Categories
Saint Louis uber-and-side-hustle

Went to St. Louis Bread Co. after my morning Uber driving

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This one (link to YT).

Yesterday morning I was a bit tired after driving for about 2 hours. Next time I should remember take some “coffee breaks” every hour or so, that is, if I drive for more than one hour. Usually I just drive one hour nowadays (refer to my most recent post on Uber driving, refer to “PS: early morning Uber driving“)

This is probably also the first St. Louis Bread Co. I visited in St. Louis area (or one of the first). I used to live near that place Saint Louis – Chippewa St @ Lansdowne Ave or 6607 Chippewa Street, St Louis, MO 63109. I probably had bread bowl soup there too.

Please note one of the St. Louis landmarks Ted Drewes Frozen Custard is located not too far away from the Bread Co., it’s at 6726 Chippewa St, St. Louis, MO 63109.

They are within walking distance, or a very short drive.

(Update 07/07/2025) Bumped into an engineer (or an executive) from Faith Group, LLC (LinkedIn, company website). The gentleman didn’t tell me the exact company name during my Uber driving this mooning, but I am 100% sure this is the company, from the descriptions. He gave me $5 tip.

(Update 07/08/2025) Drive in the city of St. Louis. Occasionally I drove in the city of St. Louis. I would be a bit more careful when driving in the city of St. Louis. Not just because of the crime rate. In fact overall the crime rate is down if you look at the Google search overview – pasted below for the ease of reading.

(Update 07/10/2025) Tips sometimes can come days late. A lot people now live in “motel” which is really more like a studio apartment: they apparently cannot put in number for the motel, other than the main address. This morning, I had something like this, had to text the passenger to get the exact room number (she has some mobility challenges). More re: driving in the city, I noticed some people don’t obey the traffic lights, even official cars such as fire truck. That’s why I said earlier “be more careful when driving in the city”. Btw, the Uber business sort of dried up in recent mornings.

(Update 07/11/2025) This morning I went to Panera Bread at Westport after my Uber driving. This morning’s 3 trips are all for caregivers, the 1st one is for someone who lives in the apartment complex across the street, to a home in west county (home caregiver?). The latter two are drop offs at nursing homes (senior living places): one in Clayton, another one in Maryland Heights.

Btw, it seems a lot of my trips are drop offs at nursing homes (senior living places), especially now I mostly drive in the early mornings. I thought about evenings but considering the high temperature and potential damages to my car (battery), and I decided to skip.

Also, I happened to see this apartment complex Prospect Creek – Ballwin in a nice neighborhood (with privacy and walking trails etc.). You would do more research on apartment yourself, if applicable.

(Update 07/14/2025) I did 3 trips from or to Airport on 7/13/2025. This was a bit unusual because the airport terminal 2 got busy due to an end of a big conference. Today I did my usual: 3 trips total, white castle (fast food restaurant), wustl (off big bend road) to home (custodian get off work?), and lastly take a kid’s caregiver to kids care place. I think in terms of tips, the airport trips are usually better. But I don’t just work for tips. One minor thing though, between yesterday and today, I got a score of 3 (out of 5) and it lowers my average score a tiny bit. It’s not the end of the world, as it used to be though. Because right now I have 98 “5”. For comparison, I have 2 “4”, and 3 “3” and 1 “2”. I don’t have any “1”.

Separately, I came across a YT video 在上海住車上開網約車，一個月掙七千多，女士說這是普通人的生存希望 about driving ride share in SH, it seems they have a much harder job.

(Update 07/15/2025) This morning I only did 2 trips, because I am a bit tired and also today is my younger daughter’s b-day. For the 2nd trip, I took the same passenger as yesterday – WUSTL (off big bend road) to home (custodian get off work?). 1 trip was from an apartment near Page Blvd to a medical facility near Schnucks U city. I overshot a bit over there because my mind was a bit off at the time.

(Update 07/16/2025) I didn’t drive this morning as I need to do some work for my day job.

(Update 07/17/2025) This morning I did two trips related to the hotel (or nursing home). First trip was from the senior living behind Diebergs off Craig road, to his temp housing at Craigshire road. There was a bit hiccup. The customer thinks he ordered a stop at the Mobile on the run gas station, but it didn’t show up in my driver app. I honored his request nonetheless. The second trip was from the courtyard behind Aldi in Creve Coeur, to a hotel in Clayton.

(Update 07/18/2025) I did two airport trips this morning. I took a gentleman from WUSTL (Knight Center, business school) to airport (American Airline). And I intentionally didn’t leave as fast as I could, and lucky me I got another trip as I was leaving, from terminal 2 (southwest) to west port. After that I got food and coffee at Panera bread at west port and went home.

(Update 07/19/2025) Two trips this morning. One is taking a guy from his apartment in Overland to the gas station and back. He bought a pack of cigarette. I think he can walk, because it’s about 0.5 miles one way. The second one is take a lady from her home in Overland (I think it’s still overland) to the McDonalds’ in the U city China town (there is no actual official China town, but if you are from St. Louis, you probably know what I meant).

(Update 07/20/2025) 3 trips this am. Took the same lady (C) from wustl to her apartment at north county (slightly different from her other home). Took another lady (girl) from nearby apartment to the Amazon facility at St. Peters. And last but not least, took a Russian lady (nurse) from St. Peters to the JCC senior living apartment.

(Update 07/20/2025) Two trips this morning. It was raining and the driving conditions were not good. First trip was from the Hilton Frontenac to the Dr. Pepper plant off Page and 170. I was thinking we were going to airport and didn’t pick up the new trip on the way there initially, including an exclusive request. I picked up new trip after I dropped off a passenger, this new trip is from north county to the south city. After that I was a bit tired, and I went to the same bread company the one at Lansdowne and Chippewa. I was happy I drove about 5 miles along Chippewa in south city – my 1st time did something like this.

This post is getting long, and I am thinking start a new post next time I drive for Uber.

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St. Louis has seen a significant decrease in crime, with the first three months of 2025 showing the lowest number of homicides in 20 years, according to the City of St. Louis (.gov). Homicides are down 45%, robberies are down 20%, burglaries are down 33%, and auto thefts are down 39% year-to-date compared to the same period in previous years. However, there was a recent uptick in robberies during a specific week, but investigations led to arrests. The city is actively working to address crime through various strategies, including street intervention and focused deterrence. Here’s a more detailed breakdown:

  • Overall Crime Reduction:In the first three months of 2025, overall crime is down 28% compared to the same period last year and nearly 50% compared to 2023. 
  • Homicide Rate:The city is experiencing the lowest number of year-to-date homicides since 2005. 
  • Robberies:While robberies have seen a recent increase during a specific week, the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department (SLMPD) is actively investigating and has made arrests related to carjackings. 
  • Property Crime:Property crimes, including burglaries and auto theft, have also seen significant decreases. 
  • Violent Crime:Violent crime in general is down, including rape, aggravated assault, and simple assault. 
  • Targeted Efforts:The City is pursuing a strategy of street intervention, cognitive behavioral theory, and focused deterrence to further reduce crime. 
  • Community Collaboration:The SLMPD, the Circuit Attorney’s Office, the Office of Violence Prevention, and community partners are all working together to build a safer St. Louis. 
  • Public Access to Information:The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department provides crime statistics and a crime map for public access. 

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Categories
Saint Louis uber-and-side-hustle

Somewhat unusual Uber pickup experience at STL airport this morning

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When I first started to drive for Uber, and if I drove to the airport, I usually would call the day and turn off the new requests. After a while, I decided to leave the incoming request on (basically I didn’t do anything special), and twice I got a ride right away the the drop off location. Btw, in terminal one where most airlines fly, the ride share pickup location is near door 6 at the upper (departure) level.

This morning I was hoping for similar magic as I was driving my customers for flight. It didn’t happen right away. So I was pulling away before a request coming in – as I was driving I usually cannot see all details for the request. I accepted it. Turns out to be the beginning of a small disaster for me. The rider (customer) did a loop request for Uber (basically the pick up and drop off at the same location). And they didn’t speak English. They come to STL for an adventist world congress. After looping through airport a few times, and also attempt for them to call their son who speaks English, and also attempt to put in the new destination for the ride (was not successful), I finally gave up. I did what the ride request asked, dropped them off at the almost same spot. They did tip me one dollar.

This is one of the strangest Uber ride I did so far.

PS: early morning Uber driving

Since my most recent China trip, I resumed my Uber driving, and I drove almost entirely during early morning hours (after sunrise, in other words, I still don’t drive for Uber when it’s dark outside). I think early morning Uber-ing has a few benefits:

1) Airport rides. This is usually the most safe, and also sometimes people tip (because of luggages). And in rare cases, I got a new Uber ride at the airport (happened to me 3 times total, and with the last one I mentioned above).

2) People go to work or get off work. I have picked up people go to work (or get off work) at nursing home (this is probably the most common). But really I drove for people who works at Walgreens, Starbucks, Dierbergs, warehouse or assembly line, cannabis* store, hospitals, schools, office buildings and hotels. Basically pretty much anywhere you can think of. And this is as safe as airport ride.

*Cannabis: this is the smell I dislike when driving for Uber. I usually was not in a position or really like to tell people not to get on my car.

Categories
advice and tips gadgets Life Tips

Computer setup for family including teens, preteens

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I have a Mac Mini, and I owned it for quite a few years now. I bought it at Costco St. Peters store, at around Christmas 2021. I used to use it to get to Citrix via Citrix Workspace, the remote desktop software that I used for work. The main reason I prefer this over the company provided IGEL product is I like the keyboard and touchPad for my Mac Mini better than the IGEL’s. I no longer uses Citrix as my employer switched to another software for remote work, also they provided a company laptop for work.

But I still have the Mac Mini, and sometimes I like to see my kids use the Mac Mini, instead of the laptop. Because the Mac Mini (the desktop) is in a public location, and I know what they are doing there. My older daughter (15) has the MacBook Air too: and not surprisingly she would goof around much more – aka doing TikTok etc. compared to do real things at the desktop.

Other benefits of a desktop computer is a larger display or screen, and family members can work on something together, if/when applicable. This is similar to the good old days, when we work in office, we have desktop or large screen, we can do pair programming or debugging together.

If you have limited budget, and don’t have extra money for Mac Mini or something similar, I fully understand. And if you have an extra display, you can still connect the laptop to the external display, to take advantage of the real estate. In fact, I think I have one or two extra external displays, if you are in STL area and are interested, shoot me an email at minjie dot xu at gmail dot com, and you can pick it up at my home at Olivette (aka 橄榄村)。

Also, you may be interested in the computers I used for work.

Separately, I just bought a new iPad for myself. I hope to use iPad more often (instead of iPhone). This has been my goal, but previous effort (a Samsung Android tablet) has been fallen short.

Categories
Music

Cantonese singers I listened to recently

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I started to learn Cantonese about 3 months ago, via Duolingo. I am still there (in terms of using Duolingo), but I think I should start to learn Cantonese beyond Duolingo.

I wrote about Cantonese songs as well (5 minutes read). People especially my friends could wonder: why learn Cantonese, especially now?

That’s a legit question.

For me, I think preserving the Chinese culture is a fun and rewarding endeavor. One fairly common consensus is Cantonese preserves the traditional Chinese the best: this is partially due to a decent size of Cantonese speaking people. Some stats on the English, Mandarin and Cantonese speaking population, from my blog post here. And I am pasting some stats below.

Google estimates there are 1.18 billion mandarin speakers in the world, vs 120 million cantonese speakers (refer to my blog post here 全球将近有1.2亿人口使用粤语 ). For comparison google search indicates there are 1.5 billion English speakers in the world.

My list and Playlist

Janice-卫兰: I started this list from Ayen何璟昕, who btw, is an excellent singer. Ayen何璟昕 was born in Guandong Province, and she sings in Cantonese, Mandarin and English. She is also a very good content creator, and last but not least, a pop music curator. This is something I realized as I saw she sung quite a few 副歌（英语：Refrain，惯称Chorus）and shared the short video on Douyin, WeChat and RedNote.

For example, I listened to Ayen’s song 衛蘭歌曲串燒！低半度/驗傷/就算世界無童話/街燈晚餐 新歌老歌 吉他彈唱cover | Ayen 何璟昕 and then I realized that 卫兰 Janice Vidal is so good, and I created a YT playlist for Janice-卫兰 too.

Below are my YT list, based on Ayen’s cover (singing) the respective singer’s songs.

张国荣 Leslie Cheung: 12 songs

王菲 Faye Wong: 12 songs as well

陈慧娴 Prisicilla Chan 和 梅艳芳：7 songs. I should emphasize that 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 is the 1st Ayen’s song YT recommended to me – 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 – ……

陈奕迅 Eason Chen: 8 songs. And my own YT playlist for Eason.

Below are the Cantonese singers I liked and I have my YT playlist for them too.

刘惜君 Sara

SallyYeh-叶倩文

Cantopop-粤语歌曲

…… I am adding more singers here ……

Curing Series my own YT playlist

Last but not least, not 100% Cantonese (there are some Mandarin songs), nonetheless, I like to listen to them as background music at work (I work from home), or when I drive.

Curing series 治愈系列

curingSeries治愈系列之二

Curing series 治愈系列之三

Categories
Fun Life

My grandmas series II – My Paternal Grandma

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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 🙂

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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？”🙂

Categories
Life

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.

Categories
Music

Ayen何璟昕 – a quick re-introduction

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Ayen何璟昕 He Jing’xin (earlier she used Ayen Ho for her English name) is very special and quite talented artist, musician and social media influencer (自媒体作者 zi mei ti zuo zhe). She was born in Guangdong Province and she lives in Beijing metro area now.

Sometimes people used the term “北漂(Baike, Wikipedia) bei’piao”。From what I observe, Bei’piao is quite common for musicians and some other artists, because Beijing is also China’s No. 1 culture center, in addition to be the capital of the country (the political center, and many good universities including the 2 leading ones). Here is an example of Shanghai singer who is also 北漂ing.

Live Performance

2025.10.18 CCTV 15 《15号音乐房子》 20251018 大概不到五分钟左右：漫步人生路；25分钟不到一点：祝福（粤语版）；44分钟左右：人生何处不相逢（粤语），中间有一小段国语版 最真的梦。这里有粉丝团的剪辑版（微博）。Technically speaking, CCTV show is recorded not live. But I will categorize it as live as I think it still has a lot of pressure.

2025.09.29 CCTV 3 [开门大吉]何璟昕带来经典歌曲《红日》

07-12-2022 CCTV 3 黄金100秒 appearance complete video via Baidu. Below are clips via Sohu: 广东女孩何璟昕唱响17岁写的原创歌曲《向光性》，温柔歌声，暖化心灵; 广东女孩何璟昕太有才了，现场带来原创粤语歌曲，直击心灵 (七夕词）; 广东女孩何璟昕脑洞打开，将从小熟读的诗句谱成曲子，这波操作太有才了 (I accidentally bumped into these as I was looking for an old video of hers – 何璟昕 北方工业大学 话剧. I didn’t find the 话剧 in which she was the director – she *may* have taken it down since I watched it a few months ago.)

(Update 08-01-2025) I found an old video of Ayen何璟昕 on Bilibili – 56红人馆 第204期 南方姑娘何璟昕北上追音乐 小清新曲风书写心情. You may need a Bilibili account in order to watch. Personally, I have a Bilibili account which is tied to my WeChat account.

(Update 07-19-2025, 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！

(Original June 2025) Here is my earlier post on her. The article was probably too long for a person who heard about Ayen何璟昕 the very first time. Below is an updated and a shorter version.

Show and Tell via Videos

Update 10-15-2025 Ayen recently started a new YT Shorts channel.

For those of you who really don’t like Douyin and like YT better: here is a video for Ayen and her mom – beyond-真的愛妳 吉他cover 母親節和媽媽一起合唱，媽媽第一次上鏡有點害羞 | Ayen 何璟昕

Also Bilibili: 南 屏 海 滩 it’s a combination of 南屏晚钟 (YT) and 上海滩。There are some similarities between those two song’s melodies.

Most of the video links go to Douyin 抖音. How to watch Douyin without an account? Basically, you need to complete the Chinese version of captcha (slide the shape/the object into its place). Also, you dismiss the phone number pop up after that. Btw, this is her Douyin live URL/address. Note I haven’t watched her live show yet, because before today 07-30-2025 I was under impression that we need a Douyin account in order to watch any live show. My assumption could be wrong.

Update 10-26-2025: also recently I happened to find another tip that get to DY on the mobile browser on the phone. That is the so.douyin.com DY’s own search engine. It only works on the phone though. It seems DY uses some “innovative” tricks on the front end.

(Original) I think this Douyin short video showed her skills very well. The song is 抖音《素顏》許嵩、何曼婷【動態歌詞Lyrics】Ayen was doing a cover, but it’s not a very straightforward cover. She puts efforts and creative thoughts into it. She has two versions of herself in the video.

Note this is not entirely new, as I saw she did it at other videos, such as this one – 許冠傑 – 半斤八兩 女生版 Acoustic cover｜粵語歌吉他彈唱｜Ayen何璟昕

and another one

【易燃易爆炸】的【笼】（电影《消失的她》主题曲）cover 陈粒 张碧晨｜Ayen何璟昕

And she did dance too. Ayen used to joke she didn’t know how to dance. I don’t know. But I know she learned dance in last few years. Personally I felt her dance move is good. Note dance is not her strong suite.

国粤双语：怨创天变了心 恨在今天再相遇

Btw, you don’t have to have an account in order to view Douyin videos. Just validate the capicha, and dismiss the pop-up for sign in.

梨涡浅笑：this song is 49 years old 🙂

奔赴星空粤语版

New song June-2025 fresh brewed 🙂 痴情的人最心碎(YT); Douyin short clip featuring the Ayen何璟昕

Old song June-2025: 海阔天空 (Douyin)

国粤双语 面具+天后: since I am learning Cantonese nowadays, I think I hear: “一首歌，一个面具，大家听好” in Cantonese at the beginning.

Here is Baidu Baike intro of Ayen何璟昕

(Update 07-18-2025) I just noticed she has another channel – Ayen阿昕的抖音: and I really like 献给永远的 and 不一样的泪桥 (compare to 伍佰的泪桥here). Btw, noticed her compilation here 阿昕的合唱。

Executive summary

She is a multi-talented artist, composer, lyricist, singer/songwriter and creator/influencer. 唱作人，网红 in Chinese. Here is her Wikipedia page, and her Wikipedia page in Chinese.

Full disclosure: I made some contributions to her Wikipedia page since March 2025.

A few things I liked about her

Hard working, and work smart.

She does most everything on her own, again refer to her undergraduate major and her multiple talents. Here she talks about how she makes the video:

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！

She is also present in all the main music (or video) platforms, inside and outside China. I am listing some platforms below:

Douyin 抖音

WeChat (search Ayen何璟昕 in the app)

RedNote or Xiaohongshu (search Ayen何璟昕 in the app)

Bilibili (not updated as often recently)

YouTube; also 何璟昕（Ayen） – Topic (auto generated by YT as publisher sent new songs over to YT)

Spotify

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Below are more gearing towards my personal preferences, please feel free to ignore

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敏杰最钟意（喜欢）的何璟昕原创原唱的歌

Top songs that Ayen wrote and I like the most, sorted in chronicle order

向光性 (Apple Music, Bilibili, Spotify, YT; QQ 音乐，网易云音乐)

月光 (Apple Music, Bilibili, Spotify, YT; QQ 音乐，网易云音乐)

如果今天天气很好 (Apple Music, Bilibili, YT; QQ 音乐，网易云音乐)

一切美好都像你 (Apple Music, Bilibili, YT; QQ 音乐，网易云音乐)

時間不等你 (原唱) (Bilibili, Spotify, YT; QQ 音乐，网易云音乐)

满天星星 (Apple Music, Bilibili, Spotify, YT; QQ 音乐，网易云音乐)

明月高高天上挂 (Apple Music, Bilibili, Spotify, YT; QQ 音乐，网易云音乐) — 国语版 顺游 在这里 (Apple Music, Bilibili, Spotify, YT; QQ 音乐，网易云音乐)

==================

敏杰最喜欢（钟意）的何璟昕翻唱或吉他弹唱的歌

Top songs Ayen covered, many covered with acoustic guitar. This is a tough task, because I like many of her covered songs. I have created many playlists on YT or YT Music. Here is one example.

I noticed a QQ Music playlist created by a friend is also very popular – much more popular than my list – understandable from the point that in mainland China there are a lot more listeners for both Cantonese and mandarin songs, compared to the listeners outside CHN.

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Lullabies 催眠曲

Btw, for lullabies, my recommendation is to listen to them from a MP3 player, not from the phone. Because ideally, we don’t want to look at phone extensively before bed, and also, we want to keep the phone outside bedroom – for less distractions and better sleep. I learned this trick back in 2012, from the CEO of Arch Coal my employer at the time. But I had to admit I failed many times and recently I am more serious following this best practice. A related thing I started to do is to use Apple Watch to track my sleep.

That being said: here is my YT playlist for lullabies. I have a similar PL on my iPod Nano I use for sleep or before sleep (we are talking about lullabies or songs during sleep, right 🙂 I got the songs from Ayen’s Cover songs on the U drive.

This is my favorite lullaby right now 11-25-2025

A related thing I started to do recently is to use Apple Watch to track my sleep – after the suggestion of my 15-year-old. Previously I used Fitbit sleeping tracking for a while, but I haven’t used the Apple Watch sleep tracking since its debut in 2020 (I switched from Fitbit to Apple Watch a few years before that), mainly due to the fear to facing the reality of looking at my sleep data. Oh well, not a really good excuse and also let me back to the topic. 

Similar singers

I saw some people commented on YT that that Hong Kong based 王菀之和陈洁丽的风格有点像Ayen何璟昕。我觉得读者可以自己去做判断。

PS: 后记

How to show your support? Here is Ayen的店 at Taobao淘宝。She has her own branded guitar and other peripherals (附件，周边）in addition to her top selling Ayen翻唱經典歌曲集.

Categories
gadgets

Bought MP3 player from Amazon

Reading Time: 2 minutes

This one – 64GB MP3 Player with Bluetooth 5.2, AiMoonsa Music Player with Built-in HD Speaker, FM Radio, Voice Recorder, HiFi Sound, E-Book, Earphones Included

First impression: this is more like a feature phone instead of iPad Nano or smartphone. For $27 (before tax), this is expected though.

I already started to use the MP3 player and I tested out radio feature (it works). I haven’t tried the earphone comes with it. Right now I am using Apple EarPods. It meets my basic need.

Note another reason I need the MP3 player is it has better or more powerful battery than my current iPod Nano – it still works, but I don’t know how long it will last – I owned it for about 12 or 13 years.

PS:

I am thinking that I probably still will get the iPod Nano from eBay or somewhere. Ideally an iPod with good battery. Separately I bought the USB C EarPods from Amazon and really liked it too. I gave my old USB C EarPods to S6 for her school work (she has a school iPad with USB-C port, and she uses the EarPods for Map testing etc.)

Update (07-03-2015) It seems the player will drag the voice of a song, similar to how cassette player works when it runs out of battery or power. I need to verify it’s indeed the case. Once again more than 10 year old iPod Nano seems doing a much better job than this latest and greatest MP3 player 🙂

(Update 02-21-2026) I bought a refurb iPod nano from eBay over the holidays, and I sold the MP3 player I mentioned above.

Separately, I came across this – Influencers want to adopt the ‘analog lifestyle’ for 2026. Here’s how to join them (LA Times). Below is quote from the article.

The recommendation has increased the search for “iPods” on EBay more than 1,200 times an hour globally between January and October 2025, according to the company. The iPod third-generation models saw a 50% increase in average sales price from global  EBay users in 2025 compared with 2023. The iPod Nano third generation saw a 60% increase, while the iPod Classic sixth generation had a 40% increase.

(Update 02-23-2026) Axios – Why people are buying iPods again

(Update 02-28-2026) The iPod’s slow shuffle back to relevance

Categories
advice and tips Life Tips

Don’t talk behind other people’s back

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Be kind.

We cannot always be more talented than others – assume the nature born talent is “born”.

But we can always be more kind than others.

Example 1:

A rival tennis club owner trash talks about CCRC (Creve Coeur Racquet Club), ironically this owner is a fellow parent of kid in my younger daughter’s grade. Initially I thought about moving my daughter from CCRC (now Lifetime Fitness Creve Coeur) to that rival tennis club. Now I have some doubts whether I should move her. I do understand quite a few people moved before of the CCRC to Lifetime Fitness CC transition, including the coaches (the pros in the tennis world).

Example 2:

An internet singer I recently wrote, trash talks Coco Lee 李玟 ‘s perceived lack of mainland culture awareness in her mandarin education: 说她中文不正宗. This is totally unnecessary as Coco grew up mostly in the west. Quote a bit from her Wikipedia page below:

Ferren Lee was born on 17 January 1975[19][20] in Hong Kong[6][16] or Wuhan.[21][22] She was a posthumous child, as her father had died earlier of an illness. She had physical defects in her left leg, which affected her throughout her life and contributed to her later challenges.[23] After her father’s death, Lee’s mother moved the family to Hong Kong to seek support from relatives. They faced difficult times there before emigrating to the US when Lee was nine years old.[24][25] She had two elder sisters, Carol and Nancy, the latter of whom would become Lee’s manager early in her career.[26] Growing up in San Francisco, Lee attended Redding Elementary School, Presidio Middle School, and Raoul Wallenberg Traditional High School.[27] She won the title of Miss Teen Chinatown San Francisco in 1991 at age 16.

Buffett and Munger

Now I recall Warren Buffett famously said “critique by category, not by name”. Charlie Munger may be a bit more critical on people in certain industry, e.g., cryptos.

In many ways we can out-work or work harder than others too. That’s topic for another day. But work smarter is equally important if not more.