Got No Respect?

Posted on April 25, 2012 by sinyaw

An employee came to me, frustrated, seeking a transfer. After 30 minutes or so, I came to the realization, “So what you are saying is that people don’t value your opinion?” He agreed that was the source of his frustration and “people” meant his direct manager. I can definitely sympathize. After all, I exist for my judgment and that will be delivered in the form of my opinions. If people don’t value my opinion, what’s the point?

“But why don’t they value your opinions?” I asked. After a long rhetoric on favoritism, biases, and politicking, he concluded, “I was obviously right and valuable. They don’t listen to me because that they are stupid.” “But there are two other possibilities,” I said. “You could be wrong or not valuable. Secondly, you may have delivered the message ineffectively.” The employee was stunned. “If either of those is the case,” I continued. “The situation will not improve after you have transferred.”

Of course his boss could be stupid, not heeding an employee’s valuable opinions. This manager will not be an effective one and will, sooner or later, lose out to fierce career competition. All the employee has to do is wait. The manager will disappear and things will get better. But if it is the other possibility that the employee was wrong, then the situation will never improve. In fact, not for the rest of his career. The only way out is to better himself, or change to a different line of work.

Sooner or later, we will all face the same situation where we are not appreciated enough. It is not a good feeling. The first thought that will come to you is to leave the place. “If you guys don’t appreciate me, then I will go somewhere else that I will be.” The question is, “What if they don’t appreciate you there either?”

If you get no respect, work to earn them. There is something about you that is making people not respect you. Find out what it is and change that. Before you do, you have little chance getting it elsewhere.

Posted in Management Thoughts | 3 Comments

My First Steve Berry

Posted on April 20, 2012 by sinyaw

On one of my trips, my fellow passenger was a hedge fund manager from Idaho (never got his name). His wife stuffed this book into his bag and he highly recommended it. I reserved the eBook from Seattle Public Library and was glad that it came through before my recent business trip to Texas. The flight back was not long enough. I couldn’t put it down.

(How is that Seattle Public Library has a better interface for eBooks than Silicon Valley’s Santa Clara County Library?)

The Jefferson Key is the latest of the Cotton Malone series (book 7) by Steve Berry, a best-selling author. I learned more about US presidential assassinations from this fiction than history books. Clearly, there were four presidents gunned down in US history. According to this book, a single organization, the Commonwealth, a band of privateers or legalized pirates, was behind all four. Berry’s research reminded me of Michael Crichton’s Pirate Latitudes.

I did not know that this was the 7th of a series and it did not matter. The book is a fast-paced page turner with a good plot and excellent research. Strangely, the minor characters were more vivid and in-depth than the major ones.

I wouldn’t say this is a literary classic that depicts human flaws, deep, or thought provoking. Steve Berry knows his craft like Stephen King, Michael Crichton, David Baldacci, or Mary Higgins Clark. I read all of them, and wouldn’t mind toting one of their works during a vacation, quiet weekend, or business trip.

And you should to.

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中文或英文

Posted on April 17, 2012 by sinyaw

我很少去看我這blog的讀者量. 開始時,天天關心有多少人看我的大作. 現在基本上是個公開的日記,整理自己的思路,練練文筆. 所謂”筆耕”,大概就是這意思吧. 誰看誰不看,我寫我的.

今天心血來潮,發現有半數的讀者是以中文上網.而我多數的”作品”是英文. 嘿!

Posted in Witness to my life | 5 Comments

American Irons

Posted on April 15, 2012 by sinyaw

Buying a car is so hard. Large sums of money are involved. The consequence of making a mistake is very regrettable. The purchasing process is arduously unpleasant. And there isn’t enough information to make good decisions with. Fortunately, there is a very simple way to measure car quality. I am quite surprised that so few people utilize it. It has been my family secret.

Your insurance agent.

A low insurance premium means, statistically, fewer claims, in frequency, monetary amount, or both. Whatever troubles you will experience with the car: break-downs, accidents, theft, etc. eventually become insurance claims and become a single number for you: the premium. In a very straight-forward way, the best car, in terms of quality, is the one with the lowest premium to price ratio. Pick the cars that interest you, ask your agent for their rates, divide the rate with the car prices, and, voila, that’s your car to buy. The only things left are color and trim options. Tools such as Edmunds are really helpful.

ABC News reported that American cars have improved in both quality and price. They have been learning from the Japanese and Germans on quality for several decades. Since the bail-out, they have reduced labor costs, some $4,000 per car. This must’ve sucked for Detroit auto-workers. That $4,000 dollars meant loss of jobs, closure of factories, and reduction of benefits.

Thomas Friedman taught us to always think globally. You can survive only if you are the best in the world for what you do. Halfway across the world, there are thousands or millions of people that do not care about preserving your way of life. And none of your neighbors, friends, or even family are paying $4,000 extra, regardless of who made the car.

I am glad that American cars are now better. I am happy that they are now globally competitive. Don’t take my word for it. Ask your insurance agent.

Posted in Peek into my mind | 1 Comment

智化寺

Posted on April 12, 2012 by sinyaw

智化寺在二环边上，朝内小街东，金宝街北，禄米仓胡同的最东一段。不好找，但值得一游。最精彩的是西配殿，叫“藏殿”。中有个转轮藏，木雕精美完整，可以流连细看。正殿祭如来佛，台后有个壁画，但光线昏暗，难以欣赏。西边有个达摩像，我看了就喜欢。 藏殿的藻井早年被盗，现存美国The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art。

这寺是明英宗宠幸太监王振的家庙。据明史记载，“振跋扈不可制，作大第皇城东，建智化寺，穷极土木”。王振的个家庙就如此，可想见其他。英宗于正统14年率50万大军御驾亲征入侵的瓦刺。大败被俘，王振死于乱军之中。史称“土木之变”。明朝太监干政，始予王振，也自此由盛轉衰。看智化寺的精美，像恭王府一样，想到和珅也是个“倾国倾朝”的宦官。

寺内的几个赑屃（bi4 xi3)居然几百年还完好，细节生动，碑文也还能读，不容易。三进的大殿是二层楼也不常见。好像山门中经常有音乐表演，我没赶上。

Posted in China, Tour guides | 1 Comment

Qing Ming

Posted on April 8, 2012 by sinyaw

Several years ago, China has three golden weeks every year. Those are week-long national holidays that wreak havoc to the whole country. Everyone must go somewhere; all tourist spots busted in seams; transportation system ground to halt; international transactions disrupted. So the government changed that and distributed the holidays around year to smaller chunks. Qing Ming and several traditional festivals are now officially observed. So nice to see them restored.

Unbeknown to many, the Chinese traditional calendar is actually solar/lunar. For example, the Chinese New Year is the 2nd new moon after the winter solstice, a classic solar/lunar construction. Chinese calendar is also purely astronomical, unlike western Gregorian calendar that is partially a political by-product, in the form of a short February and odd number of days for each month. Chinese divide a solar year into 24 even periods. Qing Ming is 14 days after the spring equinox. By this time, the growing season has just started. People clean up their slates and get ready for the busy summer. Chinese decided that this is a good day to visit their ancestors’ burial site.

It is an outing, a light exercise, and a show of respect to the ancestors. Several years ago, I had such adventure with my siblings to my great grand mother’s tomb. We brought manual gardening tools, incenses, some pastries, and paper “monies.” It was a rigorous hike. We cleared out the weeds and tidied up the surrounding. The we offered the foods, lit the incenses, and burned those special monies that will become her spending currency wherever she is. We read the tombstone, admired her longevity, and traced her offspring whose names were inscribed. The party chatted to the smokes and incenses. We hiked back in good spirit and enjoyed a nice meal after.

Almost every Chinese know the famous poem on Qing Ming about a restaurant called Xing Hua Cun (杏花村). It’s the time to have a little homesick. Several drinks will be the perfect poetic mood if there is also a light drizzle.

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Salt

Posted on March 31, 2012 by sinyaw

Unlike oil, salt and water are reusable and also among the most abundant elements on earth. There is no shortage of either one to last humanity through eternity. Except without energy, we just can’t make good use of them. This has been the struggle throughout human history until about 100 years ago.

Mark Kurlansky’s book, Salt: a World History, tells the world’s history from the angle of salt and I will never view this commodity substance the same.

Earth has a huge amount of salt. Coastal places clearly have sea water. Inland areas usually have salt mines, sometime as big as a mountain, or salt lakes. Then there are brine springs all around the world. To extract salt from them, we need energy: to dig, to evaporate, to distribute. Historical major saltworks were usually at the location where all three were together: free flowing brine spring, big mountain of rock salt, or long coast lines; forest, coal mine, natural gas, or good weather for solar energy; and river, canal, or sea ports. All those places became major cities which, in turn, shaped most of our history.

Until canning and refrigeration, salting was the only way to preserve food: meat, fish, dairy, and vegetables. Therefore it became the element for survival. Without salt, people could not preserve food and would starve when there was no harvest or the weather turned bad. Salt also won or lost wars. Soldiers needed food to fight; food needed salt. No salt, no rations, no soldiers, no winning. Surprising number of wars were decided by the control of salt. For the US civil war, Union controlled salt better than Confederacy and eventually won.

Many of my favorite foods: smoked salmon, ham, bacon, kimchi, thousand-year egg, etc. came from the old days when salting foods was an everyday business. I learned that Chinese prefer to cook with already salted ingredients: soy sauce, dou-ban, dou-shi, zai-cai, etc. instead of sprinkling salt directly. I also learned how salt makes meat tender by breaking down the protein. This explains the working of curing meat, also why brining chicken makes them tasty.

With cheap energy, salt will be the easiest problem to solve. And the solution is right in front of us: nuclear. Almost all nuclear plants require cooling and what better to use than sea water? Cooling with sea water is the same as heating them up, salt just comes out of that process.

I cannot say this book is a page turner and all those ancient recipes became boring at the end. It surprised me many times with fresh angles and factoids unknown to me. Salt shaped much of human histories and has been largely forgotten, just like many of those cities used to thrive with saltworks. Next time I go to ChengDu, I would have a different perspective for the city.

Posted in Books & Reviews | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Individual Mandate

Posted on March 26, 2012 by sinyaw

In a society where hospitals cannot turn away patients, regardless of their ability or willingness to pay, individual mandate on health insurance is a necessity.

I have seen and heard so many times of lives that withered away unnecessarily because of poverty. In many parts of the world, the poor do not get health care. The doctors and medical industry operate as any other commercial establishment: fee for services. Health care, or insurance, for people in those societies, is a true personal choice, frequently painful.

In the USA, hospitals cannot turn away patients. Go to any community hospital and observe the long queue in the emergency room. Those are people who cannot afford regular medical care and they will get free health care from the hospital. The USA is not a “fee for service” country. We pretend that health care is not an economical activity.

But health care is among the largest commercial industries in this country. It is also the only one where both the consumer and the provider rarely know the costs of the services. Services will be rendered and received. Provider and consumer part happily. Someone else will arrange the payments. Sigh. If this is not stupid, it is at least weird.

My kid has this condition that requires a special medicine. When she received the prescription, she also got a solicitation from a pharmacy that promised to deliver the medicine to her free of charge! Wow. Free medicine. She agreed. When she received the statement from the insurance company, she was startled to learn the pharmacy charge nearly 10 times the amount to the insurance company. (Yes, she stopped the service and disputed the claim.) If she did not have insurance, who would pay for this? Yes, everyone.

If we hold on to the ideology that everyone should get medical care, then everyone must bear their share of the burden. That’s individual mandate and the only way this can work.

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DFW

Posted on March 18, 2012 by sinyaw

I landed at DFW oh so many decades ago from oh so far away. Together with several literal FOBs (fresh off the boat), we set out to try the quintessential Americana: McDonald’s Big Mac. As we walked the streets of Arlington, a big pick-up truck, with no doors, wizzed by. A young woman was driving, holding a can of drink and with her left foot propped on the side mirror. There was a rifle mounted on the back, and a rack of horns on the hood. We looked at each other, wide-eyed, “Texas!”

Dallas-Fort Worth Airport was new and the largest in the world then. Gates were far away from each other and it was advisable to take the unmanned tram — shining, quiet, clean, and crawling — to go to the other terminal, lest you give yourself a heart-attack running to the next gate. Cowboy Stadium was so big that it hurt my neck looking up at it. Football involved no foot and was played without a ball. Cities declared themselves “dry.” To buy beer, you needed to cross the street to a different city, and couldn’t drink them until you got home. Businesses did not open on Sunday mornings, not even grocery stores. Ice creams, all 31 flavors, were awesome, particularly with all the whipped cream and things on top. And that’s called Sunday for whatever reason. One of those bowls and you could skip lunch. Of course McDonald’s had the best food, quarter-pounder with cheese was my favorite. I could eat that every day, and almost did. On special nights, friends drove a car full of people to watch movies. Tune the radio to the right station and everyone watches from inside the car, all night. That’s called a drive-in.

I was a stranger in a strange land.

I raised a family and became one of them. Much older now, I came back to DFW for business. I would have liked to visit UT Arlington, but knew that I would not recognize anything or anyone. The airport, no longer the biggest, is still huge. I looked out and saw the horizon, a sight that awed me. Growing up in a mountainous island, I never saw one before. So much I have changed, so far I have traveled, and so old I have become.

Posted in Peek into my mind, Witness to my life | 2 Comments

Corned Beef

Posted on March 17, 2012 by sinyaw

I look forward to St. Patrick’s day, not for all those Irish festivities and folk stories, but for corned beef. Like turkey, I always wondered why they are popular only on this occasion.

In the old days, the only way to preserve meat is to salt them. Salt draws out water and kills off all bacteria or living organisms. If done right, it also breaks down protein in a way very similar to cooking: called curing. Curing has two benefits: tenderizing and adding flavor. Sea salt forms in large crystals, called corns. Corned beef refers to the salt used in curing the beef, usually otherwise rather tough briskets. In addition to salt, corned beef uses saltpeter to preserve the reddish color. There are also many seasonings and spices. Pretty much every family has their own corned beef recipes, as traditional as their heritage.

My family tradition comes in neat plastic bags from Costco, or whichever supermarket has a great deal around St. Patrick’s Day. The classic recipe calls for cabbages, carrots, and red potatoes.

Get a big stock pot, open the bag and put everything in it — meat, juice, flavoring spices — add water to cover. If you wish, put those seasonings and spices in a pouch first. Boil then turn to simmer. The meat needs to cook about thirty minutes per pound. About half an hour before it is done, add cabbages, cut into big chunks, carrots, and potatoes. Drain off liquid, put everything on a large dish, slice off the beef and serve. You will see happy faces at the table.

Always cook more than you need. They are great as sandwich meat later.

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