Posted 6:49 AM by Andy
The weather is perfect now in Shanghai, warm enough to bask in the sun and temperate enough to not perspire profusely.

May holidays. I flew out to Hong Kong with Ivan. I almost didn't make it on to the flight as I neglected to bring my old expiring passport with my visa. When the customs officer denied me passage, I had the weird thought of "Why can't my face be my passport?" which was quickly extinguished by frantic phone calls to Ivan's gf Jolia to retrieve it from my apartment and deliver it to me via Ivan's taxi driver friend. Thereafter followed nine days of spontaneous sight-seeing, shopping, and meeting new people amid intervals of gorging on local delicacies. A quick recap of each day: Saturday we toured Monkok, various malls, and Ivan bought his Powerbook in Tsimshatsui followed by dinner at Shooters in Times Square Mall. We visited Lan kwai fong, the bar district at night but didn't partake of the club scene but sipped on an Irish lager while watching some soccer. Sunday: worship service at ECC in the downtown convention center, lunch with a group of expats visiting from California and working in Hong Kong. I met Jimmy A, my ex-roommate Paul's mentor and McKinsey manager, and Lim, who is doing a language survey in Yunnan. May took me up to Victoria's peak but the skyline was shrouded in fog. I hung out with Christina L who I ran into for the second time randomly in a few weeks and then dinner with her and Faye, a banker in Hong Kong. Monday started with a dim-sum lunch followed by shopping for cosmetics for the women in our lives. We alighted into Body Shop, Sasa's and assorted department stores to find moisturizers and other beauty products. We ran into some church folks at Stanley Market. Carlos' parents treated us to a buffet that night. On Tuesday we took the ferry to Macau and climbed a hill to see some church buildings in the morning and the famous facade nestled on the top of a long and wide set of stairs whose name escapes me. In the afternoon we hit the casinos. Carlos' friend was banned from the premises because he donned a pair of sandals. Casino Lisboa, the jewel of Stanley Ho's empire, is a wreck with an umimpressive decor and tightly packed floor. During mid-afternoon we witnessed a parade of gorgeous (or at least more made-up) girls at the bottom floor of the casino. Ivan, Carlos and I looked at each other with a knowing glance as we quickly left the professionals. On Wednesday Ivan and I flew to Taipei. The afternoon I landed I was frantically calling hotels because I couldn't locate my uncle. Later it turned out I had three options for housing during my stay. Thursday I walked all along the main road bisecting the city to get a vibe of my hometown. That night Max took me to a fellowship meeting catering to businessmen. We ate in the Kuomintang banquet hall. The worship there was really lively. Afterwards I followed Max and a couple others to counsel an elderly businessman who was distressed and on the verge of suicide due to debt problems. Things looked really grim until we invited him to pray with us. After some reluctance, he repeated a confessional prayer and accepted Christ. My heart was pounding so hard due to the tension of witnessing a soul moving from darkness to light. This episode reminded me of the time I helped cast out demons from a neighbor when I was visiting my sister one time in East Palo Alto. He was convulsing wildly with two guys trying to pin him down. I stood in the hallway calling on the name of Jesus to free him. The similarities are that what started out as an ordinary night became anything but. On Friday Enoch, the lawyer turned consultant to the Taiwanese VP Annette Lu, took me to lunch. It's good to know he still has the bigger picture in mind and hasn't been completely warped by being so entrenched within the inner circles of the DPP (Democratic Progressive Party). After a complimentary dinner with Nina and her mom, we strolled around the Shi-Lin night market. Our benefactor bought us mochi and anything else our palates craved. For the nightcap, I met up with Enoch and his friends at Room 18 around midnight, a posh club near the city hall. I grooved to the hip-hop beats until 3:30 a.m. when the still energetic Mr. Chang steered us to Cashbox for some karaoke action. On Saturday I went to Danshui, the pier area on the outskirts of town and met up with some folks from Vancouver, including Grace, with a lethal smile. That night I had Taiwanese-style dim-sum with my uncle. He lectured me without inhibition. The main thrust of his harangue was that I haven't accomplished anything and I'm almost 30. I couldn't really argue with a guy that worked his way up to become the VP of a billion-dollar electronics manufacturer. After stressing the importance of perseverance in one's career, he moved on to relationships. A snippet of the conversation went like this, with my uncle doing most of the talking:
"You're not really handsome. Some girls like a macho guy, but you're not it."
"Sure. I'll give you that."
"Some guys like the 'little white face' (literal translation, a.k.a. pretty boy), but you're not that either."
"You're right."
"So why would girls like you?"
"I have personality."
"You are a rebellious punk with a shadowy mustache. I don't see how anyone will fall for you."

And on it went. I just nodded with minor protest, my lips curled into a wry smile. If you examine his contentions critically, he is right. I don't have an advanced degree like 2/3 of my peers. I dropped out of a master's program when I realized the China-Taiwan cross-strait relations dilemma was intractable and I couldn't produce anything original for that term paper and couldn't envision making any significant change as a bureaucrat. I am not financially stable (my definition is $100k in liquid assets). My job pays me a pittance compared to my stateside brethren. While most people have a close-knit social circle, I have a hodge-podge collection of friends that includes ministers, party-promoters, basketball junkies, hedge fund traders, attorneys and reformed thugs, salesmen and drug addicts. While most have found their life-partners by 30 or at least have dated extensively, I carefully build platonic friendships and intentionally avoid any cumbersome entanglements while I search for the elusive one.
On Sunday I attended service at J.B.'s church and ate lunch with his in-laws. His father-in-law pontificated on the differences between Taipei and Shanghai, projecting that civil society will be the norm in Shanghai in a generation. After an eventful 9 days, I thankfully trudged back to Shanghai via the HK layover.

Parents' visit. The ensuing weekend my parents came to my adopted city. The original purpose of the trip was to scope out the local housing market to prepare for a purchase. The recent speculative bubble has led to many policy changes including a tax on any property that is resold within 2 years of purchase. Shanghai was hammered by rain throughout the weekend, hampering our cause in walking around. We only visited one place in hong-kou district, north of the Bund because the agent misunderstood me and brought us to an office space initially and she had to scramble to find more properties. We were also hamstrung by the price range we had set based on our budget. When I pushed my parents to make a decision, they opted to wait to understand the market better, wise by any measure. Despite our arguments over trivial things, I still enjoy spending time with my folks. They are like the model immigrant parents, working hard and scrimping for small sums of money to create a better life for their children. Unfortunately I have always gotten by with my brains and talent without putting in enough sweat equity. I'm like Penny Hardaway, good but a little too cocksure at times. Who I really want to emulate is Dwayne Wade. Check the latest SLAM article on the man who is fearless on the court and humble off it.

New Angel. "Every year there are a few stars that shine brightly and dazzle everyone in their radius. Once every generation there comes a supernova." --Stanford professor heaping praise on a student prodigy. If I may pilfer that metaphor, every year there are cool people that enter my life, but only once in a life-time there is a supernova that eclipses everything that came before and obscures everyone that will come after its appearance. I'm trying to assess whether she is such a supernova. For privacy's sake, let me give her the biblical pseudonym of Rachel. The analogy may be apt since Jacob toiled for 14 years for her, but I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm not so crude as to reduce human beings to a set of parameters, but let's check the stats just to satisfy my rational side and your curiosity. Intelligence: brilliant. She studied at Stanford with a human bio undergrad major and a minor in Asian studies. She changed her aspirations from practicing medicine to practicing law and will enroll at Harvard this fall. I've met a few people of this caliber but it's still quite impressive. Personality: awesome. She is friendly without being in-your-face or annoying. She is gregarious without being a diva. She is articulate without appearing contrived. Spirituality: emerging. This is the only downside at this point. She is spiritual and deeply sensitive but is not Christian. I've given her Zacharias' Jesus Among Other Gods to remedy that. Looks: mesmerizing. This is the kicker, the x-factor that makes or breaks more relationships than people would care to admit. She is not a model but is beautiful nevertheless. She is elegant and dresses well. Lest I trip over myself with inappropriate superlatives, I will just call her attractive and leave it at that. This summer will be interesting.