质的演奏家有一天突发奇想，要搞一次行为艺术。

贝尔扮成落魄的流浪汉，带着他那把1713年制造、估值350万美元的小提琴，在接近早上8时的繁忙时间，站在朗方广场地铁站的垃圾桶旁开始演奏。

在43分钟里，贝尔共演奏了6首古典名曲。但经过他面前的1097人当中，绝大多数人对他的悠扬乐韵置若罔闻，只有27人被吸引。但当中多数人听了数秒之后就转身而去，只有7人停下来欣赏了一分钟左右。

更令贝尔泄气的是，几乎所有人都没能认出他这位天天出现在电视杂志上的明星人物。只有一位女士在表演接近尾声时才终于认出了这位演奏家，赞赏他一番。

43分钟表演结束后，没有掌声，只有32.17美元的可怜施舍。

You can find more interesting readings that I do here

Bay FB 2008

I attended the Bay FB Party 2008 on Saturday. Although we showed up a little late to the BBQ, it was still very fun to see some old and new faces. Most importantly, I got to hang out with some of my good friends (pic above) that I haven't seen for a long time.

A little bit more about the party. It has three portions.

Part A - BBQ: It is a very well organized event with 140 attendees. Besides the massive amount of food, there are many ice breakers and games. Details please see pictures here.

Part B - Dinner: Followed by the BBQ, the whole group split into 4 and went to different restaurants for dinner. In addition to the food, we had various interesting conversation. A sample of topics include but not limited to benefits of eating Oyster, 8gua on so & so's husband's past, and what's going on inside of Yahoo.

Part C - Game/Dance Party: I devoted majority of this party to playing poker. It was definitely strategic and a long game. With a minimum buy-in of $5, I walked away with a humble 2nd place. Nini said she wants to play poker too! That will make the game more interesting if she does actually play with me.

By the time I got home, it's already way passed midnight. However, I am sure that was time well spent. Thanks to all the organizers who made this happen.

China and I

If you are reading this and you don't know I am Chinese, shame on you! I am one of those unique populations that is frequently mistaken as "banana" or "twinkie". Like many of my friends, we grew up and got educated in the western world. Some of us have also done some crazy travel in life and got a mix of all Western cultures! Nevertheless, we all have strong ties to the motherland. Either we speak and write Chinese fluently or our parents are in China or we spent close to half of our lives in China prior to immigration. However, that's not the point of this post.

The point of this post is really on the question

"where do people like us stand?"

Not many of us can claim that we are American. Simply, we look and talk differently from typical American. We eat things like Beef Tongues and use Chopsticks. Not many of us can claim that we are true Chinese either. We have spent a significant part of our life outside of China. We are not up-to-date with the Chinese way. Our way of thinking sometimes are pure "white", so to speak.

I have had this conversation with quite a number of our friends. Some friends of ours are quite troubled by this fact. I personally think this is really our true advantage. Early on in life, my mentor Mr. Franz taught me that "Americans come in all shapes, sizes, and colors". This is the banner that was hanging off the wall that I spent a good 4 years with. I also think I am as much of a Chinese as anyone else. For starters, who has dated a girl with a Chinese flag hanging off of her wall? We all have differences, with a billion some Chinese, you are set to be different from others.

The beauty really comes in when people like me can pick and choose who I want to be. I choose to be an American on some issues and I choose to be a Chinese on others. I enjoy eating delicious Chinese food which might well turned out to be too much for any American. I enjoy the awesome capitalism in action. Interestingly, you have more capitalism in a local market in Shanghai than in New York! Sure, I have an "Obama Rama Air freshener" hanging right above of my head in office and my favorite president is Bill Clinton. Nevertheless, I am also very supportive of various issues on the republican side. This degree of flexibility is what makes me very happy to be where I am.

Now, what do you think?

Independence Day

Happy July 4th!

I spent most of my last month with my client at Mission & 6th. Right around the corner, there is a building that troubles & entertains me twice a day.

In the morning, I would drive by this building (see picture) thinking how creative the landowner is. What is the purpose of this doing? Are there people living in there? If so, what kind of people would live in there?

In the evening going home, I would totally get frustrated with all the homeless on the street. Somehow, all of these homeless just all decided to pile up around Mission & 6th! I somehow think it is related to this building. All this creative juice must encouraged a lot of craziness. Using our native florida-grown Charles' quote on this:"SF just has a very high frequency and a high density of craziness all at once. Mostly around Mission & 6th."



*facebook readers cannot see the pictures in this blog due to incomplete import feature of facebook

Q the Goldfish

Q is the goldfish in my life. She is by far one of my most valuable assets and I would like to keep it that way going forward. She knows me better than my mom. Our love story is a tail to tell and it was told by way too many people.