Prejudice

My Chinese market research company conducted several English language focus groups in Beijing. My colleagues had to transliterate the comments the participants had scrawled on the worksheets that had been given to them. The writing was by and large quite messy. I provided valuable assistance in deciphering the more difficult to read words. One lady at the office asked what the word "prejudice" meant, so I explained that it is having an opinion in advance that colours someone's judgement.

Chinese lady:  I have prejudice against you. Right?
Arnab: Yes, but it's bad to have a prejudice.
Chinese lady: I can say you have prejudice against me. You have prejudice against me.
Arnab: How?
Chinese lady: I really beautiful, but you thought no.

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See also: Pride (totally unrelated)

Shop Talk

While I worked as a primary developer of product releases at ResponseTek, several new terms were introduced into the technical lexicon:

• ARNABranch - Whenever features, changes, or bug fixes had to be developed, I requested a branch of the code base to work on.
• ARNABuild - As I made rapid progress on my project, I would roll out incremental packages tot the quality assurance (QA) team so that they could validate and verify my work.
• ARNABug - Occasionally an ARNABuild behaved in an untoward manner. These ARNABugs were not necessarily introduced in the current ARNABranch, although they were detected in it.
• ARNABeta - When software is ready to be tried by its users but is still not ready for the big time, a 'beta' label is slapped on it. ARNABetas looked very good but rarely worked.

Taiwanese Tease

As a highly appreciated objet d'art I have always been heavily photographed by everyone from Joe Public to various subject matter experts (SMEs). A goal of mine was to be photographed by strangers for reasons not purely aesthetic. Being an alien in China, the time was ripe for me to be picturized for looking different, and not just for looking gorgeous. I thought my wish had come true at Shanghai Airport, but alas it was not to be.

I stood at the entrance to the terminal and a group of tourists gathered near me. They exchanged nervous glances and spoke to each other in hushed tones, before sending an emissary to approach me. The young fellow asked me if I could pose with his sister for a picture. I happily obliged and he thanked me for my kindness. He told me he was a fireman from Taiwan and then leaned in conspiratorially, whispering in my ear "My sister thinks you are very handsome". My dream shattered, I cast a scintillating gaze in her direction. She blushed and looked downwards.

The Place To Be

Q: Have you been to "The Place"?
A: Which place?
Q: The Place?

Beijing is full of fancy shopping malls, but a few stand apart from the rest. The Place is one of them. Asia's largest LCD screen covers an open air plaza that is part of the upscale shopping complex. 250m long and 30m wide, an array of LED's dot the massive overhead screen. A film about the solar system was being played on the giant screen, as its capabilities were showcased to the audience beneath. A slightly larger screen in Las Vegas takes the top prize, but the Place also boasts a Ferrari store where the salesmen are dressed in the signature red Formula 1 outfits donned by the team.

Arnab and the Great Wall

My first visit to the Great Wall turned out to be much more dangerous than I had anticipated it to be. There are several sections of the wall that are around a two hour drive from Beijing. Rather than a jaunt through a tourist heavy portion of the wall, I visited Jiankou. Featuring long and steep stretches of unrestored splendour and sheer drops onto the jagged rocks below for anyone who has the misfortune of toppling off the wall, the world's longest tourist attraction was quite spectacular here.

After a strenuous climb up to the wall through snow covered wilderness, I believed that the most physically challenging portions of the hike had been completed. I was wrong. Like a video game, each consecutive stage of the trip proved to be more daunting and exciting than the last. Many portions of the wall were missing or crumbling apart. To get from one segment to another I had to scale near vertical steps or climb bare handed on the sides of the mountain to reach the next level. Some stairs were referred to as 'ladders' as there angle of elevation eared 80 degrees. Strategically positioned watchtowers allowed me to catch my breath and enjoy the panoramic view, before I continued onwards on the perilous path.

The Chinese climbers had come well prepared with heavy duty gear including walkie talkies, walking sticks, ropes, and brand name clothing, while the foreigners were an ill prepared ragtag outfit. At one point a piece of the wall came lose, bounced of the shoulder of one adventurer, then narrowly avoided obliterating another member of the expedition, before smashing into a thousand pieces down below. The perilous trek concluded soon after as we found a gap in the wall and slid down the snowy hills back to base camp.

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"He who has not climbed the wall is not a true man" - Chairman Mao