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Fun Fun Video Music

Ayen 何璟昕 a new Cantonese singer I started to listen

Reading Time: 8 minutes

(Update 2025-11-29) Also created a page here.

(Update 07-13-2025) A shorter version is here.

(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: standalone or 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

Bilibili

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

(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.

Here is her most recent song #奔赴星空 #粤语版 (portion of the song, usually it’s also the most popular sentences/verses). And her Douyin live recordings.

晚风心里吹 (a short clip): you may listen to 3 different renditions of this song here on YT.

爱河爱河 ZaZaZsu – YT

微博

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.

油管 aka YouTube

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 🙂

Facebook || Instagram

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.

如果今天天氣正好 (Cantonese, 2020, started in 2014)

長大的歌 (Cantonese, 2020)

一切美好都像你 (2020, Mandarin, you will notice she sung this song once every year at outdoor place and recorded and showed it to all – a cute idea 🙂 Btw, official MV is here: it has lyrics too. || Btw, if you are curious about sausage making (how the MV was made), here is the Ayen Vlog 04︳帶你看原創MV拍攝全過程~還有花絮!何璟昕AyenHo《一切美好都像你 Falling in love with something similar to you》

(Update 05-18-2025) I came across her Douyin page and found she sang the 3 original songs there – note this is short video. Lovely to say the least 🙂

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 work and 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.

(腾讯音乐 via SoundCloud) 我想在九月的某一天去找你 (2024, Lyrics at Boomplay). Or you can listen via Spotify here. This song reminds me of Ai Jing, and her song 艾敬 Ai jing【我的1997】Official Music Video. There was another Ayen’s song reminds me of Ai Jing too – this one – 何璟昕 Ayen【安放自己的地方 Where to place myself】原創音樂 官方高畫質 Official HD MV. Btw, I just learned Ai Jing lives in the USA now – 「1997快些到吧」歌手艾敬 华丽转身艺术实践者.

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~

演唱:何璟昕

除了油管本身,歌词 lyrics 在boomplay.com这里也有。

April 2025: 如歌的旅程《在M记等一个不会来的人》 (Note: M记在粤语里是麦当劳的意思)

YT: 粵語民謠「四季歌」女生版 Acoustic cover 生活需要一些安靜🍃|粵語歌吉他彈唱|Ayen何璟昕. For lyrics refer to 四季歌 (Si Ji Ge)

YT: 粵語歌《風吹雞蛋殼》麥兜當當伴我心|陽光下吉他彈唱 女生版 Acoustic cover|粵語歌|Ayen何璟昕 (May 17, 2024)

YT: 【新年歌曲串燒】挑戰4分鐘完成20首新年歌曲!祝大家健康開心發財紅紅火火~新年快樂!!(Feb 11, 2021)

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.

原創歌曲《風箏》混聲四部合唱|泉州師範學院 溫陵室內合唱團 何璟昕碩士作曲專場音樂會

新冠肺炎疫情原創應援歌曲【你的模樣】- 何璟昕 Ayen 音樂會鋼琴自彈自唱版——致敬所有奋斗在一线的医护工作者们

原創音樂 室內樂《一切美好都像你》|何璟昕碩士作曲專場音樂會

原創鋼琴小品《梧桐樹下》(余忠元演奏)|何璟昕碩士作曲專場音樂會

原創歌曲《向光性》女聲三聲部合唱|泉州師範學院溫陵室內合唱團·何璟昕碩士作曲專場音樂會

其它现场表演

(2019.09.08) 何璟昕“如果今日”全国巡演上海站精华

(2020.11.27 双城记之广州站)治愈系粤语原创新民谣【月光 Moonlight – Ayen何璟昕】2020“双城记”【Live实录】

(2022.07.29 上载到油管)我在CCTV3 唱了《追梦人》《天若有情》和原创粤语古风歌曲《七夕词》|回声嘹亮《了不起的歌》何璟昕 20220720|粤语吉他弹唱|Ayen何璟昕

Some earlier videos and her creator background

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.

(YT – Jan 25, 2018) 王菲 – 給自己的情書 Cover 吉他彈唱 何璟昕

(YT – Aug 22, 2018) 夢伴 – 梅艷芳 李悦君 | COVER 超溫柔的粵語女聲吉他彈唱 何璟昕

(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.

Q&A|關於我的50問(上)50 facts about me 學校/個人經歷/身高/歌曲創作/靈感來源/視頻拍攝/學粵語/突破風格| Ayen 何璟昕

Q&A|關於我的50問(下)50 facts about me 感情經歷/團隊/生活觀念/未來規劃/學吉他/作曲專業讀研日常/面對孤獨/成長感悟 | Ayen 何璟昕

In fact she has a playlist of non-music topics and named it as Ayen Talk. And I liked the playlist too.

跨越10年與自己的合唱《給十年後的我》薛凯琪粤语歌|30歲這一年有何體驗? Acoustic cover|粵語歌吉他彈唱|Ayen何璟昕 This is making me cry: when I think about the time flies and my own aging. (Update 09-18-2025) I just noticed her video taken on 01-09-2015 and uploaded to sohu.com 何璟昕吉他弹唱《给十年后的我》

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.

Another interesting one, 被動 – (伍佰/蘇慧倫/康姆士/吉克雋逸) Acoustic cover|吉他彈唱|Ayen何璟昕, you will notice it’s taken at outside, which presents another kind of challenge.

PS:

Also, just realized this is the 2nd article I wrote about Chinese singer, here is the 1st – From the unfriendly comments on Liang Jingru aka Fish Leong. In fact, here is Ayen (when she was a 20-year-old college student, in year 2014) singing one of Liang Jingru’s song – YT 梁靜茹 – 暖暖 cover(吉他 + ukulele )| Ayen 何璟昕. I believe I subscribed and listened to her singing in the past (I just searched YT history and it appears I watched/listened her song on 11-Feb-2024 first). This was the song – 陳慧嫻 – 飄雪 Acoustic cover|粵語歌吉他彈唱|廣東孩子看到雪忍不住的cover!|Ayen何璟昕 I think the song should be familiar with old timers like me. Btw, she also has a lot of cover (翻唱)songs. Here is her own YT playlist (it has 204 songs as of 03-21-2025).

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”

Categories
Saint Louis

Power outage II – 停电

Reading Time: < 1 minute

(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.

(Original) 家里因前晚(3/14 Friday 星期五) 的大风💨停电了:主要影响是 heat, 冰箱,照明和网络🛜(Wi-Fi)。因为不是夏天还不用开空调。现在过了40多小时还没来电。我在圣村生活了二十几年,经历过两三次较长时间(24小时以上)的停电,我记得有一次,快二十年前,是非常寒冷的冬天:下冰雨压到树枝,断的的树枝进尔压到变压器或电线。有一个电工在那次抢修中不幸触电牺牲。后来电力公司和抢修队是列队给他送行。美国这个国家有这样那样的问题,包括在基础设施上缺少一个长期的统一的规划。但是在消防队员和警察因公殉职的时候,这种纪念活动还是很壮观。但是从家里人亲朋好友的角度出发,其实并不希望有这个结果。所以在还有机会的时候,多陪陪家里人吧:如果他们不讨厌的话。

先听歌 #时间不等你 #粤语歌 by #何璟昕 Ayen Ho 微博 油管

让我们回到停电和现代人对电力的依赖这个话题。

偷电

我不记得我小时候在几岁时农村家里通了电的。有一个说法是1973年。大概差不多吧。那时候家里的电就是照明,没有其它家用电器。农村大家都没啥钱,连这一点电费都想省。怎么省?用日光灯。四十瓦一个房间就挺亮:比那个同是四十瓦的白秩灯亮不少。还有不太规范的省法:偷电-就是在公共电线上直接去搭电线。有时候家里吃晚饭的时候,家里的灯会一闪一闪的,我们就会说:谁又在偷电了。我家三兄弟,我小哥最早近视,我爸有时侯就会说:主要是小时候做作业时我们家的灯太暗了。

偷电的事其实我也做过:这个已经是九十年代中期了,我在读研究生。当时我们每个宿舍房间都有一个保险丝,我充分发挥了我的零级焊工的水平,我焊了一根粗的铜线上去,这样子我们房间就可以用电炉了。我们研究生院后门外面就是个菜场,我自己当时的烧菜水平大概就是烧一个西红柿鸡蛋汤的水平。但是我的室友同学里有高手:这样我们就用这个电炉改善了伙食。

停电

我记得80年代的时候,我大概十几岁,夏天暑假在农村家里。我们还没有空调,86年我家好像也有电视机了。80年代电视在我们那里逐渐地普及。我记得我在我柴桥大舅家看84年洛杉矶奥运会:我正好看到朱建华跳高的决赛。夏天晚上农村有时候会经常停电。我估计可能是需求大于供给,供电所就会时不时停电。但是我现在想想这电老虎,因为是垄断的,权利也是蛮大的。我有高中和大学同学后来有在电力系统工作的,不过他/她们都是规规矩矩的技术人员,不是拉闸的电老虎。

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。

美国的电力系统

97年夏天来美丽国。一开始觉得美国的电力系统挺先进。可能电也便宜:在国内的时候一般的办公室和家里没人就会关灯;美国不少办公室,办公楼晚上没人也留一些灯。罗拉的大学还有自己的发电厂(火电厂)。有在国内电厂工作过的同学说这电厂污染比较小。我不知道。我不是电力系的:我是焊工 🙂

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 Posts or 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).

We Lost Power Again (01-19-2007)

Power is back (10-12-2006)

Power outage (07-20-2006)

Categories
Shanghai Composite

Hongqiao airport, bus, railway and subway stations

Reading Time: < 1 minute

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.

But the first time I went from the railway station to my hotel, I almost got lost (I included a YT Video explaining it below). The main reason was at the time I didn’t have a good map. Here, I am showing you how to walk from Hongqiao Railway Station to the Hongqiao Hub and Shenhong Road (where Hyatt Place Hongqiao CBD hotel is).

I also made a few other YT videos for Hong’qiao Hub which is across the street (Shen’hong road) from the Railway station.

Hongqiao Hub one

Hongqiao Hub two

Hongqiao Hub three

Btw, shameless plug, all My YT videos

Old posts

Year 2009 – From Shanghai Pudong PVG to Hongqiao SHA airport

Year 2007 – Hongqiao Shopping Mall

Categories
Career Stocks

Interview story (a while ago)

Reading Time: 3 minutesOriginally 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.

Categories
advice and tips Career Economy

Software Engineer Job Market March 2025 and Some Job Search Tips

Reading Time: 5 minutes

The IT software engineer job market seems warmed up a little bit recently, from my observations. I am getting some emails from the recruiters, and they looked like real jobs or openings.

I think during the middle of last year (June 2024) I came across the software engineers job chart from (FRED) Software Development Job Postings on Indeed in the United States, and the chart could be a bit misleading because the start date is Feb 2020. Basically, we can say it just showed the dramatic increase of software engineer jobs and subsequent declining of job openings due to the pandemic over-hiring earlier, big tech big cuts following Elon’s huge cut at Twitter post his acquisition.

I believe this hiring boom and bust trend is similar for the related area such as quality assurance (testing engineers), localization and translation, platform and dev ops engineering, product development and project management and so on.

Indeed and LinkedIn

In recent years, I mainly use Indeed and LinkedIn for job search: for my last 2 jobs (Mastercard and Ascension) I found them mainly through Indeed.com. I remember the days (year 2010) when I found my job at local craigslist, those days are long gone. I found my current job in year 2021 through a recruiter btw – I know the recruiter (recruiting company) through previous engagement (year 2011), and we kept that relationship over the years 🙂

A note on LinkedIn, LinkedIn has DESTROYED the job market (in 2024). I tend to agree – because LinkedIn aggregates a lot of jobs nowadays, and for one job especially the remote job, it’s quite easy for the recruiter to received hundreds of resumes in a day or two. For example, this staff software engineer job at GE Healthcare, I saw “(posted) 23 hours ago · 62 people clicked apply” right now (03-25-2025, 2:17 pm central). So this is a real problem. And I don’t know how to get around it – unless you know the recruiter or hiring manager.

Typical process (St. Louis based dev jobs)

Phone screen, technical screen and manager interview. Offer or being ghosted, or if they are nice, they will send you the rejection email. Note in STL we don’t do the leetcode stuff which is common among Silicon Valley, Seatle or Austin based tech companies. They needed those quizzes to filter out candidates – in a way it’s like the Gaokao in China.

Interview

There are usually two types of questions: behavior and technical. For behavior sometimes you can go to glassdoor.com and see if there are any. I guess we can do similar for technical questions too – but at the same time I think it’s probably more unpredictable.

Whatever the question you receive, try to be calm. Over the years I have interviewed at places, in rare cases the interviewer will have some sort of undesirable attitude – for example, I recall once at Tomson Reuters in year 2009, the guy commented towards the end – you are not the most ignorant person coming in in terms of technical knowledge 🙁

Occasionally you will meet some super nice people too: people with decency and true empathy. Once in New Jersey, I was interviewing at Ingersoll-Rand office all day, one interviewer said, let’s make it informal, so he took me walk around the cafeteria. It was winter, and we didn’t go outside.

Don’t be defensive, as much as practical obviously. Once my big boss at current place, asked me: it seems your tenure is not too long in this and the place, note the implied question here – are you a job hopper (I talked about this topic here too). More on job hopping for practical purposes, there are data to back up that for many people, salary or compensation increase is from “job hopping” (Forbes). A few of my job changes (not hopping 🙂 confirmed this trend too.

Some other tips

Background check

Don’t lie on your resume. At the same time, don’t stress over the background check. Sometimes at some old-fashioned companies or out of date places they will ask a question such as “have you ever involuntarily lose your job”: I would say No regardless the situation. Or ignore those places if they are truly “out of date“. Because you may feel out of places when you join them.

Usually, background check is a part of the pre-employment process, and you would need to give two weeks’ notice at the current place. That’s also sometimes people have stress – what if anything goes wrong with background check?

My experience with this is: as long as you don’t break laws, etc., you should be fine. It seems to me the background checking companies are mostly providing a service anyway, and in the process making some money. I have done quite a few background checking in last 5 years or so. In fact I did three (or 4) background checking in this school year: depends on how you count it.

First: the volunteer background check for the school district I volunteer. They have two background checks: one requires fingerprint (and I assume some sort of FBI database lookup) Missouri Automated Criminal History System (MACHS); another one is for Missouri educator sort of check called FCSR, stands for Family Care Safety Registry, this can be done online exclusively.

For Uber: it’s done fairly quickly. Cannot find the background checking company from my email now.

For Lyft: it seems they used checkr.

For my current job, I did background check via clariti (now a part of DISA Screen). Btw, I noticed they had a security incident recently 🙁

Drug testing

This is required sometimes. Nowadays they usually only require urine sample. And you can go to a specimen collection place such as Quest Labs, or other special places such as occupational health clinics, etc. In the old days when I got my 1st job, I recall they will cut some of my hair for testing – those are more rigorous testing in my opinion. Anyway, don’t do illicit drugs, marijuana and/or cannabis included. I recall when I was working for coal mining companies: they even said the company can ask for urine sample anytime.

Reference check

It seems this is rarely done nowadays.

Microsoft Teams – multiple Microsoft office 365 accounts

I learned my lesson the hard way during real interview. I clicked on the Microsoft Teams link on the Chrome browser that I usually use. But I forgot that I recently used that browser for outlook (another email account, different email from the link I was clicking). And the Chrome browser gave me an error right away. So I copied the link, and open a new incognito window and pasted my link there, it prompt me with some new information. I was not sure what to do. So I opened Safari as I believe I haven’t used that browser for a while, and got information similar to the new Chrome incognito window (at least they are consistent), and I just clicked the link there and it worked.

Reference

(MarketWatch, Paywall) LinkedIn co-founder has known Elon Musk for years. Here’s what he says Americans don’t understand about the Tesla CEO.

(Yours Truly) FAQs on work: tenure, job hopping, purpose of work, and overtime

Categories
Economy Fun Technology

Is America becoming dumber and dumber

Reading Time: 2 minutes

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.

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Reddit: Social Media is making us Dumber

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?

AP: Missouri plans to seize assets to make China pay a $24.5 billion judgment, but can it collect?

Categories
Chinese articles

哪吒 NeZha

Reading Time: < 1 minute

NPR (in English): The new Chinese animated film ‘Ne Zha 2’ is setting new box office records

油管: 独家】打破中国影史纪录!专访《哪吒之魔童闹海》导演饺子 大量《哪吒2》制作故事首次公开!1900多个特效镜头是如何诞生的?导演曾考入名牌大学药学专业?| 故事会 Story Hour

我十多年之前在Autodesk 打过15月的工。在那之前在一个三维计算机辅助设计软件公司打过八年的码工。昨天看哪吒2的后台制作参访时我看到这个软件,应该是 Autodesk Maya, 看到三维模型和图形界面很亲切。不过我当时都是用英语学的,国内工程师说渲染,我需要查一下才知道是rendering.

祝贺饺子和团队。这片子在文化(讲故事,story telling) 和动画的计算机技术上是一个里程碑。

油管:《在故事的最終》粵語版 也很值得体味。
粵語填詞:心之洛
翻唱:何璟昕

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人生於世 似故事 始終有日
年月在消退 倒數會行到一
離別一刻 哭到衣襟都已濕
也需強忍這份痛失

檐底香氣 滿滿伴 炊煙四溢
回味在心裡 鼓舞成長獨行
何日再會 故鄉阡陌
再擁至親 愛未泯

此去或者再會很遠 前程未過問
此去或者永難相見 誰人亦抱憾
離合與悲喜歷來相映襯
能攜過手 已是無憾
不必嗟嘆或含恨
願你都笑著懷念 不再自困

同路是緣 有你在 今生有幸
難陪伴一世 都算情牽一生
誰若先走 會先等候
會給對方作導引

此去或者再會很遠 前程未過問
此去或者永難相見 誰人亦抱憾
離合與悲喜歷來相映襯
能攜過手 已是無憾
不必嗟嘆或含恨
願你都笑著懷念 不再自困

人生於世 似故事 始終有日
誰離別先行 不必悵然似失
緣定他生 哪管虛實
會感世間 暖流滲

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国语版在这里

哪有故事能讲得没有尽头
再用力挽留 也到分别时候
行至路口 就算眼泪不停流
也终究要学会放手
哪有屋檐能将你永远收留
成长不就是 无法回头地走
有天终于 懂了乡愁
向更广阔处远游
只能送你走到这儿了 前路仍悠悠
只能陪你走到这儿了 离别总会有
该启程了别在原地等候
正因为失去是必修
拥抱才紧到颤抖
毕竟每次相遇都 绝无仅有
多庆幸能有一程伴你同游
走不到永久 也曾片刻拥有
沿途会与 遗憾邂逅
将笑与泪都领受
只能送你走到这儿了 前路仍悠悠
只能陪你走到这儿了 离别总会有
该启程了别在原地等候
正因为失去是必修
拥抱才紧到颤抖
毕竟每次相遇都 绝无仅有
哪有故事能讲得没有尽头
再用力挽留 也到分别时候
等多年后 你再回首
总有回忆如暖流

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Categories
Chinese articles Saint Louis

圣村华人教会的兴衰

Reading Time: < 1 minute

昨天一个偶然的机会,我开车经过圣查尔斯,看到圣路易斯华人浸信会教会 St. Louis Chinese Baptist Church 的教堂⛪️。我没有去过那个新教堂,但是多年以前我有去过他们在Page/Ashby 路上的老教堂。我记得出生于香港的黄英杰牧师讲道:我还蛮喜欢。我也记得在换教堂期间,就是老教堂已卖掉,新教堂还没落实的时候,他们每礼拜天租用了highway 64 旁边的美国人教堂:我还去过几次。前几年听说他们搬过去新堂以后,后来就有一些问题,好像黄牧师也搬到外州去了。我好像在脸书上还看到过教堂荒废的照片。

其实我听说村里的另一个华人教会圣路易斯华人教会 St. Louis Chinese Christian Church, 有时候华人会说CCC, 我记得当时是自己建新堂的,近年也因类似的原因衰落了。我也去过那个教会,参加过团契,英文崇拜,好像搬新堂的时候还去帮忙打扫卫生还是搬东西。08年汶川地震的时候我和我太太还去参加过那里的聚会/讲道。

这是两个我在圣村二十多年多多少少参加过的教会。村里还有其它的一些华人教会。有了孩子以后我们去过橄榄村的路德教会的基督之光教会,严格来说基督之花不是一个独立的教会,她是路德教会以马内利橄榄村教会 Immanel Lutheran Church Olivette 的分支。后来主要因为疫情和其它政治原因(华人教会里有较多的川粉),我们也就不去了。这个教会其实离我家非常近。

PS: 网上查询黄英杰牧师的时候看到一篇说他坏话的文章。我的直觉是北美保守评论是一个在美华人基督教徒的一个极右组织。

油管:我今天早上也在散步的时候想到这个问题,就说一下吧

Categories
uber-and-side-hustle

More Uber Driving Tips

Reading Time: 3 minutes

(Update 03-19-2025) I paused Uber driving for last few days since the power outage as a result of the powerful tornado hit STL on Friday 03/14/25 night. I resumed it today (this morning). And I made a mistake – I turned off the Cellular Data for “Uber Driver” app as a measure to save the cellular data usage. I used up about 5GB one day without realizing it until I already used it – I thought playing from YT Music is not using data – my assumption was not correct – it doesn’t use data only when I played it from “Download” folder on the YT Music app.

The problem this morning is as soon as I drove away, my Uber Driver app stopped working. Eventually I stopped at the Stacy Park, and thought maybe I would just do morning walk. But at that time, I realized my cellular data setting and turn it back on. And I went back to the Uber app (after closing the app and re-open) and the trip was still there. So, I proceeded as usual. The lesson for me is I should not turn it off at the first place.

Also, came across this sad news – Father of Houston rideshare driver speaks out on son’s death during carjacking – FOX 26 Houston via YT.

(Update 03-08-2025) Today I drove a bit on gravel road the 1st time as Uber driver. Note gravel road is not popular in America, but there are still some in rural areas.

Be relaxed

A few things came to my mind. Recently sometimes I don’t want to drive far out of way, and then come back home empty handed. So I screen the ride requests carefully, sometimes I stop the car and wait in the parking lot, and only accept the ride I liked. This morning is a good example, I declined a few ride requests before getting a one at Dobbs tire shop, at Olivette, near where I live. Second trip was driving from near the Dieberg’s at Craig to the La Boone Bouchee at Olive and Tempo Dr. I even got tips from both trips. I was not expecting, but I guess when I am relaxed, customers (passengers) may feel that way too.

So this is about “take it easy”. Not solely chasing for the money – honestly I still feel Uber driving is not an easy way to make money or bring bread home.

Again I do understand I am probably lucky in a way because I am not going to kill myself to make money via driving for Uber. Somedays if I feel not like it, I can just do my other things, such as exercise instead of driving. I think I am going to do that tomorrow morning 🙂

Audio

Also, about audio. I think ideally I want to have one AirPod in my left ear, so that I can listen to the passenger just in case. Because I have a 2012 model car, the build in audio is not that sophisticated, so I just use my iPhone and AirPods.

Uber App Notifications

I realized I don’t need the instant notification. I just need to turn on the notification summary. This way I can save quite a few “surge” notifications during my normal work day.

Cleanliness of the car

I washed my car (2012 Toyota Sienna minivan) as practically as possible. Due to snow and the road salt, the car looks dirty from outside, finally I was able to clean over the weekend, due to the warmer temperature. One thing, I noticed, is unfortunately the faucet for the garden hose was broken during the extreme cold weather, and the ice inside the faucet. I am researching and will hopefully come up with a good fix soon.

I may summarized more and refer to my earlier Uber driving tips.

Categories
advice and tips Shanghai Composite

Mixue Bingcheng IPO

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Mixue Bingcheng

RIVAL ARRIVAL World largest fast food chain eyes America after kicking McDonald’s off top spot – menu items start at 15 cents (the-sun.com)

This boba chain you’ve never heard of has more outlets than McDonald’s (CNN Marketplace Asia)

China Bobba Tea, Milk Tea players (most contents are in Chinese, links for each store go to Wikipedia)

蜜雪冰城: 千亿餐饮 IPO,被时代选中的创业者 by 晚点LatePost (their website is not responding, so I just post their YT channel here). 2097.HK

喜茶 : last few years (2023, 2024) I noticed their store in Shanghai Hongqiao Hub (see below), after I listened to this Apple podcast. They (疯投圈) actually did two more episodes on milk tea – one and two. My impression is they are the high end, consider this as Starbucks of Chinese fruit tea. Btw, I know it’s useless but fun fact: do you know which area in Shanghai has the most coffee shops? (Hint, see this pop-up store inside Hongqiao Hub). Once I counted there are 7 well known coffee (brands) shops in the area: Starbucks, Canada’s Tim Horton (Tim’s), Man Coffee (Shanghai high end brand), Luckin coffee, etc.

古茗晚点对话古茗王云安:得三四线者得天下 also by 晚点LatePost

霸王茶姬: 霸王茶姬(英语:CHAGEE)是一家中国茶饮连锁经营品牌,主打“原叶茶+鲜奶”的“鲜奶茶”饮品。霸王茶姬于2017年6月由张俊杰创立,品牌名称源自京剧经典曲目《霸王别姬》,标识为水墨风格的虞姬形象,主要售卖水果茶、奶茶等现制茶饮饮品。同年11月17日,首家门店在云南昆明五一路开业,其后发展为中国西南地区的知名茶饮品牌。2019年,开始进军海外,先后进入马来西亚、新加坡、泰国等东南亚市场。2021年6月,总部由昆明迁往成都。2021年9月,霸王茶姬对品牌进行升级改造,使用全新英文名称“CHAGEE” ,标识改为白底红色的京剧花旦脸谱,参考奢侈品门店风格设计新门店,并加入中国古建筑中的榫卯结构,全国首家旗舰店在成都春熙路开业[1] 。(Update 2025-12-01 Just noticed they are listed in the USA and Nasdaq now, with ticker symbol CHA). If you looked at the stock price history, it’s a good way to lose money if you bought the stock at the debut.

茶颜悦色: 是中国湖南省长沙市的一个中式古风茶饮品牌,由吕良创立于2013年,经营着多家连锁茶饮店,目前仅在湖南、湖北、江苏、重庆开设分店[1]。茶颜悦色在制作茶饮时强调“中茶西做”,是长沙最受欢迎的本土茶饮店。在形象上,茶颜悦色的商标图、饮料名称、包装、店铺装修等都体现了传统的中国古典风格[2]。

茶百道: 2555.HK. 一年卖超10亿杯,会员超1亿:茶百道,要上市了.

2021年,奈雪的茶率先在港交所上市,成为“新式茶饮第一股” 2150.HK;2024年,茶百道也登陆港交所,成为“加盟制茶饮第一股”;今年2月,古茗完成了港交所挂牌上市 1364.HK

I would be very careful buying any of their stocks.

Guming – 古茗HKG:136410.94
Mixue Bingcheng – 蜜雪冰城HKG:2097297new IPO
Nayuki – 奈雪的茶HKG:21501.57
ChaPanda – 茶百道HKG:25559.09
4 Listed Chinese Tea Companies in HKSE stock prices as of 03-05-2025