The Age of Innovation

OK, for the huge base of my fans who eagerly, routinely or occasionally check out what's new (actually it's more like myself, checking in eagerly to see if anyone left any new messages), I had to force myself to sit and write right now. Coz I'm sort of lost in the middle of something, uhh.., namely "Lost". For whoever hasn't checked out that series, you should stop reading this boring crap already and find yourself a copy of the DVDs.

But it's getting somewhat scary now, and with only 30 minutes into midnight, I think I need something to migrate my mindset before sleep.

I got a hell of a crazy month with the start of the new year. Two days after getting back from HK, I headed to the airport again, attended my first Consumer Electronic Show (CES) in the sin city-- Vegas. Unlike most people there who genuinely have a passion in this kingdom of gadgets, I actually just went there for my redemption. For someone who works for a "high-tech" company, I am guilty for being so ignorant and uninterested in knowing the greatest and the latest gadgets/technology. But, everything has to start from somewhere, so I signed myself up for this CES. Great to learn anything when it's on company's dime. So here's my observation from the show, however naive they may seem.

1. Overall, there was this huge integration (of anything, or everything) going on:
a. Integration of your home entertainment center, like this one button activation by Panasonic, forget about the 'one remote control' idea, all you need is a push of a button and everything will be set up, ... in the speed slower than you joggling between several controls yourself though. Plus, what I really need is for someone to brew me a nice cup of tea, the remote? Didn't they tell you girls want controls too? (For guys? How many guys out there hold on to the remote control like it's part of their organs?)

b. Motorola has combined home wideband router with cell phone. So besides all your cable TVs, local phones, internet... now they want to tab your cell phone money too. It's just one indication that everyone's trying to eat everyone else's lunch. It'll be interesting to see who will win this battle in the years to come, but I don't see me as a consumer getting any good deal out of it. (yeah they tried to convince me with the one-bill concept, how come I heard 'monopoly'?)

c. Samsung came out with this WiBro technology. The dude checked out my name tag, squinted his eye and whispered my company's name like I'm some industrial spy (I actually took that as a compliment!), so I didn't get to find out much about what WiBro does. All I know is it's short for Wireless Broadband, supposed to be very capable with huge data transmission such as for TV or video files. It's a step up from 3G and a step away from 4G, and it's tested successfully in Korea

2. Lots of music entertainment focus, or to be more specifically, iPod copycats:
a. Seriously, you think going to an Apple store is the epitome of its success. You should check out Microsoft's booth. There were hundreds of MP3 players showcasing in Microsoft's booth trying to compete iTunes+ iPod with the Media Player + anonymous wannabes. (For those of you who may not be familiar with Apple, they don't go to CES, they think they're too cool. They have their own show in the Bay Area a week after the CES. But in a way, I'm sure the pressure is bigger coz imagine the outrageous consumers if they came out finding nothing revelutional.

b. The saddest of all, was Sony. For someone who was positioned so perfectly in this game field, with its natural resources to its music business, it flunked again, badly. It came out with this what looks very much like a iPod generation one (B&W screen, no video/photo capability). So who exactly came up with the idea to showcase in a grand scale to promote such thing that's bound to fail? I felt sorry for our generation who used to think Sony is the acronym for revolution. And I felt sorry for spending a good portion of my time in their booth, but I did get a free cup of coffee at their Connect Cafe.

3. The copycat trend didn't end with iPod there. Here's on Google and Microsoft:
a. Google didn’t really have any exciting things at the CES. They copied ideas from http://my.yahoo.com and called this the “Personalized Home” they try to play in the wireless too. I think the reason I didn’t quite get excited because I know a bunch of Google fans (including myself) out there and I’ve already knew most of their new buzz. and is coming to the States later this year. To find out its exact capabilities, I guess check out the latest Korean soap opera and we might get some glimpse.

b. I went to check out Microsoft and its Window Vista. OK, for all of you anti-Microsoft/Bill Gates out there, here's the news, I actually admire what they've done over the years. (Extra admiration points for Bill Gates being such a donor--sure he's still the richest guy in the world.) I really think those who hate them are just envious. Vista is pretty cool, combining several competitors’ ideas like "Google Desktop" and "Firefox", with improved visual display. As much as I worship Google, I really don't feel safe to use Google Desktop coz it's like I'm opening up my underwear drawers to my guests. So I feel safer for Microsoft to come up with a localized version. But being such a stoneage newbie, I coule have trusted the wrong guy. However, Microsoft sort of tricked me into believing their http://local.live.com is so much better than http://maps.google.com. Well, after I tried it at home, it’s really not. I’m a bit pissed off coz I did several free advertisements for Microsoft, even to the guy I met at LAV airport!! And you know me, I don’t normally talk to guys I don’t know!!!!

OK, here sums up this long report from a first timer. I got two more business trips to go in January and my apartment is a mess. But when I do get time to chill at home during the weekends, I start to get grumpy about my not-so-rosy 2006. No wonder I heard the consumer confidence is down and business outlook is dim—look no further but at myself, the sign is obvious! Stay tuned to hear me whine more on the outlook of this year to come.

Coming Back From Hong Kong—II

Let me continue on the remaining two aspects of HK.

Living:

HK is notorious for its limited living space. So I came prepared, expected to be squeezed and squashed, but apparently I survived okay.

I think people in America normally don’t realize how wasteful we are. Yeah sure we shop at Costco and we invented Wal-Mart. But we are wasteful in every other regard. Everyone sort of “pity” me when they heard I live in a 600 sq ft apartment. Until my friend I-Ching came to visit. She thinks my place is oversize (oversized?!?!), not surprising if she just lived in Tokyo for the last 3 years coz everything is relative! So after living in US and NZ for a total of 12 years, where space is never a concern, HK did seem very crowded.

My experience is limited to the one apartment at Paul’s folks live. It is definitely at the top tier if not the cream of the crop, so what I see might be a bit biased. Albeit its size, it is definitely very well planned out. Besides the gym facility, which isn’t that attractive since I never exercise, I love the fact there are magazines reading lounge as well as a library (like I ever read?!?!) The bus stops are always right beneath the high-rise so less chance for you to become the road kill by a bus, at least not around your neighborhood, I guess. Shops are usually within walking distance, same with every other Asian countries, but what’s interesting is how HK has brought the shops into underground, so the basement of your apartment could also be a shopping mall or supermarket. Pretty neat for someone who hates making special trips to supermarkets (and that’d be me) or someone who absolutely loves going to supermarkets (and that’d be Paul).

Well, there’s always a downside to everything. What I didn’t like about what I saw, is how half the nation is hanging the flags outside their windows. And no, I’m not talking about patriotism like those displayed by fellow Americans (which I don't agree with also, I simply dispise patriotism), I’m talking about pragmatism like hanging your yellow-stained panties right next to your next door’s grandma’s bra. I’ve seen it in other countries but never in such a right-in-your-face kind of fashion. But I guess it was that manner that made it almost like an art form. But I guess from the pragmatic HK style, why pay for extra space like a patio when you can hang your clothes for free in the public space?!

Oh, and one big gigantic minus point for indoor smoking allowed in HK. OK, maybe it’s not allowed everywhere but I saw lots of people smoking indoors and I saw this one guy smoking in an elevator. Maybe that’s why the whole city seemed to be very hazy. But somehow HK managed to work around this fogginess and make the city looks more mysterious.

Commuting:

I always notice how there is no fat guy in Asia (and girls are obsessively thin). Transportation is very convenient in HK, the most common transportation form is always accessible 24/7—your feet. Except for cars (which has been an indispensable item to me for years), there’re abundant choices in HK: subways, ferries, buses and taxi. But to here and there and in-between, your feet are still the one thing you have to rely on for the most part.

There’s this one cool feature I have to mention about HK’s transportation system. This one deserves a blog of its own at my techie site but unfortunately I don’t have one so here’s a brief mentioning. They made your life a lot easier with a prepaid card called the Bah Dah Tong (I think the English name is Octopus, meaning you’re with eight feet which allows you to go anywhere with this card). Sure, prepaid card isn’t so unique, but this card allows one to take ferries, buses and subways, and what’s more, you can also buy newspapers at a convenience store, and eat your lunch at a fast food chain restaurants! And they even apply the system for school kids so they can clock in and probably eat lunch at cafeteria with lunch money too. This is definitely something to be adopted on a worldwide basis!

Going back to the walking, HK is very well designed for walking. There’s the underground passages (so you don’t get run over), and the overbridge (so you don’t get run over). And like I mentioned early on, the bus stops are usually at the ground level of a major building (so you don’t get run over)! It is truly essential in HK because (note!!) drivers don’t stop for pedestrians!! And that included the double-deck bus driver who toured me around the city! (To fully exploit the benefit of being the first-time tourist, I sat at the first row of the second deck, greedily moving my eye balls checking out things around me, and almost saw the very road kill that Hong Kong city government is so eager to prevent).

But hope you didn’t get me wrong, I don’t think Hong Kong is in any disorder or being rude. Growing up in Taiwan, I learned very early on that you never mess with the Taxi driver. In US, you simply don’t mess with anyone because you have no idea who's going to turn into a nutcase, could be the lady driving in a Mercedes, or someone walking with a stick. In Hong Kong, I didn’t get any sense of that feistiness. It only seems to me that everyone is just minding their business and if you cannot follow the order, you get killed and no one is going to turn around and look at you. They’re just too busy, that’s all.

Of course I’m only exaggerating, I don’t know what’s on their mind or the whole culture all that well. After all, I was only a tourist in HK, minding my own business and tried not to get run over.

I guess this concludes my short albeit exciting HK visit and next time I’d like to share with you my day trip to Vegas on the CES (Consumer Electronic Show). So stay tuned.

Coming Back From Hong Kong—I

Before the trip, I wasn’t all that relaxed about going to Hong Kong. This was what I called a trip with agenda, and the agenda wasn’t set by me.

First of all, it was unspokenly acknowledged that it would be an engagement coming out of this trip. You may laugh at me for it is Paul who needed to feel more stressed out as he was the one who had to get the ring. But I felt like he only needed to commit 2 months of his salary (at most), and I had to commit my life (at least). What about his life, you may ask. I don’t know, but it always seems to me that guys can always say “You know what? Keep the ring but I’m outta here”. But you know me, girls are always the victims of everything, but you also know I’m right.

More importantly, it seemed like I had to like Hong Kong, because eventually whether I like it or not, I may have to quit my job, give up all I have in US and move to HK and become a loving wife of a man, an obedient daughter-in-law of his parents, and scariest of all, a caring mother of his child, or even in plural form (oh no). Mom even suggested that I might as well get it all over with and get married while I was in Hong Kong. If I really wanted to hurry into a marriage, why she thinks I waited for all these times??

But to my surprise, I was really impressed, at least by its first impression.

Comparing to Taiwan (or Taipei), another East Asian Tigers, Hong Kong is indeed a lot more developed—the city is in better order, more high rises (call me superficial but why do you think the world is all so crazy about building the tallest building just to prove themselves?), cleaner, prettier, and much more shops (I’m sure all the girls out there appreciate this too). Here’s couple of observations I made about HK.

Eating:

The taxi driver on my way home in San Diego asked me how cheap things are in HK (I sometimes wonder if I reveal too much to the taxi drivers, especially those inquisitive ones). See? Even the taxi drivers asked me how cheap things are in HK! That’s why I built my misconception. Not how delicious the food is, how pretty the place is, I guess those are too subjective a thing to ask from the very pragmatic taxi drivers’ point of view. Eating is great in HK, from very high-end food (thanks to Paul’s parents, I had too many of them over the 8 days there) to the very low-end, there’s great varieties there. But even the low-end is probably about the same price level as in US. I find that a bit disappointing coz the average income in HK is definitely lower. (I should be concerned if I don't like cooking and may move to HK, don’t you think?)

It’s interesting how when I’m in US, all Chinese food seems indistinguishably delicious to me. But when I got to HK this time, I noticed how Taiwanese taste really is still quite different from the HKese. It was most obvious when I had dinner with Paul and his Taiwanese friend Joyce. Paul would point to items on the menu that looked either totally unattractive or plain boring. I ended up liking the meal but Paul thought it was done poorly--and he didn't finish all the plates, and that's not a bit like him!

Personally I liked the “Yuan Yang” (it’s a mixture of coffee and black tea with milk and sugar) and had more than 10 cups during the short 8 days. But Alvis gave it a big thumb down, “it’s not coffee and it’s not tea”, he said. And I still don’t quite get the whole idea of broiling the lettuce (along with all other vegetables) with oyster sauce. In Chinese, it is called “raw vegetable” so why broil it? For all the vegetarians out there (since I know so many in my own family), it’s to be noted that Hong Kong isn’t really accommodating for vegetarians. Unlike its popularity in Taiwan, vegetarian food is very rare in restaurants and I hardly saw any vegetarian restaurants on site. Thankfully I live on meat so no points taken away for that.

Clothes:

Maybe I’ve built up too much expectation from all the great things I heard about shopping in HK. But shopping in HK is not so cheap either. Yeah, I got some great things from Paul's mum's stores, but what about those unlucky ones without the connection? I saw several LV, Gucci, and all the name brands you can imagined; Salvatore Ferregamo even has 3 stores in one mall (and who told me rent in HK ain’t that cheap?). I’m a bit curious how, or WHO can afford all those stuff. They told me it’s the travelers from Mainland who do most of the shopping. Then I can’t explain the young folks who apparently looks like locals lining outside LV and Gucci (every time I walked by these two stores, there were people lining outside waiting to have the doorman call them in, how crazy is that?!). I’m quite a label victim myself but I think it’s sad if teenagers, be rich or not, all lined outside name brand stores waiting to be beckoned by the doorman. It’s just bad to learn how easy to spend before learning how hard to earn, eh? Overall, I am impressed with the variety but I may feel more at ease to shop in US. People simply couldn't care less on what they wear in US.

Several notes about HK girls style: overall you can see they all care about their looks--a lot, I saw too many girls meticulously touching their hair while walking—have to say it’s such a big turn off to me. Maybe it’s a tweenager thing I don’t know. The jeans tucked into boots are the number one trend in HK right now. OK, when Kate Moss did it she was phenomenal, when Sienna Miller does it she looks uber chic, but when half the girls in HK do it (I’m sure same in Japan and the whole Asia right now), some even pulled the style with their not-so-chic jeans and bit-too-old boots, it’s time for us to realize we all spend too much time reading the same magazines. One note about HK boys (can’t say too much coz I just got engaged), they dress a lot nicer than Taiwanese boys and a lot fancier than US boys. Many of them in suits and a lot less in very weird clothes. But I thought half the time I was there it was weekend or public holidays, so why are they wearing suits on a public holiday? You got me there!

I will write about the living and commuting in my next blog, stay tuned.