Cubicle rules

For Chinese working in foreign companies, one should understand the following rules, which cannot be found in the employee handbook.

1. Salaries are confidential. We usually print on blank paper in the office, but the other day our environmental-friendly HR lady put some used paper in the printer and I happened to be printing ahead of her. Then I turned the pages and noticed something I shouldn’t have seen. It was part of last year’s headcount list, our salaries included. Well, I’m actually very happy to know that. But be careful, sometimes this might be hurtful.

2. Emails are in English. I was interning at a French company before graduation. Once my colleague asked me to translate an email she wrote to the China club, one of the top four clubs in Beijing. But I asked a stupid question: “we are all Chinese, then why bother to write emails in English?” “You know…” Oh I see. If you don’t want to be disdained, use English. It’s a little bit hypocritical, isn’t it?

3. Handwriting is important. You are what you write. I often connect people’s faces with their handwriting and would wonder to myself how such a good-looking person can write so poorly. By the way, I’m no calligraphist. This is merely my personal opinion, no offense.

Finally, just a reminder: No baozi, boiled eggs or garlic in the office. Imagine the fragrance of perfumes mixed with the odors from the foods in a closed room.

Basically, that’s what I’ve learnt in the cubicle.

Moment in Peking

... But Mulan was a child of Peking. She had grown up there and had drunk in all the richness of life of the city which enveloped its inhabitants like a great mother soft toward all the children’s requests, fulfilling all their whims and desires, or like a huge thousand-year-old tree in which the insects making their home in one branch did not know what the insects in the other branch were doing. She had learned from Peking its tolerance, geniality, and urbanity, as we all in our formative years catch something of the city and country we live in. she had grown up with the yellow-roofed palaces and the purple and greenroofed temples, and the broad boulevards and the long, crooked alleys, the busy thoroughfares and the quiet districts that were almost rural in their effect; the common man’s homes with their inevitable pomegranate trees and jars of goldfish, no less than the rich man’s mansions and gardens; the open-air tea houses where men loll on rattan armchairs under cypress trees, spending twenty cents for a whole afternoon in summer; the enclosed teashops where in winter men eat steaming-hot mutton fried with onion and drink pehkan and where the great rub shoulders with the humble; the wonderful theatres, the beautiful restaurants, the bazaars, the lantern streets and the curio man’s shop credits and poor man’s pleasures, the openair jugglers, magicians, and acrobats of Shihshahai and the cheap operas of Tienchiao; the beauty and variety of the pedlars’ street-cries, the tuning forks of itinerant barbers, the drums of second-hand goods dealers working from house to house, the brass bowls of the sellers of iced dark plum drinks, each and every one clanging in the most perfect rhythm; the pomp of wedding and funeral processions half-a-mile long and official sedan chairs and retinues; the Manchu women contrasting with the Chinese camel caravans from the Mongolian desert and the Lama priests and the Buddhist monks; the public entertainers, sword swallowers and beggars, each pursuing his profession with freedom and an unwritten code of honor sanctioned by century-old custom; the rich humanity of beggars and “beggar kings,” thieves and thieves’ protectors, mandarins and retired scholars, saints and prostitutes, chaste sing-song artists and profligate widows, monks’ kept mistresses and eunuchs’ sons, amateur singers and “opera maniacs”; and the hearty and humorous common people.

Mulan’s imagination had been keenly stimulated by her childhood in this city. She had learned the famous Peking nursery rhymes with their witty commentary on life. She had, as a child, trailed on the ground beautiful rabbit lanterns on wheels and watched with fascination the fireworks, shadow plays, and Punch-and-Judy shows. She had listened to blind minstrel singers telling of ancient heroes and lovers, and “big-drum” storytellers by whom the beauty of the Pekinese language was brought to perfection of sound and rhythm and artistry. From these monologue declamations she had first realized the beauty of language, and from every day conversations she had unconsciously learned that quiet, unperturbed, and soothing style of Pekinese conversation. She learned through the annual festivals the meaning of spring, summer, autumn, and winter, a system of festivals which regulates life like a calendar from the beginning to the end of the year, and enables man to live in close touch with the year’s rhythm and with nature. She had absorbed the imperial glamour of the Forbidden City and ancient institutions of learning, the religious glamour of Buddhist, Taoist, Tibetan, and Mohammedan temples and their rites and ceremonies and the Confucian Temple of Heaven and Altar of Heaven; the social and domestic glamour of rich homes and parties and exchange of presents; and the historic glamour of ancient pagodas, bridges, towers, archways, queens’ tombs, and poets’ residences, where every brick was fraught with legend, history, and mystery...

-- An excerpt from Moment in Peking written by Lin Yutang in 1939

Qingdao, 1931

It was more than a decade ago that I last visited this old house where my grandparents used to live. The blue door plate writes the address from which I once received LETTERS in the 90s; the red wooden spiral stairs lead home on the second floor; inside, the big family squeezed in the bed as the room was too packed for chairs; the black-and-white family photo is still hanging on the wall, but the old generation in it has long gone and the babies grown up.

Today the coal stove in the room has been changed to an air-conditioner; we no longer write letters on paper; the old pictures have been scanned and saved to the computer.

This house built in 1931 by the Japanese listens to the firecrackers blown up every Chinese new year and it has witnessed the changes upon people over the years. It can be nostalgic and also a reminder of how we used to live.

2008 in pictures

Been to some interesting places during the past one year and here they are:

Cambodia, Dec.

Outside the forbidden city, Beijing, Oct.

Houhai, Beijing, Oct.

Duolun Road, Shanghai, Mar.

A journey across time

It happened to be Christmas Day when we arrived at Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. It was 9pm, humid after the rain. There was no trace of the festival. The streets were quiet and dimly lit and scattered with stalls selling local foods. The scene suddenly reminded me of my hometown in the 80s.

The journey began the next day. After a six hours’ drive, we were in Siem Reap. The bumpy and dusty road, the strange words, the ocher-red soil and the wilderness of the land made this place like Xinjiang in the tropical world.

Angkor was swarming with tourists and you could hear a polyglot of languages. Near each scenic spot, there were kids selling knick-knacks. Young as they were, their bargaining skills surprised me. “One dollar, yi kuai”, “I don’t have money to go to school…” That was their cue when you turned away.

Needless to say, the temples are formidable. People may marvel at the mystic sculptures and centuries-old trees in the jungle during daytime, they can also have fun in the pub street at night. Clusters of lights from bars and restaurants lightened the sky. It was just as vibrant as any other bar street in the world. But locals were seldom seen, except the tuk-tuk drivers vying for business.

A few miles’ distance separates the ancient and modern world, locals and foreigners. Here, everyone seems happy-go-lucky. There are no high-rises, no glittering shopping malls, no fast food chains, no financial crisis. It’s a temporary haven, or heaven.

Back to the hotel, I saw a commercial of Discovery channel, it says “The world is just awesome.” Yes, it is.

Year-end

The freezing weather heralds the arrival of the festive season and the end of 2008. Christmas light-ups, year-end parties, New Year concerts… if it weren’t for these events, winter would be dull and sad. People in the street wear either black or dark blue. Willows are no longer willowy; they are shrinking like an old man. The creepers clinging to the wall are lifeless. Only the sunshine is extraordinarily bright.

Another year is going by. What is a year? It is cutting the hair short and expecting it to get long again; looking forward to spring when winter comes; departing and returning and then seeking the next destination; getting to know new people and losing touch with some others; saying goodbye to the old year and ushering in a new one.

Family ties rediscovered

My cousins and I grew up in different cities. We only see each other once or twice a year. When my younger brother suddenly appeared in Beijing on Friday, a weird scene came to my mind: after a childish squabble, the two of us sitting back to back on a stone elephant in a park in Qingdao, reluctant to take pictures together. That was almost two decades ago. Yesterday’s shy boy has grown into a gentleman, a returnee from Australia.

My elder sister also visited Beijing two weeks ago. She used to strike me as a naïve girl in a fairy tale, with a peculiar interest in teddy bears. Today the little princess has got married, living happily ever after…

Before they came, I was wondering what we would talk about when we meet. Fill the gap left by the years? Not really. We’re all moving on.

Friends may drift apart, but for family members, there is always a tie there that binds us together, like a kite string. No matter how far we go, we are forever attached to the family.

I happen to be reading Amy Tan’s The bonesetter’s daughter recently and would like to quote a speech Ruth made at a family reunion dinner: “As the years go on, I see how much family means. It reminds us of what’s important. That connection to the past. The same jokes about being young yet getting old. The traditions. The fact that we can’t get rid of each other no matter how much we try. We’re stuck through the ages, with the bonds cemented by sticky rice and tapioca pudding.”

I’m more than happy to catch up with my cousins; it’s interesting to see them change and mature.