stlplace

Category: Life Tips

  • China trip: quick recap and some thoughts

    Reading Time: 6 minutes

    这里有一个谷歌翻译的中文版。请注意，在国内有可能访问不了这个网站。

    Boeing 787

    I took a quick trip to China in last 2 weeks and just got back. I left STL on early morning of 05/31 and came back late last night 6/14. The flight route is STL => DFW => PVG: one stop at DFW. I booked the flight back in January 2025. The DFW to PVG flights (both ways) were full. A side note is on the June 12/13 night (post mid-night) the Air India 787 news came. That was unsettling to say the least. Note Air India 171 used 787-8, while AA 127/128 used 787-9 (which is slightly bigger than 787-9).

    DFW

    I have been to DFW in the past (a while ago), it seems the terminal E is new addition since I was there last time. If my memory is correct, they used to have a rectangular kind of arrangement with terminals A, B, C and D. I did notice DFW has quite some eateries and stores, it could also be because last time I was there, I was in a hurry and didn’t have much time too look or check out. This is actually a valid point I like to emphasize – don’t forget the sceneries on the road, when we were buried in our daily grind. Sometimes I intentionally take a local route instead of highway when I was not in a hurry, so that I can slow down, and look at the two sides of the road.

    The re-entry into the USA was pretty easy. There is a line for US and Canada permanent residents, and it was a short line. The immigration office took a quick look at Green Card and let me in.

    Uber rides

    I took Uber to airport and back to home. The 1st driver (I reserved the ride because it was early morning), is a part-time driver, his day job is a medical translator. But he works extra shift driving for Uber because he has a 17 month old and a new baby on the way. The 2nd driver is a young immigrant from Philippine, he came to the US in year 1995 (when he was 5), so he is about 35 years old: he drives for Uber full time (as much as Uber allows in terms of hour, and at his own choice as well). He did mention he makes good money on New Year’s Day and Mardi Gras.

    Phone

    A phone number is handy for 网约车 (Didi, Gaode or WeChat 微信出行服务), because you cannot always find Taxi in some places. I got my phone SIM card at Amazon. I activated the SIM before the trip, and insert it to my old iPhone 12 (for iPhone, only iPhone 13 and earlier has the physical SIM card slot).

    I used Uber, 网约车 and Taxi 出租车 for the most of my trip: with one exception. I used an “unauthorized” vehicle for my trip from my hotel in Beilun to Ningbo railway station. You may call it 黑车，but it’s a nice Camry (probably SE and XLE with leather interior/seat). And the driver told me he used to drive for 外企，got laid off, and started driving for guests in the hotel, because some guests prefer something nicer than a taxi or a 网约车. There are always opportunities in today’s world – even in China which is considered much more competitive than in the USA. He told me his car is only about 140,000 Yuan which is about $ 20,000 (USD) – I told him his car would cost more than $30,000 in the USA (now I think it could be about $ 40k). Car industry in China is ultra competitive nowadays.

    For the record, I paid about $28,000 for a certified preowned Camry LE in year 2022 (my tweet here).

    trip.com

    I booked the air ticket via expedia.com (I did this for last year’ trip too). I used trip.com for the HKG to NGB air tickets last year. This year I used trip.com for my Beilun hotel and Gao’tie (high speed train). I compared the trip.com with the HHonors.com (Hilton family hotels reward website) price, it seems trip.com is slightly cheaper. For the Gao’tie, it charges a few dollars of fees, but I felt it’s worth it because the ticket is tied to my CHN passport and it allows me to check in manually and board the train before the general boarding – which comes handy as I have two luggages, I mentioned the luggages and elevator below in Odds and Ends). Also: I 1st heard trip.com from an old friend last year.

    Stay

    I stayed at the same hotels: they are the Doubletree Beilun (as I talked about it here), and Hyatt Place Shanghai Hongqiao CBD. I noticed some small changes at both: at Doubletree Beilun, it appears they didn’t keep up the maintenance as I saw two things – one is the card reader in the elevators are not very reliable; another one is the chair in the room is worn out, and the small refrigerator is broken. At Hyatt Place Shanghai Hongqiao, they no longer offer the breakfast for free to rooms/guests redeemed via points or free night awards.

    Both obviously are in cost cutting mode: but I felt the former’s action (lack of maintenance and upkeep) seems jeopardized guest experience. I understand the hotels are having a hard time nowadays due to the economy and the competition, but at the same time, I still feel there are something in hotel that had to be maintained or kept, and unfortunately the card reader and the chairs are in that category. And the refrigerator too.

    Now I am thinking about switching my hotel in Beilun next time: DoubleTree Beilun does have 2 features I like – they have an indoor warm water swimming pool, and the room is very spacious. I will keep both in mind. Talking about swimming pool, I just learned Hyatt Place Hongqiao CBD has swimming pool too – “Take a break from the Shanghai sun and make a splash in our rooftop pool, located on the 11th floor, adjacent to the 24/7 fitness center.” – I will check it out next time.

    VPN

    Please refer to my blog post here – update 06-18-2025: this post is password protected now. Email me at minjie dot xu at gmail dot com for password, no spams please 🙂

    Tattoo

    I maybe a bit slow, but this time around I noticed many younger people in China now have tattoos, on their arms. My quick thought is the younger generation want to express themselves 🙂

    A side point I want to make is: even amid China/US tensions, the top country many Chinese students/youth want to visit or study at is the the USA.

    Douyin

    I explored Douyin 抖音 a bit. Please note Douyin is the No. 1 video (short video, and live broadcasting) platform in China – as I just realized recently – I talked a bit about the video platforms here.

    第19集｜任素汐《亲爱的你啊》完整版 #无尽的尽头主题曲 # 任素汐 # 治愈歌曲推荐 有人22岁结婚生子，有人40岁读研，有人追求稳定，有人拥抱冒险；可以允许自己偶尔”掉队”，但要永远保持重新出发的勇气；在不确定的世界上，做一个温和而坚定的行动者。 “我们不需要完美，但需要完整”

    If you read Chinese above, this also sort of echoes my earlier point of “slow down, enjoy the sceneries on the road while you can”.

    Common question from my friends

    I saw quite a few friends this time as I was going solo and have a bit more free time.

    When do American people typically retire? I think I just saw a flight attendant a gentleman at the returning AA flight, and he is likely in his 60s.

    Have prices gone up in America due to tariffs? ……

    How do you think about the LA protests? ……

    I have my own political opinion and belief – but I am going to keep them mostly to myself and my family for now.

    Odds and Ends

    Because I carry large luggages sometimes, I prefer elevators. But sometimes finding elevator (instead of escalator) is not easy. And once, I almost fell because a young guy tried to pass me on the escalator, and I think he pushed me a bit. I am almost 54 and was holding my two bags. This made me to think – maybe if I am 65 I would ride the elevator. I am not saying Chinese people are rude. I think there are nice and rude people everywhere (China and US). But at the same time, there are likely more nice people on both sides too. Look at the brighter side.

    This can probably apply to the two questions above too: both the tariffs (trade) and the immigration too? I would look at win-win instead of win-lose in both cases.

    A second point is: treat others like how you like to be treated.

    PS:

    You may be interested in:

    2024-07-21 My new favorite hotel in Shanghai 近年来我在上海住的旅馆

    A quick review of our summer 2024 China trip

    Some random thoughts during my recent China trip – 我2024年夏天中国行的一些观察

    China Trip Spring 2023 – observations and thoughts

    China Trip Spring 2023 – logistics

    Flash back – Back to St. Louis 10/28/2007

    Videos

    Below 2 are YT videos, by yours truly

    上海嘉里中心 Shanghai Kerry Center June 12, 2025

    Morning walk trail beilun Ningbo June 2025

    YT Shorts – Jing’an temple plaza 上海静安寺广场 苹果店 6/12/25 evening

    YT Shorts – My childhood home beilun baifeng Xiaomeng June 2025

    YT Shorts – At Shanghai Hongqiao the Hub #虹桥天地

    YT, by Essential Craftsman, this one is a bit deep – Why Most People Are Never Satisfied

  • eSIM app for travel

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    I am aware of two right now. They provide cellular data for travel. I haven’t personally used them yet, but may try out later on as I see fit.

    MobiMatter (official website; reddit)

    Sally (Reddit; heard it from Teacher Mike YT video 1st)

    And one to avoid: I bumped into this junk 易博通 eSender last summer, when we were traveling in China mainland and HK. We were hoping to get a mainland mobile phone number for 网约车 rider share car services. After spending some money and back and forth with the customer service, we realized it’s a scam. We found it because they advertised heavily on WeChat.

    Other choices:

    International roaming

    T-Mobile roaming: heard good things about them. Quite a few friends used their international roaming in CHN.

    MintMobile International Roaming (minternational pass): their price is quite competitive. Last year I used their pass for my summer trip. This year I may not need it as I am not going to Canada and HK this time. (Update 06/02/25) I still bought the 10 day pass with data due to technical difficulties of connecting to gmail via other means. One thing to note: it cannot be used as hotspot for the MacBook. So in other words, I still need to find other ways if I need to use Gmail on my MacBook (not super critical if I have Gmail on my iPhone).

    And I already got a China SIM card. Btw, MintMobile made Canada roaming free since summer/fall of last year.

    Side note: from iPhone 14 on, the iPhones sold in the USA no longer have physical SIM card slot (they have eSIM instead). Meanwhile in CHN, a physical SIM card is still needed for a mobile phone – that’s one reason you may consider bring an iPhone 13 or older if you travel to CHN. The reason you may need a mobile phone number is it’s required if you plan to get a Uber 网约车 in CHN. Taxis sometimes are not available and many taxi drivers drive for 网约车平台 too. In that case the two eSIM apps may not be sufficient for you. Because all you have is a mobile phone number outside of CHN which will not work for 网约车。

    Note: I still receive spam calls on mint mobile when I travel – and they call during the night, the carrier could not mark them as “spam likely”. This is true for China Unicom SIM card too (the spammers call during the day).

    Verizon TravelPass: much more expensive than MintMobile

    Note for all the options above, you can get to Google etc. without doing anything special, just like you are in HK.

    VPN: obviously you still need your own internet, usually it means Wi-Fi. This may be handy if you need to get to YT or Netflix, because you would likely burn through whatever your data plan fairly quickly if you stream.

  • Getting old

    Reading Time: < 1 minute

    sucks 🙁

    I wrote on this topic from time to time: and I found a few below. May not be a complete list.

    01-21-2006: Senior moment (I think I was wú bìng shēn yín 无病呻吟 here)

    04-24-2023: Getting older

    05-19-2025: Food, sleep and health

    Also, probably something I didn’t write, but I vividly remember, in year 2011, sometime in the summer/fall, when I was working as contractor for the UniGroup, and I happened to know a friend from China. We hiked at the Power Valley trail one afternoon after work. During the walk, I suddenly realized my body shape is typically middle-aged man, with the “inflated belly” and so on. I was 40 then.

    But looking at the glass half full angle, I am getting wiser. And from the swimming point of view, there is a lot of room for improvement for me 🙂

    I swam 800 yards at the J Chesterfield yesterday. It’s probably a record for me, at least my Apple watch says so 🙂

    PS:

    A tweet thread re: side effects of GLP-1.

    Btw, I googled “berberine” and found this article interesting – “When it comes to science, don’t look for expertise from graduates of the University of TikTok.“

  • If I know I could possibly die there

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    I won’t go there. By that I mean a statistically meaningful possibility: I am not a statistician but personally I think 0.1% and above is meaningful for me.

    Basically, the great Charlie Munger mentioned these many times. Here is one: Charlie Munger: Invert, always invert. He mentioned when he was meteorologist. He quickly realized in order to NOT get pilots killed; he needs to forecast snow or ice conditions accurately.

    Translated in plain English, if I know I could possibly die there, I am not going there.

    Quite simple logic, isn’t it? But it’s easily said than done.

    And this morning, I am very sad to learn one of my wife’s cousins in China died – she was riding e-bike which is very common among Chinese people nowadays. But very unfortunately, she (her bike) was hit by a big truck in a cross section (a traffic light).

    Know your risk

    Riding bike or motorcycle is always dangerous, both in China or in the US. I heard from my brother that his high school classmate died from motorcycle (many years ago), his friend was probably still in his 20s. It happened in early 1990s in China, so it was more than 30 years ago. Over the years I heard a few neighbors of my childhood home died from car accidents too: in various ways, and one was riding motorcycle (e-bike) and hit by a vehicle. The other two are also vehicle related: one uncle (he is probably only 10 or 15 older than me), got off bus, and hit by another vehicle. I heard Chinese runner in Dallas, who trains for Marathon and he was hit/killed by vehicle too.

    I vaguely recall pedestrian or biker got killed at the Olive/Lindbergh intersection many years ago. Once in Chicago field museum, we happened to see an exhibit related to “death”, and I recall seeing the bikers memorial project, the ghost bikes. Now I also recall from time to time I saw the mentioned bike on the roadside. Another similar memorial is the roadside flower/cross: usually for the people killed during a car accident.

    我承认我是胆小鬼

    Also, everyone has different perceptions of risks, and I think that’s legit too. Personally, I think I am a Dan Xiao Gui in general, the riskiest thing I did so far in my adult life is I climbed the precipice at Acadia National Park. That was year 2004, I think.

    About 3 years ago, we went to the Cocoa Beach in FL and a few kids did surf class. I was quite nervous as our then 12-year-old was there, and the instructor was mainly focusing his efforts on a slightly younger friend. One instructor for 3 kids, if my memory is correct.

    Car Accidents 车祸

    其实在美丽国生活，因为基本上都需要开车（纽约除外），防止车祸，或减轻车祸的影响是很重要的。从这个意义上来讲，在家上班，减少开车，也减少了出车祸的机会。关于开车我以前写过一个博文也可供参考。

    Safety precautions during walking and jogging in the USA

    I used to walk outside quite a bit, and when possible, I will wear a yellow reflective vest during my walk. Because I know there is a lot of chances a driver who may be look at the phone or not paying attention to the road and pedestrians.

    Also refer to My 1st “near death” experience – kids being kids

  • Food, sleep and health

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    Below is mostly for my own reference

    NPR: 5 eating habits that can help you sleep better at night

    Reduce caffeine during the day. I found out one way to do that is to get the daily coffee from a place such as Panera bread, so that I don’t brew my own coffee (and I tend to brew more).

    Reduce or stay away from alcohol. No hard liquors (e.g., whiskey).

    Reduce red meat (dinner): for that matter, control the portion for dinner. More on the timing below.

    Reduce snacks (unhealthy ones) during the day. Main task for me is to buy less snacks when doing grocery shopping.

    Reduce sugar.

    Reducing eating leftover food: there are many ways I end up eating leftover foods. Cooked way too much. Usually it’s my wife who cooked too much 🙂 Because I don’t cook much, and when I cook, I don’t cook a lot or I usually just cook some egg, fish or shrimps and they are usually manageable. Another scenario: my wife usually put certain amount of food on my daughters’ plate, and she expected the girls to finish them. It’s not usually the case they finish them. And sometimes (maybe too many times) I came from the background of “not wasting food”, I end up eating my girls’s leftover. Similarly for other small leftover on the tables.

    Don’t eat anything substantial after 8 pm, per Dr. Bonacorsi. It seems he already retired and he lives in my old neck of the woods 🙂 I also think for me, probably stop eating anything substantial after 7 pm is the goal.

    Okay to consume in moderation: fruits, vegetables, milk, coffee, yogurt, eggs, tofu, sea food (shrimp and fish), and healthy bread.

    Sleep

    Put the phone and computer outside the bedroom.

    References:

    Healthy food

    Testosterone is what keeps men alive and dominant. Here are 9 foods proven to boost it naturally:

    1. Avocado
    2. Eggs (with yolk)
    3. Extra virgin olive oil
    4. Brazil nuts
    5. Grass-Fed Beef (in moderation)
    6. Oysters
    7. Pomegranate
    8. Fatty Fish (like tuna, salmon, mackerel)
    9. Ginger

    Another tweet thread on food to boost testosterone.

    Joint health

    Doctors Say This Is How Walking Helps Digestion 饭后百步走

  • Don’t work too hard, work smart

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    My generation (so called Gen X in the USA, people born between from 1965 to 1980) was usually told to “work hard” when we grew up – I found this is true both in the China and in the USA. I think in addition to parents, quite a few teachers emphasized this too – for me personally my middle school teacher 周国夫老师 emphasized it quite a bit.

    But over the years I realized this is not necessarily true or the best way to handle work. I recall my project lead at Unigraphics Solutions (UGS Corp.) said once on this topic:

    Don’t just work hard, work smarter too. The latter is probably more important.

    By that time, I was already over 30 years old.

    About 20 years ago I recall my golf instructor (or should I call him coach? He is a pro btw) said: hold the club about 70% tight, don’t hold it 100% tight.

    Maybe we should apply the same logic to school, study and work too? And investing in equities (stocks) and bonds as well?

    My Zhenhai middle school exp: with all the craziness going on, we had some fun time such as the ad-hoc co-ed basketball – I remember it was during my math teacher and counselor Zhou Guofu 周国夫 老师 🙂

    Btw, I recall my best teacher – Chen Bing (高一数学老师). I think he made me to appreciate the beauty of math 数学之美，and encouraged me to learn as much as practical, and participate the math competition. Again we don’t just work hard on it – because math competitions have problems outside of the normal textbooks. The most important here is be passionate about harder math problems – “working harder” won’t do much about it, btw.

    “We don’t know if we will die from overworking but why take chance” – probably said by Ronald Reagan (per Charlie Munger or Warren Buffett). Update: it seems Edgar Bergen talked about this first – “Hard work never killed anybody, but why take a chance?” — Edgar Bergen (source: reddit).

    Last but not least, probably one of the hardest working place I worked

    It seems that place is quite transactional(people mostly work for money). But I did gain some experience on production support and operation. Also communicate as precisely as possible. Once again: work smarter is more relevant there. In fact I worked pretty hard, and I was still laid off in early 2019 – and I knew the main reason of layoff – the managers didn’t like me 🙁

    Btw, I don’t believe in pleasing everyone helps one’s job security, or pleasing every manager one has. At the same time, that place has a tradition of laying off about 5 to 10% people every year (usually at the beginning of a calendar year). And in early 2019 I was somewhat caught off guard, probably because I was getting somewhat complacent. But that’s okay, as I explained in the “layoffs” blog post: one door closes and another door will open. Also it gives me a new opportunity at a new place. So there is that.

  • Kids or younger folks used apparel shoes resell stores

    Reading Time: < 1 minute

    Not a complete list

    Online

    I am aware of eBay, Etsy, PoshMark. But I learned couple new ones.

    Curtsy : our 14 year old (when she was still 13, but almost 14), bought a nike puffer jacket

    Depop (wikipedia, just realized it’s a subsidiary under Etsy) – our 14 year old tries to sell her Lululemon shorts from Plato’s closet (too big)

    Offline, brick-mortar

    Plato’s Closet: seems heavily gear toward teen and 20 to 30 years old younger adults

  • Layoff and other forms of rejections in life are not the end of the world

    Reading Time: < 1 minute

    What doesn’t kill us can only made us stronger — German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche — his original words are: “Out of life’s school of war—what doesn’t kill me, makes me stronger.”

    Five years ago today, 01-23-2019, Wednesday, I was laid off from the company I worked for about 3 and half years. I saved the below email in my Gmail account.

    Hi Minjie,

    You mentioned to me this morning that you had a work computer at your home. I wanted to let you know we’ll be sending you a pre-paid box for you to send it back in.

    Please let me know if you have any other questions.

    Thanks!

    …………

    That being said, if you were working for the federal government and recently got laid off because of Elon Musk’s DOGE’s purge, and if you like to talk to someone – I am available.

    Potentially I can provide some advice re: how to get back to your feet quick. I can buy you coffee, do mock interview during lunch (I will pay), and pay your Uber ride fee, if you have an onsite interview and need Uber/Lyft.

    In my career, I navigated layoff situations a few times, and I was able to find something relatively quick mainly in the area of software development. I understand right now it’s a very tough job market in the USA. But it’s still possible to find something. I am a strong believer of 树挪死人挪活。I believe layoffs are usually blessings disguised in curses. Somewhat like divorce during a truly horrendous marriage.

    Reference: I talked about more about layoffs here in my 2023 blog post.

  • Don’t always dwelling on the past 不要总是留恋过去

    Reading Time: < 1 minute

    对过去的留恋可能是人之常情，尤其是对上了年纪的人（大概过了50岁的人可以说是上了年纪？），还有一些曾经辉煌，现在落魄的人。

    有一个例子是鲁迅笔下的祥林嫂。实际生活中其实这种情况不少。我感觉我自己有时候也会说/想：想当年，我年轻的时候，blah blah blah.

    最近 formerly executive assistant at square, sorry I could not find her profile on LinkedIn now, as I unfollowed her recently. Due to LinkedIn’s algorithm (or AI), it seems quite hard for me to find her again (refer to my recent blog post re: LinkedIn’s search-ability).

    PS (02-09-2025) I gave it more thought: I think self pity (e.g., 祥林嫂) and similarly self victimization are probably traits or characteristics of narcism. I didn’t read the psychology behind it. Pure guess on my part.

    (Update 10-28-2025) Self pity is the trait Charlie Munger talked about quite a bit, and he thinks that’s one of the most destructive traits.

    Value Trap

    This just reminded me of one thing or one phenomenon in the stock market or stock trading: value trap. Sometimes I got into it. The past price of stock just reflects the past. Nothing more. But sometimes, people think it a stock drops suddenly and drops a lot, they will think it’s a deal, and rush to buy it. And I have done that many times too, like today I bought some PayPal stocks. And I quickly realized it could be value trap, just like the Polaris Inc stock that I traded a while ago.

  • Goby Toothbrush

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    My 14 year old (when she was almost 14) decided to switch to this electric toothbrush given by the Orthodontist office and after a while she wanted to order the replacement toothbrush heads. This is not the most common electric toothbrush and I had to order the replacement heads at the their official website.

    But they didn’t ship after taking my money (via Paypal and CC).

    Finally I recalled that they did’t ship, but I cannot get money back because it’s past 6 month or 180 days. I did disputed via Paypal. Below is the reply from Paypal:

    We have reviewed this transaction(s) and are denying your case(s). Cases must be filed within 180 days from the date of the transaction. The decision to deny was made because the case was submitted after the 180-day deadline. Therefore, we are unable to offer a resolution toward this matter at this time.

    It seems for credit card; the protection is only 2 months or 60 days. Here’s how long you have to dispute a credit card charge via CNBC:

    Federal law only protects cardholders for a limited time — 60 days to be exact — after a fraudulent or incorrect charge has been made. Thankfully I noticed the billing error within a few days of it posting to my account and started the dispute process right away.

    This probably explains why I don’t see a “dispute” option in my CC website.

    I haven’t been to situation like this for a while. I don’t see a “contact us” on the merchant website either. I am not too upset about it due to the relatively small amount: $22.50. Thought something to keep in mind if we shop online and didn’t receive the item.

    Also, just saw this thread at Reddit. Copied/pasted one comment here:

    Related to this thread, it looks like they are going under. I have not received a replacement head since July of last year but I continue to be billed for it. The website features that allow you to cancel or modify your subscription or delete your payment information are disabled. I contacted them and received an auto response that they are not responding to messages “due to unforseen operational issues”. I reported the charges to my credit card and also reported them to the BBB, where you can see a ton of others have reported similar issues.