Below was written in 2008: in the middle of the financial crisis.
Making mistakes in life is innevitable, but to give up is un-forgivable.
Why I am still hopeful?
1) I learned a great deal (risk, value, good business vs. bad business) in past few months: from the market unravelling, to CFA books, to words of wisdom from the great investors (Buffett, Lynch etc.)
2) Knowledge alone can not make money. Discipline is more important, because we as human being have emotions (fear and greed) which can hurt our investing if we don’t know how to control those.
Fallback scenario
I will continue to program for food, gas, my family needs…as long as I am healthy. This is not too bad actually consider I am paid better than many programmers in China (at current time, may change in future if dollar worth less in the future).
This is the 5th year since I invested in the US stock market (started Fall 2003).
Of course, I can buy the index fund. Or better yet, I will buy Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B), and leave the investing job to the Mr. Buffett.
(Update 04-03-2025) Note today is the 1st trading day since the current US administration announced the big tariffs across the board. Expect a volatile trading day and a lot of paper loss across the board (for me and for many others). But if we control our risk, we should still come out okay.
We can use both apps and websites for below. For QQ Music and NetEase Cloud Music, we can also use WeChat Mini-program (less functionality, but smaller footprint and works).
Also: 我在国外这样使用网易云音乐 | Using Neteast Cloud Music Abroad | HONGFEI Z. Btw, using this new Chrome Extension NetEaseMusicWorld++, the old one “NetEaseMusicWorld+” is no longer available on Chrome Web Store. Personally, I felt this is better/lighter weight than using the VPN which has more implications. Note you will still register on the platform in order to listen to the music there: personally, I used my WeChat to register/login.
QQ 音乐 QQ Music
Both inside and outside China: QQ Music QQ 音乐. I used WeChat to log into QQ Music. Note they are both a part of TenCent or 腾讯。They have paid plans, and I may explore those plans in the future.
I also installed both QQ 音乐 and 网易云音乐 mini program 小程序 on my WeChat. I’ve used quite a bit of QQ 音乐 and liked it.
(Update 05-26-2025) One more example of QQ Music: 何璟昕（Ayen）. I just realized they have a few paid plan.
(Update 07-03-2025) I logged into QQ Music via WeChat and here is my profile. I also created a playlist Ayen何璟昕-原创原唱-2024/25 on QQ Music QQ 音乐. I think QQ Music is useful as it shows the lyrics, and it’s handy for my Cantonese as I am not familiar with the language. I am still in the learning mode. Other benefits of QQ Music is its integration with WeChat as mini-program (小程序）as well as plugin and play in my old car (Toyota Sienna 2012) as an iPod (via USB).
Btw, I recall I used “login via WeChat” for the China based video sharing platform Bilibili too. The main platform in China that does not support “login via WeChat” is Douyin. Btw, I realized Douyin is available in Hong Kong nowadays.
There are also other ways such as Qing’ting FM 蜻蜓FM app: but recently I decide to use more YT Music (no Ads because I am a YT Premium Subscriber) and also QQ Music mini program (no Ads either).
Another reason is I think YT Music doesn’t block anything and has servers based in the US. So they are probably the fastest if I do streaming. I can download songs inside YT Music too.
Nowadays playlist is obviously also important. I found QQ Music has some cool playlist. Because I am just a new user and used it only on WeChat mini-program, I will share as time goes.
(Update 05-09-2025) I found out the WeChat itself also has music, and it’s embedded with the video (Shi’ping) functionality. So one has to have a Shi’ping hao because he/she can publish music. I found the “scroll lyrics” feature is neat: this may be powered by QQ music. See below.
Chinese messaging app WeChat has a new feature that allows people to add songs to the videos they are sharing with friends. The feature is drawing these background tracks from QQ Music, one of the streaming services operated by WeChat’s parent company Tencent’s music division.
Good old MP3 player
They were popular before the takeover of smartphones.
Personally, I am still using my iPod Nano 7th gen, which is more than 10+ years old (I bought it in late 2012).
I am going to reload some new songs when applicable and the nice thing about this one is it’s just a MP3 player and a radio (FM) tuner. So, less distraction for me – especially during night.
I started to learn Cantonese 粤语 recently from Duolingo. While I forgot many 宁波话Ningbo dialect since I went to college in Wuhan: I started to speak much more mandarin since then. I was wondering about the similarities between two dialects (Cantonese and Ningbo Dialect) 粤语和宁波话是否有共同之处 (google search). 我现在想到至少有两个字或词是一样的：话（讲话），中意（满意）。I think there are many more: it’s just a matter of time for me to find them.
PS: when I was in college, the Cantonese pop songs or #Cantopop were very popular in colleges and in the China. Here is a playlist on YT – 經典粵語歌曲 – 香港90年代流行經典廣東歌回顧 | 必听经典粤语歌 – Cantonese Golden Songs: 張學友，陳慧嫻，叶丽仪, 张国荣, 谭咏麟, 陈慧娴, 陈百强, 梅艳芳。In fact, one of my roommates would sing this one almost everyday – 一生何求 (the 1st song in the playlist above, here is a standalone YT video– 陳百強 Danny Chan -《一生何求》Official MV (電視劇《義不容情》主題曲). I didn’t think too much about learning Cantonese dialect then. Although in Spring 1993, a few roommates went to Guang’zhou (and Guangdong province) looking for jobs. Note at that time Guangdong province was much more economically developed than my college town Wuhan, as it was close to Hongkong, and it was the very 1st province opened to the outside world in 1980s. Quite a few of my classmates in college went there to work after graduation.
I don’t remember everything but let me try. Mainly I went to 2 places: my former workplace and my college (or more precisely an American college).
At workplace for some reasons I need to go down many ladders in a sort of water park. I wasn’t not pay attention but I realized it after the fact: our stuff (belongings) dropped first, my colleague J started walking down the ladders, and I followed. It was not overly scared. Once we got down, we picked up the stuff and took elevator to go up. I was a bit slow gathering my stuff, my colleague J was nice enough to give me the elevator badge. He went up via elevator with other people first. I used the badge and helped other people up too – I only needed the 5th floor. They went higher floors. Once I was up, I realized I didn’t have shoes. Oh well, the most important part is finding my desk. I came across colleagues and other departments on my way: including some Chinese colleagues I knew from the Shanghai office.
College: I went outside a stadium, realized I have worms in my leather shoes. I took out the worm, noticing the shoe has a hole. Suddenly I realized that I was sitting outside the football stadium and people are gathering, waiting for the game to start (yesterday was opening day for the STL cardinals). Most people are students though. And I cannot get out easily. I looked back we are at the edge of a cliff but the good thing is some nice people put up a protective ring behind us. I decided I still wanted going to my class instead of watching this game. So I went. At the stairs of the classroom building, I was thinking, if I didn’t come to the school today, I would not be able to find all my stuff (mostly apparel or clothes). It’s probably the package we dropped at the water park earlier.
It’s just a dream.
Small Moments in life
Separately my S6 woke up a bit early today and she could not one of her ok lens (Ortho-K Lens). Turns out somehow she rubbed it out or the lens came out during her sleep, and ended up on the wall next to her bed.
More about S6. So S8 is doing a sleepover for the 1st time at a friend’s house. That’s technically her 1st sleepover if we don’t count the two sleep away week-long summer camp at Rolla (Cub Creek). S6 was not very happy due to two reasons: she didn’t get to hang out with her big sis this evening; and S6 doesn’t have a sleepover with friend. But at least S6 didn’t throw a temper tantrum similar to my big brother was going to do long long time ago – different situations obviously, nonetheless I am happy. Note my big bro was going to cut my new pants because I got to participate a dinner (my parents take turns to take us to those wedding dinners, my big bro had his turn).
(Original March 18, 2025) 她的音乐是治愈的 her music is curing – Yours Truly. This is one example: her original Cantonese song Moonlight – 何璟昕 Ayen《月光 Moonlight 》官方高畫質 Official HD MV, note the link is YouTube 油管. Here is Bilibili link: standaloneor official, good sound quality; live performance video. I encourage you buy her music from either Apple Music (iTunes store) or her Taobao store. Musicians need to eat and have other daily needs: we don’t want to be free loaders. Or if I can quote one of my favorite people in the world: if you are lucky, please make sure someone else in the world is lucky too. This person is Warren Buffett. Back to topic.
Lyrics for the song Moonlight 月光 can be seen here at jspinyin.net (this one has Pin’yin annotation) or 酷歌词 kugeci.com (this one has links to a singer’s other popular songs).
Another comment on YT: “When the world is moving to fast just listen to Ayen, and everything will be alright.” –Daniel Vache (very well said – yours truly)
She actually sing in Cantonese, Mandarin and English. Her Chinese name is 何璟昕 or He Jing’xin in Pin’yin. In Cantonese, 阿昕 sounds a bit like 阿音 or Ayen in English. Both her parents are teachers when she grew up. In fact I saw her mom on this YT video (lovely mom/daughter pair, to say the least).
Here is her wikipedia 何璟昕 (Chinese) Ayen Ho (English). Full Disclosure: I made some contributions to her Wiki pages recently. It’s a somewhat fun experience for someone who likes to edit, write and knows basics of html.
Some social media and music platforms for Ayen 何璟昕
This is probably one of the most popular video platforms in China. I think Douyin is similar: the main difference is Douyin only has short videos. Note you will need to log into the website in order to have full experience with website or app. She did quite a few live show in 2020 on Bilibili, here is one – Ayen何璟昕 x bilibili直播 (纯享剪辑版) [2020.04.08] You may need to register at the website in order to watch, I did, mostly via my gmail and WeChat. Their system is pretty rigorous, I would say, at this time I still cannot upload video there. I think they need to verify my ID or something.
Douyin 抖音
(Update 05-24-2025) Now I realized Douyin 抖音 is much bigger compared to Bilibli 哔哩哔哩, as I said in my other blog post. Here is her Douyin: I think ByteDance (Douyin and TikTok parent co) longer video platform inside China is 西瓜视频。
In order to have full experience with Douyin, one will need to install the mobile app. Note the app is only available inside China. So for instance, if I want the app, I need to to try a different geolocation (China instead of the USA).
One can still watch videos without creating an account. To do it, one needs to pass a captcha – basically slide a shape.
She has quite a few songs on her Weibo, but this one (not music, about how to stay away from online fraud) caught my attention today – 我这么谨慎的人，居然也差点被骗20万… (personally I felt bad for her, but it seems like just something happens quite often nowadays, and I will talk about it sometime in the near future).
She is on WeChat (Wei Xing) and Red Note (Xiao Hong Shu) too – you should be able to search her name 何璟昕 and find her there.
I noticed her subscriber steadily increased from 47.9 k (03-11-25?) to 49.5 k today 05-01-25. It appears her YT channel is gaining about 1k subscribers per month. At this rate I am fairly confident that her channel will have 50k subscribers by the end of this month (I think 50.5 k subscriber count is within reach at 05/31/25). I hope my small contributions on the Wikipedia 何璟昕 (Chinese) Ayen Ho (English) helped 🙂
Some of her original work(compose, lyrics or both)
何璟昕 Ayen【向光性 Phototropism】原創音樂 官方高畫質 Official HD MV: she actually wrote this song when she was about 17 (year 2011) – 独立音乐人何璟昕：向光飞舞的风筝. She made an album with the same tile in year 2016: the album actually has more than 3 songs as shown in this YT playlist. I will update if/when I find the complete playlist.
If you like her music, you can purchase in a few ways. Apple Music store (iTunes Store, search “Ayen何璟昕“) and Taobao 淘宝网。Below is how you would find her music on iTunes store.
Apple iTunes Store (Note: this is available on iPhone as well)
On Taobao, you would search Ayen的店：she sells both her music and her Donna brand guitar there. Last but not least, she sells 吉他谱 Guitar Music online.
Some of her recent workand other songs I like
放手以后 via YT (网易云音乐, 2024) – lyrics available at boomplay; Author/Composer: Carlos’ Instagram. Also a short chip (similar to YT Shorts) on Douyin. Note for Douyin: I don’t have account with them for now – it still allows me to watch the video, if I click “dismiss” when it prompts me to put in my mobile phone or password, and turn on the volume.
I started listened to her a lot in last week or so, partially because we had 3 days power outage, and I didn’t have much else to do. I know you can argue I can listen to someone else’s music too 🙂 If my memory is correct, this time around I came across this new song 【哪吒2】片尾曲《在故事的最終》粵語版｜港風填詞翻唱｜唱哭每個成長的孩子 Acoustic cover｜Ayen何璟昕. Since then it’s been a black hole 🙂
New song《時間不等你》Time doesn’t wait for you: I listened to her new song 时间不等你 (2024) #粤语歌 many times. I really liked the music, the lyrics and Ayen’s singing.
作詞：陳鈺海 作曲：石羽函 編曲：梁雨森 (the link goes to Douyin, note you can still visit Douyin even without an account, you just need to complete the Captcha and also dismiss the dialog about phone number). Below is quoted from his Douyin profile. 棉花佬就是梁雨森🎸在此！职业吉他手，作曲/编曲 “棉花乐队”成立二年啦～ 以棉花乐队的形式致敬BEYOND乐队～ 不教学，不卖谱～
YT: 【粵語】想見你想見你想見你｜火土填詞 x AYAN何璟昕｜想見你劇集主題曲 (Update 04-02-2025) I liked this song very much. There are a few variations (Mandarin, Cantonese as well as different lyrics). I came across it at QQ Music first and noticed Ayen sang a few variations there. Then I did search on google and WeChat and noticed other versions, as well as the TV series that featured this song.
I don’t know about you, but to me this song reminds me 粤语更接近文言文.
Live Performance
何璟昕碩士作曲專場音樂會 (2021). Note she created all the below songs (compose and lyrics) over the years. She graduated in Dec 2021.
Also note, she pretty much managed all her creative activities by herself, this is from composing, lyrics, graphic design, photography, videography, editing, sound, and managing her social media and music platforms. She explained it here – 一個人就是一個團隊？/揭秘：我平時是如何一個人製作視頻的！
Slightly older videos (I believe that’s when Ayen created and uploaded videos to the Internet). Between 2014 and 2017, she debuted or sang quite a few Cantonese, Mandarin and English songs, mainly using her own acoustic guitar or ukulele as accompanying instruments and posted some of the videos on Sohu.com, and more specialized website such as yueqixuexi.com too. Some of the songs are also available on QQ Music (QQ 音乐）too.
(She took the video in Summer 2014, uploaded it to YT on Jan 30, 2020) 梁靜茹 – 暖暖 cover（吉他 + ukulele ）| Ayen 何璟昕 || On YT, if you want to look at her old videos, you can go to her channel, click on videos, and then click “Oldest”. This approach works across the YT too.
(Update 04-3-2025) I just created a YT playlist Ayen何璟昕-early: I believe those are songs/MVs she made between 2014 and 2019.
From the Sohu.com videos, the playlist above, to her more recent videos/songs such as 时间不等你, we can see her growth in many aspects. But I think she kept her 温柔女生 style, for the most part, through the years. That’s probably one reason I liked her singing.
She talked about her video creation and how she pursued her music career from a hobby in middle school. She actually made two videos because she wanted to keep her video under certain length. Below are two videos.
Some fun videos: having a sense of humor (despite all kinds of obstacles in life) is important. I created a playlist in which she has some fun elements in the music videos.
翻唱 (cover, or acoustic cover) and Playlists
Since this is getting a bit long, I moved the content here to another post here – Playlist.
One thing I may add is: in many ways 翻唱, or cover, or acoustic cover, is creative and sometimes hard work. For example, in this video, 謝安琪【喜帖街】Kay Tse 鋼琴+吉他彈唱 這是一首關於懷舊的粵語歌 | cover by Ayen 何璟昕, she rented the 1980s style house (惠州棠梨和光民宿), as well as some other interesting and fun settings. Here is another one 【Mr. 森林】Acoustic guitar cover | Ayen 何璟昕: if you watch towards the end, you will notice the work put behind it.
Last but not least, music industry is intensely competitive (I talked a bit here). I didn’t expand or elaborate, but in short, the top dogs such as Taylor Swift of the USA and the G.E.M Gloria Deng Zhiqi of HK/China makes most of the dough in the industry, via steaming, live performance, merchandise and products endorsement (ads). That’s all good, but we should not forget about musicians who are less famous. That’s why personally I support all my kids music teachers (as much as practical) and in this case, we should support Ayen 何璟昕 too.
If you are interested learning guitar (take guitar lesson from her), or collaborate on music creation (music composition, lyrics etc.), you may reach out to her “如果你想讓我為你製作音樂（編曲/作詞/作曲都可以），或者想找我學習吉他音樂課程”
(Update 03-17-2025) The power is back as of 5:54 pm today 3/17/25 Monday – thanks to the folks at JF Electrics (contractor of Ameren) and Ameren the electric utility company.
我忘了上大学时，还有后来在上海工作学习时有没有停电经历了。应该也是有的，但是不记得详细情况了。倒是记得在工厂的时候有一个学校没有的福利：那就是可以天天洗热水澡（hot water shower). 有两个原因：工人们，尤其是铸造车间，锻压车间的工人一天工作下来不仅是汗流浃背，而且脸上身上会有不少工业粉尘，包括铁灰，煤灰；有工业余热。我们的办公室正好在锻压车间淋浴室的上面。近水楼台先得月。这个·福利后来来到美丽国以后继续享受。美国绝大多数家里有热水。
后来，后来就谁随便看看下面吧。美国大规模的停电我记忆中也是有的（近年里有名的是2021年德州大停电）。下面是我在圣村大概二十年来的个人停电经历。我家附近的电网非常脆弱，一个原因是五六十年代开发建设的小区，电线是走地上的。而且他们那时还种了不少树：good ideas but 我昨天才真正意识/体会到树大招风的意思。小区里至少有两棵树倒下。实际很可能不止：因为昨天电力公司的人在小区了找停电的原因：听说有树砸了变压器（小的变压器是装在电线杆上的：2021年那次就是变压器被砸，见下面）。
现在电力公司基本上是以蜗牛的速度抢修，我们就耐心等待吧。以后长期住的话，可能还是要添置备用发电机。
Old Postsor Tweets
I recall probably in summer 2021 (July) we had multi-day outage too, after a powerful storm. I could not find the tweet (btw, they have horrendous search capability now) or blog post. If my memory is correct, we lost power on Friday night, and got the power back on Monday evening: so almost 72 hours of outage (probably close to 69).
I think I started to stay at the Hyatt Hongqiao CBD in late 2017, when they was newly opened. One advantage of the hotel is it’s very close to the Hongqiao Railway Station, sometimes people call it Hongqiao Gao’tie Zhan in Chinese 虹桥高铁站.
Reading Time: 3minutesOriginally written 2005-02-08
Holiday Inn Clinton
After I picked up the rental car (with GPS) at Newark airport, I was on the way to my destination. I took an exit on I-78 by accident, with the help from GPS I did get back to the road without problem. At about 9:40 PM I arrived the hotel. I could see the snow on the parking lot — it’s colder in NJ than in St. Louis. The hotel looks pretty nice, and the town reminds me of Rolla, a small mid-west town where I spent 3 years for study (1997-2000).
After dinner and shower I began to prepare my presentation for tomorrow (2/04/05). My bro told me run it 4-5 times before the actual presentation. I wrote down what I want to say for my slides. Besides work related stuff, I also put down some light side stuff: where I grow up, hobbies, things/places I experienced in the States. This is my first time to give presentation after I graduate from school in 2000. A bit nervous, but my experience in presenting research in car companies during school days did help a lot. I also ironed the shirt for the big day. Went to bed at 1 AM.
Interview
The presentation went very well, much better then I expected. The participants (mainly managers) were impressed. Then comes the harder part.
HR manager is a middle-aged lady who seems very sharp. She talked about the Chinese employee’s work ethic and China’s growth. She also asked about questions about working availability/eligibility, how I heard about the opportunity, and some other behavior type questions. I think it went OK.
Manager 1: this is the make-or-break time. Because he is going to be my boss if I get the position. I heard from HR manager he is a very aggressive person, and he moved around a few times inside the company to get his current position. He asked many technical questions (Qns), some of them I am not comfortable with. At one time I asked why I left my graduate school in China (not get the degree) and come to US. Why not come to US after getting the degree. This is a legimate Qn but I was annoyed by the way he went about the Qn. Finally I told me there is not an ideal way around this, because of visa and financial support issue. He asked if he regretted my decision at that time, I said no. I don’t know if I would be better off or worse off if I made another choice at the time, but I want to look forward. In retrospect, I think I would say there is always things to lose when you try to get something (trade off). This reminds me another Qn I was asked by an interviewer in another company: what I would be if I stay in the same company, and how to work towards to that position. I goofed on that one because I said it just takes time to become a senior engineer/project leader. I took a facility tour with him after the Qn session. General impression was good, the cafeteria and fitness room is much better than my current employer’s. I saw many Indian engineers, later on I learned from Product Mgr they are hired from India on H-1B. In retrospect, I think one reason he is asking tough Qns because he wanted to test my skills to handle the stress situations, which will be very common if I take the position.
Manager 2: he is my would-be-boss’ boss, he, Mgr 1 and I had a lunch together. They’ve all travelled to China on business. He tried to initiate the conversation and asked me a few common things, talked facilities in China. I really regretted with the big sandwich I ordered, but I tried to talk as much as I can. I think it went OK.
Manager 3: he is a product manager, and he seems like a nice guy. His team will rely on our system for new product development, so he wanted to make sure the system is up and running, and the data is not corrupt. He listed an instance that half-a-years’ product data get lost during data migration (from old system to new system). I don’t know if that eventually get resolved or not, but it seems like a common problem.
Ms. C and Mr. D (would-be direct reports): teleconference went not very well. Like Mgr 1, they also prepared a list of technical Qns for me to answer. I think I scored poorly (<50%). It looks like I’m the guy to solve their problems and headache. But again In retrospect, I think one reason they were asking tough Qns because he wanted to test my skills to handle the stress situations, which will be very common if I take the position.
Or it was always that way? It’s just I (dumb me) vastly underestimated some people’s stupidity. Or let’s blame the smartphones and the tech bros who helped this journey of “making us dumber” 🙂
Smartphone and Social Media
This is not a joke actually, because sometimes I joked too much and my kids usually think my “dad jokes” are not funny. Probably my wife doesn’t think highly some of my jokes either. There are research (google search) that says “social media” make people think less critically – if they were thinking critically before social media, I guess. Let me quite some results from Google search below.
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Search Labs | AI Overview Is social media making us stupid and less empathetic? – Peerbagh Yes, social media can make people less able to think critically and analytically, and it can also contribute to mental health issues.
Note with all the American exceptionalism (which in my mind, it’s a myth or overrated to say the least). I don’t think America is exceptional in terms of social media usage though – at the same time, the tech bros are raking in money from social media and overuse of big tech left and right:
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Zuckerberg’s FB/Instagram/Whatsapp;
Elon Musk’s X/Twitter (at least he hoped he could make more money from X, he did make tons of money from Tesla, with quite a bit government subsidies);
Jeff Bezos’ Amazon – earth’s biggest store, shop until you drop;
tech bros’ Google;
tech bros’ Apple;
and so on
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I do similar things on the Chinese social media platform WeChat and Red Note too 🙁 In other words, I believe overall we are all dumber because our eyes are glued to the phone or screen all the time (again if applicable, nothing personal).
Missouri aka the show money state
The outcome of recent lawsuit that awards Missouri $24 billion seems confirmed my worry. I was too simple, too naive. MO AG Andrew Bailey doesn’t seem to be a nice person, btw. As practical matters, this will just make the lives of Chinese people in Missouri a little bit harder. Because as a Chinese person who lived in the show money state since 1997, I know most people here cannot even tell the difference between Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese people and so on. I can’t either: when I met a Chinese couple back in January 2015 for my old daughter kindergarten registration, at first I thought they are Korean 🙂
I am expecting more “go back to your country” shenanigans 🙁
Tariff is another good example. It’s 100% shoot yourself on the foot – those who start the trade war. Here is a good example.
If a country wants to reduce trade deficit: the rational way is to reduce imports, or reduce consumption. Right: don’t buy the junks from Shein and Temu.
If a country wants to boost manufacturing sector, the country can do things such as educate young people on engineering and manufacturing, advocate and support manufacturing business (instead of doing the bitcoin and cryptos shit; or put 100% tariff on EVs from the country you don’t like), and soon. In either case though, tariffs for imports or subsidies for domestic manufacturing are interventions, in other words the Government is meddling in the market. What happens to the republicans free market narrative?
