Project: Success!

I was invited to China by Microsoft to work on a certain project – a project that complimented my research at school. However, my first week here I was reassigned to a new project. Not just new as in different from my initial project but new as in novelty – and we are literally starting from the ground level.

Alright – spirit of truth – I was a bit ticked off. Honestly, what we are doing has NOTHING to do with my career plans, desires and future choices. So after sulking for a day or two, I dove right in with both feet first. Suddenly everyone – myself included – began to see the enormous potential this project has to not only be successful in and of itself, but also to unite several teams within MSRA – something desired but with little fruition.

Turns out this project is a good order too (see last blog)…

My co-workers and I have started our own new tradition - one person chooses a restaurant representative of their culture. Naturally, we've had Chinese, Korean, Japanese and last night we had American. You can see from the below picture what I ordered :D  Definitely American...HA!

Not ordering at all

Wow…week 6 - how time flies. The first week it wouldn’t fly fast enough and now I feel like a cartoon character spinning my legs.

I saw a movie last night where a disillusioned girl asks her mother the reason she fell for and married the girl’s promiscuous father – even though they were already divorced at that time. The mother answered, “You know when you’re in a restaurant and you order something that looks really good off the menu and when it comes to the table, you realize you ordered badly? I ordered badly." Still appalled, the daughter replied with why’s, how could you and what were you thinking to order that? She topped it off with, “I won’t make that mistake!" Then the mother simply stated, “No, you will make the other one." Much of the movie was about the daughter trying to figure out what that other mistake was and then she had an epiphany.

I had an epiphany.

I work with intellectually inspiring and very diverse people who challenge me every single day. And they know how to work hard. They make me better and stronger. They test my resolve and my beliefs – after all if I believe something there must be some foundation from which I built it from, along with concrete evidence or support. There is no aimless idea or unsubstantiated preference. Who I am and what I am is built upon something definitive and they expose those scaffolds constructing me and reveal the essence of what makes me…me.

The friends I have made here are as wild as the wild flowers. They bloom in random and unpredictable spots and their fragrance and beauty are life-giving. And - wow - do they know how to have fun…

The room I rent, the bathrooms, playing real-life Frogger every time I cross the road, the food, the people, the parking, the walking, my work, my friends, the smells, the pollution…

So what was the epiphany? The mistake I could have made?

Not ordering at all.

I wouldn’t trade this time for all the tea in China! It has been an amazing experience thus far and I am only in week 6. I can’t imagine my life right now if I had not ordered at all…

Impossible Situations

Communication - Tuesday was my first presentation in front of the entire HCI team. Naturally, I felt pressure to do well but it was so very challenging! Challenging of course, because I am presenting in front of a group of people who are intellectually inspiring and define themselves by this - but also, because I had to constantly filter four things simultaneously. Imagine - I had just been switched to a new project that was in its infancy. My mentor and I had very basic ideas about where we saw this project going so we ended up completing the PowerPoint late the night before the actual presentation. I had only a few hours to decipher what in the world my mentor had in mind for me to say. Then, I was speaking to a large group of people all of whom are NOT Media Arts & Science people but HCI people and anyone who knows these two groups know the style of communication between them is as different as black is from white. Also, I was speaking to a group of people whom English is their second language and all the metaphors, euphemisms, analogies etc. that are American based are completely irrelevant! So ALL my points and jokes completely flop! I had to speak to the group using terms and words in their simplest form and speak extremely clearly because not all the people could speak English well. All the while – reading their faces and body language and trying to make the main points concerning our project (that I had very little knowledge about) make sense. Needless to say, I flopped - hard. It was brutal. My mentor was encouraging and supportive but there is a part of me that is truly upset about this. I know that I really did the best I could with what I had in the time I had – of that I have no doubt. But I wish I was not put in that position in the first place – like I was placed there as some initiation ritual or worse that because I seem confident and self-assured that it was okay to dump me in an impossible situation. Ah well – don’t mind my ramblings.

I am the only American - yet everyone speaks English - but to everyone else English is a second language. I find that intensely disconcerting. And as I said before, Americans don’t have the best reputation here. I hear jokes like,

“What do you call someone who speaks two languages?”
Answer, “Bi-lingual.”
“And what do you call someone who speaks three languages?”
Answer, “Tri-lingual.”
“Great. Now what do you call someone who speaks one language?”
Answer, “An American.”  

I suppose that is why I am upset and wish to avoid such impossible situations that add to their view of Americans. But – like I said – I absolutely did my best, whatever the result.

A moment in time...

This is my HCI group in Beijing. The people standing up behind us are the mentors. My mentor is the second guy from the right - Darren Edge. The mentors took us out for a welcome lunch as you can see from the table in front of us. They filled it with every sort of food imaginable. It was quite delicious. Then we walked to a local coffee shop and shared stories over a mocha. They are extremely friendly and very personable. During my initial interview for Microsoft, there was a warning from Desney. Desney is in charge of all the Microsoft Beijing employees. He said that his people worked hard but that they liked to have fun. He wasn't kidding. They are a great - fun bunch of hard workers and I am honored to be one of them, even if it is just for a moment in time.