Category: Life

离别开出花：送给我的孩子们

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Update 09-26-2025: she is back safe and sound and we asked her this boring question: did you miss us? …… based on the feedback, we think she is ready for some sleep away summer camp next summer 🙂

(Original 09-10-2025) 再过一个礼拜，下礼拜三我们家小宝（潇宝）就要第一次离开爸爸妈妈，和她的六年级小朋友们，老师们，以及Ladue 高中的大哥哥大姐姐counselor 们去大概80公里以外的 Camp Mihaska 宿营两个晚上。The 6th graders camp has been a Ladue Middle School tradition since year 1977 – when I was 6 years old. I believe not many this school year’s LMS 6th graders parents were born yet, my wife included 🙂

我想到我们大女儿在比她妹妹大一岁的时候去100英哩以外的罗拉 Cub Creek Animal Science Camp 住了六个晚上。那一年2022年夏天她的camp 的dorm room 好像都是以前不认识的新朋友。我记得我那几天天天等她的email: 她礼拜三终于轮到了用电脑的机会给我们报了平安。

大女儿现在已经是高二。大概一年前，有一次我开车接她回家的路上说起读大学的事。她很严肃地跟我说：爸爸，我读大学的事我自己来做主。她说这句话时的成熟度让我有点吃惊。其实我知道有一段时间她心里已经蛮想自己一个人出去闯荡了。当然那时她还不到十五岁，读高一，真的准备好没有我是有疑惑的或不确定的。

我又想到老爸我自己18岁高中毕业去武汉上大学：一个人背着行李从上海的十六铺码头走上长江轮，跟我的爸爸和姑父挥手告别。后来又在大学毕业四年以后从上海独自来美留学。我记得来美之前的那个晚上没睡着：因为我不确定美国到底是个怎么样的地方？|| 从父母的角度我常听说”儿（女）行千里母担忧”。我想做父亲也一样：只是我们中国的传统文化里还有”男儿有泪不轻弹”。那父亲也就最好不要表现会外露自己的真实感情了。我自己的经验和观察是有不少父亲也是担忧的或弹眼泪的（或者把眼泪留在眼眶里？）。可怜天下父母心：虽然我现在已年过半百，在我的老母亲那里，我可能还是那个12岁就去镇海中学读书的小孩。比如说她会担心我下午两三点到上海，有地方吃饭吗？找的到旅馆吗？等等。昨天我小女儿就跟我说接送她去学校的事，我跟她开玩笑说：I want to hold you (我要把你抱起来）。她说No, but we can hug. Best of the luck in the road ahead, my baby girl. Dad always loves you.

这里有离别开出花完整的歌词。

PS: if you are looking for summer camp information in the St. Louis area, I have maintained a blog post.

Fun Life Software development

Production release, perform and high stake exams

Post author By stlplace
Post date July 23, 2025
No Comments on Production release, perform and high stake exams

Reading Time: 3 minutes

I did a production release last week, by that I mean I was the release tech lead for the web app production releases for my current employer. It’s mostly uneventful, but like most other production releases, there is usually some learning opportunities. This time the opportunities lies in couple small areas: 1) Validation of database insert statements, make sure the spelling of the select statement is exact; 2) Staging the artifact for production, via GitHub action. I was a bit new to both “staging artifact” and GitHub Action, this time I learned on the spot, with help from a colleague.

Friendly crowd

This reminds me of another thing, that is for artist, for example a musician or a singer to perform. There is pressure on live performance too. Similar to production deployment, if we have a friendly crowd (customers in the case of websites) and a collaborative team, things will be a bit easier.

Saturday night all-nighter

Some more tips on production deployment. I did do a few at my current job, and I did some at Mastercard (MC), my previous employer. The deployment was usually more stressful at MC. The main problem there is the production release usually happens on Saturday night, and it could be an all-nighter because the expectation is there, also it’s not easy to find all the right people quickly during the night. I recall once, I had to page my colleague, and he came on quickly, but we waited hours for the person to generate a new key (the old key expired, and the server would not start during restart). So basically, I could not completely go to bed, I laid down in the couch with headphone on, and I imagine my colleague did the same. Btw, the reason I asked help from my colleague was it’s the first time I encountered something like this (he has much more experience).

Lesson learned

At my current place, I did almost make a big mistake last year during production deployment. The issue was the UNIX engineer didn’t fully understand my instruction. Although one can argue my instruction was not very clear. But the end results was the engineer deleted much more arguments in the J2EE server configuration and the server would not start because of that. Luckily earlier I took my PM (project manager) colleague’s advice, and did a backup or save of the “before” arguments. So at least we have some references for the arguments as the UNIX engineer already deleted a bunch. Also the engineer called his senior engineer and he was able to bail out both of us. From that small incident I learned “don’t assume other people will always understand or follow the instructions”. Try to write good instructions, and also back up things as needed. Talking about backups, I usually do some DB backups when I delete something. That saved me once as I was trying to fix an issue at Mastercard. Basically when I realized my earlier fix didn’t work, I restore the data from my backup, and tried another approach. The second time it worked.

Performance

Back to artistic performance. I haven’t performed or competed for a long time. But I can see my older daughter got nervous before this sort of thing. And for my younger daughter: she tries to avoid those sorts of things, as much as practical, from junior tennis tournament to violin federation(performance) at UMSL, to string/music ensembles at Community Music School at Webster University. I can understand though. Because as I said in my other posts, I got nervous before Gaokao and other important exams too. The trick is, balance the nervousness with other important things such as preparing for the exam or the performances.

Btw, if you are in Yueyang, Hunan and surrounding areas, please note this – (Update 07-24-2025, from 何璟昕的微博) 听民谣，来岳阳🎶 我会参加7月25号、26号的湖畔音乐节演出，地点在岳阳港工业遗址公园，这次准备了3~4首从来没有在现场演出过的新歌曲，欢迎大家来玩！

Tags 岳阳, 岳阳港工业遗址公园, 民谣, 湖畔音乐节, 何璟昕

Fun Life

在虹桥火车站旁边的一件趣事

Reading Time: < 1 minute

两年多前，2023年的3月。我在上海虹桥火车站附近，无意中碰到了大概快二十年（严格来说是19年）没见的大学同学（我好像是2004年在杭州见过他和他夫人）。因为我记得在西湖边不远的一茶一坐的餐馆里一起吃过饭。

当时我在我旅馆旁边散步。我住的旅馆是凯悦嘉轩虹桥商务区 Hyatt Place Hongqiao CBD (I talked about this hotel here)。我大概在申虹路靠近Cordis hotel 康德斯旅馆旁边，看到一个熟悉的面孔：但是我忘了他的名字。我就厚着脸皮说：我认识你，你是我华中理工大学的同学，我的名字是徐敏杰。他回过头来，发现并认出来是我。我大概二十年前在杭州碰到过他：我去过他杭州的家。因为到2023年我们大学毕业都有三十年，我在大学毕业后变胖了不少，我有点担心他如果十年前没有见过我的话，2023年有可能会不大敢认。我记得他当时还掏钱给我买了回上海的火车票。

我今天正好看到下面这个视频。我觉得这两件事也有一点点联系。

Separately, I just came across this story from the YT interview (《繁花》火出圈，比它更恐怖的是上海女人，金宇澄的话，终于有人信了《十三邀S4 ThirteenTalks》 #许知远#十三邀): near the end, about 28 minutes mark, Mr. Jin 金宇澄 (he is the author of 繁花）made some comments. He basically retold the below story – 南亭笔记金叶子. 这个故事很短，我就贴在下面。

晚清时代，有一个将军级的人，是湖南人。他穿着白的战袍、骑白马，有很多老婆，他有一大笔钱的话他就到上海来玩。但是他不是到上海花天酒地，他到上海化妆成一个乞丐，跪在四马路（现在的福州路，原来那里有很多妓院）

他手里拿着一沓手纸，看到一个女孩子，他就给人家一张手纸，不像现在的白纸，肯定是稻草黄颜色的手纸*。一般情况下，就是被女孩子骂，脏兮兮的送我这个干什么，就扔在地上了，也有心底很善良的女孩带走了。扔在地上他也不管，像地铁发小广告的，带走这个纸的女孩（们）回家发现里面夹了一张金叶子。

*注：我们小时候70和80年代农村就是用这种草纸（稻草黄颜色的手纸）。只有城市里像上海这种大城市会有白的卫生纸。现在大家基本上都用白的卫生纸了。

PS:

以前，大城市的火车站一般来说是比较乱的。我记得1993年大学同学去广东找工作，在广州火车站，说那里很乱被抢了；Over the years 我记得武汉（武昌），杭州，上海虹桥火车站也有不少人问要车还是要住旅馆等。这是我大学同学一开始不搭理我的一个大的背景。总的感觉，这些年来火车站比以前还是安全了不少。记得那时候（80年代末90年代初）火车上有时候也有点乱。

Talking about nice girls, I wrote about one nice girl from my hometown Zhejiang Province here, during a train trip. 记得当时一个武大还是华工科英的88级的女生给削了一个苹果，印象很深。

Fun kids Life

Dad daughter moments

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Okay, it’s Saturday and it’s good time for some chicken soup.

I went to swimming at the JCC indoor pool just now, with my younger daughter because she prefers the indoor pool over the outdoor one, also her tennis lesson got cancelled at the last minute. So I got to hang out with her for a bit: for real it’s just a bit, because she will be 11 in about 3 days, and I usually do my lap swimming. She mostly plays by herself in the recreational pool (the water is slightly warmer there). The temperature at the lap swimming pool is slightly lower, probably at 78 Fahrenheit or 25.6 Celsius, and my younger daughter doesn’t like either lap swimming or cold water. She calls it the cold pool.

When I was doing lap swimming, I noticed at the other end, a little girl who is in green swimming suit, she is probably 5 years old, and she was scared to get into the water. I swam to that end, and hear the young male swimming coach says “you have to go in either today or next time (assume next Saturday). The coach is probably a college student, I guess. The girl didn’t want to go. Eventually the coach gave up. After a while, I noticed the girl’s dad, with mom and her little sister nearby, helped the girl get into the water (the cold pool) the first time 🙂 It’s quite accomplishment. Now I remember the 1st time my older daughter (now 15) got into the cold cool the 1st time, many years ago (probably summer 2017 with the one and only coach Alyssa L).

Now if I can convince the soon to be 11 year old to swim again tomorrow. Btw, I am back to swimming daily after about 7 years break (was doing joggling or walking in last 7 years or so).

(07-13-2025) Was able to play Racquet ball with my younger daughter a bit at the J. A small win. I also swam at the J (both outdoor, and indoor pools). Went to the outdoor pool first, swam 200 yards, it started raining cat and dog, and everyone went inside.

(07-22-2025) Yesterday evening, I was napping and sleeping on my bed in the evening, at about 10 pm or so, I got up, and my older daughter noticed me getting up and asked “dad, can I have your tweezers (link goes to google). I realized she was a bit shy to wake me up. Similarly, probably 2 nights ago, my younger daughter saw I was napping, and because she usually says “good night” to me before her bedtime, she just climbs to my bed, and reach out her hand, and gently said “good night dad” 🙂 Back to my older daughter, it’s hard to get a hug from her nowadays. The other day, before the hug, she said: do you smell (meaning do you have bad body smell 🙂 I fully understand. They are 11 and 15 years old, respectively. We Chinese have a saying: 男女有别 nan nv you bie (link goes to google).

(07-23-2025) S6 suggested I took her to get boba tea at Sharesweet in the afternoon. And I did.

(07-26-2025) Something in my mind: I realized that if I sign up S8 for a math acceleration class and she will probably have better chance to pass the acceleration on 08/08. Now I will probably study a bit algebra 2 and try to poke her around (it’s not an easy job to say the least, because she doesn’t want to share).

(07-27-2025) S6 suggested I took her to the Korean grocery store next to the Tai’ke. And I did.

Tags swimming

Fun Life

36 years anniversary of Gaokao 高考36周年

Post author By stlplace
Post date July 7, 2025
No Comments on 36 years anniversary of Gaokao 高考36周年

Reading Time: < 1 minute

今天是我参加高考36周年。我们那时候高考是7月7，8，9三天。又称黑色七月（从1978年开始，高考固定在每年7月7日举行。“黑色七月”也成为“60后”、“70后”、“80后”对高考的代称。）。7月7日同时又是卢沟桥事件发生的日子。

说说一个典故：高考前那个晚上，我住在我柴桥大舅家。我失眠了。我可能是半夜醒来，就睡不回去了。我知道大舅🈶葡萄酒🍷，我就打开他的葡萄酒喝了不少，想着帮助睡眠，实际上没啥用。这事我外婆知道，因为她过来做我高考的后勤保障（烧饭），平时她一般是跟小舅住的。后来，我大舅当然发现了。他倒不是心疼他的葡萄酒：我现在想想他应该是有点后怕 – 因为万一我因为喝酒高考考砸了呢？因为我是农村户口的，我两个哥哥已经考出农们了。后来，我每次去大舅家，只要有其它亲戚在，他都会说说我”偷喝酒”的事😂

Fun Life

My grandmas series II – My Paternal Grandma

Post author By stlplace
Post date June 29, 2025
No Comments on My grandmas series II – My Paternal Grandma

Reading Time: 4 minutes

温馨提示：主要是用谷歌翻译的中文翻译在后面。

An old family picture (I published this photo earlier, actually, in this blog post). I talked a bit about my paternal grandma and my big uncle in that blog post.

Back: my grandma, my dad; Front (left to right), Minjie, and big bro, and my little big bro

Interestingly I saw that my grandma holds me, and my dad holds my little big bro. I think our mom was probably at work, and at the time she doesn’t have much freedom to walk off work. But in real world, my grandma likes me the most among 3 grand sons, my dad likes my little big bro the most, and my mom likes my big bro the most 🙂

I think this is probably taken in year 1974 or 1975. Let me will explain why. My big bro is wearing a red scarf 红领巾 which also means he already attends the primary school (or elementary school). You have to believe it’s red although it’s a black and white picture. Both my little big bro and I don’t have red scarf and we haven’t started attending primary school yet (we are all about 2 years apart), kids usually start attending elementary school at about age of 7 (in the case of our big bro, he was 6 and a half when he stared). My big bro started school on 09/01/1974, my little big bro on 09/01/1976 and I started school on 09/01/1978.

Back to my grandma

My grandma Zhang San’mei 张三妹 was born in year 1904. Her name 三妹 means she is the 3rd daughter of the family. She was born in 北仑霞浦. And she died in year 1988, in November 1988, when I was attending the Zhenhai Middle (High) School as a senior*.

Explanation about the High School in CHN: in China there are only 3 grades in school, and I was in the last year of high school. Note in China, the middle school includes both Junior Middle, which is equivalent to Junior High or Middle School in the USA. And Senior Middle, which is equivalent to Senior High in the USA.

My grandma gave birth to 7 kids: 6 girls and 1 boy (my dad, also he is also the youngest). Only 4 out 7 kids grew to their adulthood. My grandma sometimes would tell me the story of one daughter (she was probably between my two younger aunts 姑妈), and she was very beautiful. But she died before 14 or 16: I don’t know the exact age or circumstance under which she died. Keep in mind in those days girls were treated much worse than boys (I mean 1930s), and the fact they lived in rural areas does not help either.

My grandma is quite smart, as I talked about her smartness in my maternal grandma’s piece. Keep in mind 2 grandmas have different kinds of smarts: my paternal grandma can read a bit (she probably attended a few years of school when she was a little kid), my maternal grandma doesn’t read, but she has attention to details on household work and homemaking, cooking and sewing (mostly by hand). Also, I am both grandma’s favorite grandson, among my two older bro and me.

My primary caregiver

I have no memory of my grandpa because he died in December 1972, when I was only one year and 5 months old. My grandma helped my parents to raise us 3 boys – note this is very common arrangement in China, up until in recent decades. The social contract is we take care of our parents when they are aging, and the grandparents (our parents) usually help with babysitting when possible. This is pretty much true when my mom took care of my big brother’s daughter, and because they both live in Beilun, and also because both my mom and my dad were fairly young. They are each 53, and 52 years respectively, older than my niece – my big brother’s daughter. But I saw issues around those kinds of social contracts as increasingly one side doesn’t honor her/his side of the contract. Because it’s mainly just a custom, or moral responsibility, there are very little the justice system can do about it.

Back to caregiving part, as I think it’s more important. Keep in mind both my parents work full time even when we were babies (infants). Some of the job of taking care of babies fall to my grandmas (I think both my maternal and paternal grandma). Things such trivial as help baby fall into sleep or co-sleep. My understanding, in China co-sleeping with parents or grandparents when kids were little, is still quite common. I understand co-sleeping does cause other types of issues, which I am not getting into in this blog post.

She cooked and fed us

This is especially true in the summer breaks, when we spent about 2 months at our home in Xiao’men. I have said in other occasions, I did hide behind her back during vaccine drive, and especially when the Da Tou He Shang （大头和尚) showed up, during Chinese new year celebrations.

She bring umbrellas to us, the Xiao’men Elementary School, during rain.

She has some money from my aunts – she would buy candies for us when she goes to the 小店; she saves moon cakes for us, they were sent by the aunts in Shanghai; she also buys fishes and cooks for us, sometimes.

Some fun episodes or stories

In most of her life, she doesn’t have a TV. Our family bought a TV in winter 1986 (note she passed away in fall 1988). She doesn’t understand or appreciate all the sports such as basketball, badminton, gymnastics or soccer. I recall we played badminton in the courtyard during very hot summer afternoon. We were kids then, and we were not that scared of the hot sun and so on. She just felt frustrated when we won’t listen to her and stop playing. She would say: boys, if you have that much of energy, why go to the fields or farm do some real farm work 🙂

======

一张老旧的全家福（其实，我之前在这篇博文中已经发布过这张照片）。在那篇博文中，我稍微聊了聊我的祖母和大舅。

有趣的是，我注意到照片里是奶奶抱着我，而爸爸抱着我的二哥。我想当时妈妈大概正在上班，毕竟在那个年代，她并没有太多自由可以随意请假离岗。但在现实生活中，奶奶在三个孙子中最疼爱的是我；爸爸最喜欢二哥；而妈妈则最偏爱大哥 🙂

我想这张照片大概拍摄于1974年或1975年。让我来解释一下原因。照片里的大哥戴着“红领巾”，这意味着他当时已经开始上小学了。尽管这是一张黑白照片，但请相信我，那确实是一条红色的领巾。我和二哥都没有戴红领巾，说明我们当时还没开始上小学（我们兄弟三人年龄相仿，彼此相差大约两岁）；通常孩子们是在7岁左右开始上小学的（就大哥而言，他入学时是6岁半）。大哥是在1974年9月1日入学的；二哥是在1976年9月1日入学；而我则是在1978年9月1日入学的。

言归正传，回到我的奶奶身上。

我的奶奶名叫张三妹，出生于1904年。她的名字“三妹”寓意着她是家里的第三个女儿。她出生在北仑霞浦。奶奶于1988年去世，具体是在1988年的11月；当时我正在镇海中学（高中部）就读，正值高三（毕业班）的学生*。

关于中国高中学制的说明：在中国，高中阶段通常只有三个年级，而我当时正处于高中学业的最后一年。值得注意的是，在中国的教育体系中，“中学”这一概念涵盖了两个阶段：一是“初中”，这相当于美国学制中的“初级中学”（Junior High或Middle School）；二是“高中”，这相当于美国学制中的“高级中学”（Senior High）。

奶奶一生共生育了七个子女：六个女儿和一个儿子（也就是我的父亲，他也是家里最小的孩子）。在这七个孩子中，最终只有四人得以顺利长大成人。我奶奶有时会给我讲她一个女儿的故事（那个女儿的年纪大概介于我那两个较年轻的姑妈之间），她长得非常漂亮。但她在十四五岁（具体是14岁还是16岁我不确定）之前就去世了；我不知道她确切的年龄，也不清楚她是在何种境遇下离世的。值得注意的是，在那个年代（我是指20世纪30年代），女孩受到的待遇远不如男孩；再加上他们当时生活在农村地区，处境就更加艰难了。

我奶奶相当聪明——这一点我在之前那篇关于我外婆的文章中也曾提到过。不过要明白，这两位奶奶的聪明之处各有不同：我奶奶（指父系这边的奶奶）识得几个字（她小时候大概上过几年学）；而我外婆虽然不识字，但在家务管理、操持家务、烹饪以及缝纫（主要是手工缝制）方面，她却有着对细节的极高关注度。此外，在我那两个哥哥和我这三个孙辈中，我可是两位奶奶共同的“心头肉”——最受她们疼爱的孙子。

我的主要照料者

我对爷爷没有任何记忆，因为他在1972年12月就去世了，那时我才刚满一岁零五个月。我奶奶协助我父母抚养我们这三个男孩——值得一提的是，这种家庭分工模式在中国曾非常普遍，直到近几十年才逐渐发生变化。这种模式背后存在一种“社会契约”：即子女在父母年迈时负责赡养他们，而祖父母（也就是我们的父母辈）则在力所能及的情况下协助照看孙辈。这种模式在我母亲照看我大哥的女儿（我的侄女）时得到了很好的印证——这不仅是因为他们两家都住在北仑地区，还因为我父母当时都还相对年轻。我母亲当时53岁，父亲52岁，虽然比我侄女年长，但身体状况依然很好。然而，我逐渐察觉到这种“社会契约”中潜藏着一些问题：随着时间的推移，契约的某一方往往不再履行其应尽的义务。由于这主要只是一种社会习俗或道德责任，法律司法体系对此往往无能为力。

言归正传，让我们把话题拉回到“照料抚养”这一部分，因为我认为这才是更重要的内容。请大家记住，即使在我们还是嗷嗷待哺的婴儿时期，我的父母也始终在全职工作。因此，照看婴儿的部分重担便落到了我两位奶奶的肩上（据我所知，我外婆和奶奶都曾参与过照看我们的工作）。诸如哄孩子入睡或与孩子同睡这类琐碎小事。据我所知，在中国，孩子年幼时与父母或祖父母同睡的情况至今仍相当普遍。我也明白，同睡确实会引发其他类型的问题，不过在本文中我就不深入探讨这些了。

她为我们做饭，并亲手喂我们吃饭。

这种情况在暑假期间尤为明显——那时我们会回到位于小门的老家，一住就是两个月左右。我曾在其他场合提到过：在接种疫苗时，我总是躲在她身后寻求庇护；尤其是在庆祝春节期间，每当那个扮成“大头和尚”的游行人物出现时，我更是紧紧躲在她身后不敢露头。

每逢下雨天，她都会特意把伞送到我们所在的“小门小学”。

她手里常有些钱——那是我的几位姑姑给她的。每当去村里的小卖部时，她总会给我们买些糖果；她还会特意把上海的姑姑们寄来的月饼留存下来，留给我们吃；有时，她也会买些鱼回来，亲手做给我们吃。

一些趣闻轶事

在她大半辈子的生活中，家里都没有电视机。直到1986年的冬天，我们家才买了一台电视（值得一提的是，她在1988年的秋天便离世了）。她既看不懂，也无法欣赏篮球、羽毛球、体操或足球这类体育赛事。我记得，在那些炎热难耐的夏日午后，我们曾在院子里打羽毛球。那时我们还只是孩子，并不怎么惧怕烈日暴晒之类的苦头。而她却觉得……当我们不肯听她的话、不肯停下玩耍时，她就会感到很无奈。她常说：“小伙子们，既然你们精力这么旺盛，何不去田里或农场干点真正的农活呢？”🙂

Tags grandma, 奶奶

Life

我的小学 My Elementary Schools

Post author By stlplace
Post date June 29, 2025
No Comments on 我的小学 My Elementary Schools

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Or Primary School if we use British English. But sometimes British English is cool, right? And btw, do you know that Indian English is more close to the British English?

Xiao‘men Elementary School 小门小学

Oh well, back to my topic. I started 1st grade at the age of 7 at Xiao‘men Elementary School 小门小学（now 白峰宁国寺). Note: it used to be a temple before converting to the elementary school. My very rough guess was that the conversion happened in 1950s or 1960s.

My 1st teacher is Su Lao Shi 素老师，her real name is 胡素贞. I recall because there are other 胡老师，she took the 素老师 name. She is probably 5 to 10 years older than my mom (again very rough estimate). And my mom worked with her husband in the 小门大队。I vaguely recall 素老师 asked me the infamous “shooting at the birds on the tree” question (how many birds will be left on the branches if someone shot at the birds). 素老师 taught me both Chinese and Math from grade 1 to 3. I was a pretty serious learner then, as my teacher also told my mom “Minjie is sitting straight and his eyes are glued to the blackboard during our class”. In my recent China trip I learned from my dad that 素老师 passed way – she was probably in her late 80s 🙁

I did well in terms of academic performance at 小门小学. I recall we also participated some competitions at Bai’feng Elementary School 白峰中心小学 where all the kids from elementary schools in Bai’feng area compete. I recall once during the “listening words and write down words” competition, I did pretty well. Keep in mind many teachers in China at that time are very competitive, and 白峰中心小学 probably didn’t like the fact 小门小学 did better than them in some competitions. Because 白峰中心小学 is the organizer of all this, I think that’s probably one reason they didn’t run more competitions during my 3rd and 4thgrade. This is just my hunch though: I don’t have any evidence (too long time ago, and I was a little kid then).

As a side note: we as students actually sort of helped build the school at certain point. I recall we carrying bricks and this is probably unthinkable from western’s point of view (use kids or children as labor?).

My 2nd teacher is teacher Chen 陈老师。She teaches Chinese. And my 3rd teacher is teacher Xu 徐老师 who teaches math, and he is also my family friend. During the early days of my 5th grade, there was some change, that is my dad decided to move me from 小门小学 to 白峰中心小学.

Bai’feng Elementary School 白峰中心小学

Although I only studied there for less than one school year, I think I thrived quickly, especially on the Math. The math teacher there Mr. Zhang is quite creative, he used stars and quizzes etc. to encourage kids to study. And I did so well, and in the 2nd semester of my 5th grade, I was consistently ranked 1st on Math. My Chinese teacher and 班主任 teacher Hu was cool too. She was young and a bit strict. Once in her class she saw me spinning around with my pen that was gifted by my cousin in Shanghai. She took it and later returned it to me 🙂 She is a good teacher too.

And during the admission exam for middle school: I beat expectation again and I got into Zhen’hai Middle School. There is also an interesting math problem in the end during that exam. Here it goes, not exact words, the idea is the same.

======

Q: It takes 1 hour from Peter to walk from point A to point B; it takes Mike 2 hours to walk from point B to A. If they start at the same time, Peter from point A walking toward point B, Mike started at point B walking toward A. How long will it take before they meet (assume point A to B is a straight line). I will put the answer in the end. (I will put the anwser in the end. The word in town is only one out of thousands of kids in Zhenhai County was able to solve it.)

======

I also had quite a bit more fun interacting with friends in my grade. I recall we have at least two students whose dads worked close my dad (I mean the location, not the work area). There are also quite a few girls and they are very good academically too – in 小门小学 the class size is small, and I have fewer competitions. We do have one boy (whose father was the principal of Bai’feng Middle School for a long time), who is pretty good and went on to attend college (he and I are the only 2 kids in my 小门小学 class that graduated from college). Also another girl (whom I liked) went to become a nurse. At least in the beginning only 3 kids got out of the village after middle school.

PS:

This Chinese article described quite a bit of Xiao’men village – 代表在线 | 从“烦心事”到“幸福事”，他带着这个乡村实现华丽转身

Answer to the math problem: AB / (AB/1 + AB/2) = 1 / (1 + 1/2) = 2/3 hours

If you are interested in more math questions, here is my GitHub repo/file.

Tags 白峰中心小学, 小门小学

advice and tips Life Life Tips

China trip: quick recap and some thoughts

Post author By stlplace
Post date June 15, 2025
No Comments on 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:

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.“

Life Life Tips

If I know I could possibly die there

Post author By stlplace
Post date May 20, 2025
No Comments on 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