Blog

Short blog posts, journal entries, and random thoughts. Topics include a mix of personal and the world at large.

Immigrant dad

On a visit back home to my parents’ place, I noticed my father’s coffee mug has a large piece of gaffer tape at the bottom. I thought to myself: that it’s obviously broken! Why not buy another one? Then I realize my parents have that mentality that they won’t replace an item unless it’s absolutely broken. It’s that working-class, immigrant Chinese mentality. They wouldn’t dare to spend extravagantly on themselves, even if it’s just 20 bucks on a new coffee mug.

All (what little) of that disposable income go towards the children, and the future. Even if said children is fully grown (that’s me!) and the monthly paycheck isn’t so tight anymore.

So I had to step in. I went straight Amazon to buy a Yeti-branded coffee tumbler. The same one I’ve been happily using for well over a year. No more generic mugs from some random store in Chinatown for my father. He was so excited (in the Chinese immigrant dad sort of way, which is to say, not overtly) when I gave the Yeti to him. He immediately went to clean off the product labels, give it a solid scrub, then make a cup of coffee.

Finally. A proper mug.

A week later, my mom mentioned to me that father was very impressed with how long the Yeti tumbler kept the coffee hot. He’s really enjoying his cup of morning coffee these days. It wasn’t lost on me that it was mom who told me this, instead of father directly having a conversation with me. Some things don’t change! That’s fine, though: it makes me happy to be able to buy him something he wouldn’t have otherwise. A mere $30 dollar mug can do so much.

Not on a school night

Amongst my friends, I jokingly refer to weekday evenings as “school nights”. Not only do I have a set schedule of studies and practice to attend to, I also have to go to bed early. Not entirely because of work the next day, but because I prefer to wake up early and type out a few words on this blog. I guess you can say it’s a bit neurotic to force myself to such a routine. All I can say, is that it feels weird when I have to deviate from the schedule.

Such as last evening. Instead of eating dinner at home then commencing piano practice, I went out with some friends to a burger place at the main drag of West Portal. It was a particularly warm day so the ambiance was quite nice to be sitting outside and taking in the small town atmosphere. They’ve chained Christmas lights between the light poles so it was rather festive for a random February evening. The burger place was right next to a record store that constantly played music, adding to atmospheric flavor.

See, I’m not so strict with my routine that I can’t break it for these random excursions. The lost time for piano practice and reading can be easily made up later. Quality time with friends, that’s something to grasp at the first opportunity. I even thanked them afterwards for coming out of a school night. One of them is doing his doctorate program, so it actually was a school night for him. There was homework waiting soon as he return home. NERD!

I guess that’s why people adore Fridays so much. They can go out and deviate from their regular work-life schedule without a care. Friday nights are their proverbial oyster. As for me? I also have a set routine on Fridays: I visit my friend’s kids and have dinner at their home. Not all that exciting from certain perspectives, but it’s quality time with people I cherish nonetheless.

Beijing 2022

The Winter Olympics is happening right now in Beijing. It feels weird because we’ve only just had the Summer Olympics in Tokyo, even though yes that was delayed for one year due to the ongoing pandemic. Perhaps the Beijing winter games should have been postponed as well, seeing as spectators at events are still severely limited, and the athlete’s families aren’t able to travel with to China. The show must go on, I guess.

It certainly does not have the same awe-inspiring feel as the 2008 summer games, also held in Beijing. That was the first time China got to host an Olympics. I can remember how proud I was of my motherland as I watched the opening ceremony. Tears of pride gathered at the corner of my eyes as the Chinese national anthem played to the raising of the flag of five stars. The 2008 Olympics was indeed a coming out party for China on the world stage.

In contrast, the 2022 Beijing Olympics has an air of controversy clouding over it, especially if you’re watching from a western country. The NBC broadcast here in the States began with a discussion of the massive human rights violation happening in the Xinjiang region of the China. The Biden administration is diplomatically boycotting the games. Then there’s also COVID: a second straight Olympics with practically zero fan attendance seems like a failure of governance and policy.

Nevertheless, I tuned in to the opening ceremonies last Friday. You can always count on the Chinese to put on a great show (Zhang Yimou directing, too, once again), and indeed the ceremony did not disappoint. Perhaps this second time around was always going to feel less pomp and circumstantial than the first. The emotions of seeing my mother country hosting these winter games just isn’t as strong as the experience of 2008.

Because if the pandemic never happened, I might be in Beijing right now to take in the games in person. A once in a lifetime opportunity derailed by the COVID. Now that’s something we can all commiserate in.

Back to gaming

It’s been about a month since I lucked into buying a PlayStation 5: I just so happened to catch a stock release on BestBuy’s website. It remains baffling that you still can’t simply walk into any BestBuy or Target and buy one of these next-generation consoles. But whatever; I got mine!

And yet I only started to play games on the PS5 this past weekend. Why the delay? Well, before buying the console I already had set routines and hobbies to attend to. It took a bit of time for me to carve out a space within my schedule to dedicate the few hours per week towards gaming. Much like the few hours I allocate weekly to reading, studying Korean, and piano practice.

The days of playing games with every hour of a spare time is absolutely over. Those days (read: college) was awesome. But back then I wouldn’t have been able to drop $500 dollars on a gaming console at a moment’s notice. Nor would I have been able to pay nearly $2,000 for a television to go along with it. Having an adult income is very nice, though that comes with having adult responsibilities as well that takes up your time.

Anyways, the first game I’ve decided to play on the PS5 is the director’s cut version of Ghost of Tsushima. Having recently read James Clavell’s Shogun, I was in the mood for some feudal Japan action. The game is absolutely stunning: the fictional Japanese island of Tsushima looks utterly fantastic, no matter what the in-game time of day it is. Of course, it helps to have a 4K OLED TV. The last time I consistently gamed, it was on a PlayStation 3 hooked up to a run-of-the-mill 1080P TV (playing Gran Theft Auto 4). The 4X jump in visual fidelity is kind of breathtaking.

I’m going to finish Ghost of Tsushima before moving on to another game, whenever that may be. One game at a time, instead of buying a whole lot of games and jumping around.

Price of the brick

Amazon Prime is raising its membership fee for the first time in four years. The service goes to $139 per year, up from $119. The slow boil of the frog that is inflation continues unabated. Netflix also recently hiked its rates; the top 4K tier of service is now $20 a month. I sure hope your account gets shared between four people to lessen the cost burden. Have you ordered food from DoorDash recently? The prices of every restaurant has gone up. Though here in San Francisco that may have something to do with the minimum wage increase too.

The $20 increase is not going to make me cancel my subscription. Amazon knows this, of course. I bet the vast majority of Prime users will simply shrug off the price hike like its nothing. With about 150 million subscribers, that’s a quick and handy profit (150 x $20) of $3 billion dollars. Just a figurative flick of the switch. The law of large numbers is indeed amazing.

The reason I’m not cancelling is because I make the annual fee back in credit card points. The Amazon Prime Visa card gives 5% back on all purchases done on Amazon (and Whole Foods) - so long as you are a subscriber to Prime. WIth the large amount of spending I do with Amazon, I make more than enough money back to at least break even on membership fee. All the while I’m enjoying the benefits of free two-day shipping, and the vast catalog of shows on Prime Video.

That said, it’s certainly not great to see the price going up, not only with Amazon Prime but seemingly everywhere. I’ve certainly used DoorDash way less these days. Order of a single item is at least $20 dollars now, once factoring in all the fees and tips. It’s really handy to live within walking distance to a mall with decent food options.

The American dream

Yesterday I was chatting with an acquaintance at work. The topic came to the huge amounts of money I’ve spent on cars. The guy’s traditional Chinese sensibilities went straight to: why not buy a house instead? Such a massive waste of money switching cars every few years (especially considering what I’ve bought in recent times). It makes far better financial sense to put it towards a house I can live in, instead of paying rent, which is what I’m doing now.

Well, at least that’s what that acquaintance thinks.

I obviously disagree. Purchasing a home is not for everyone, no matter how much the “American dream” is drilled into us. Renting a place is not throwing money away, or paying another person’s mortgage. Whether buy or rent, the mechanism is no different: exchanging hard earned cash for a roof over the head. To say buying is automatically superior to renting for any individual is kind of absurd.

What about the upkeep of a home that you as the homeowner is responsible for? If the main house drain is clogged up, I just have to call the landlord. It’s the landlord who has to stress about fixing it (rather quickly, too: I’m paying money for a functioning unit, after all). For me, renting is far less stressful, and that is worth any money I’m perceived to be “throwing away”.

Besides, who the heck can afford a house in San Francisco on a public worker’s salary anyways.

I can’t refute that my spending habit on cars is incredibly wasteful. But I love cars; what’s the point of making money if you’re not going to spend some of it on frivolous things that bring you joy (shoutout to Marie Condo)? I said to that acquaintance: the thing about money is, you can always make more.

Switching it up

One of my coworkers like to play games on this Nintendo Switch during lunch hour. I never quite understood the popularity of these handheld gaming machines. Back in the days of GameBoy it made sense because it was a truly portable device, not all that much weightier than the modern smartphone. The Switch is an iPad in size; a small tablet flanked on the sides by joystick controllers. I never liked the gaming experience on the iPad either. It’s not very ergonomic: painful to the wrists, the constant hunching of the neck.

I much prefer playing on a proper gaming console, sitting comfortably in front of a large television.

But the popularity of the Nintendo Switch is amazing to see. Steam is coming out with a similar device - the Steam Deck - which will play the latest PC games portably. The waitlist for one of those stretches way into the 2022. No doubt scalpers will have a huge payday on eBay. Other handheld PC gaming systems are already out in the market. Linus Tech Tips have reviewed a few of them recently. Indeed, it seems people want the portable experience.

I guess it’s just another way to pass the time while we’re in between things. Is playing on a Switch during lunch time really any different than listening to a podcast, or deathly scrolling through Instagram and twitter? Man’s inability to be still with his thoughts alone have created these varying methods to keep ourselves entertained. Even as we’re taking our dogs out for a stroll, we have to stare at our phones for the latest dopamine hit.

To each their own, obviously. I rather read a book during my lunch hour.