Tag Archives: China

September 11, 2011 · 6:50 pm

John in China

My husband John is on a month-long business trip to China for Huawei, visiting his staff in Xian and ShenZhen. We bought a Panasonic LX5 Lumix camera for his trip. We both like my Canon Powershot S95 but were looking for a camera that managed closeups and color better. It has been interesting seeing China through his lens, both the grand and the small. I look forward to his posting the latest pictures to our joint Flickr account.

When John and I traveled to Beijing and Xian together in 2005, we often ate dishes that we wanted to order again here at home in California. Since we do not speak Chinese, we could only describe the ingredients to a good cook and hope for the best. For this trip, John is taking pictures of his favorite dishes.

We talk by phone or Skype every day.

Easter Egg Hunt

We had more than a dozen kids – aged 3 to 21 – plus their parents over for our annual Easter Egg Hunt last week here in San Jose, California. There were about 400 plastic eggs filled with candy, plus one gold and one silver egg to find in our backyard. We followed the same rules as last year with a few additions.

Last summer, one of our experienced egg hunters arrived with bags of empty plastic eggs for us. When she saw the eggs at a garage sale, Galena bought them to help support her favorite springtime activity. Following up on Galena’s inspiration, this Easter we said that kids could take home their baskets and plastic eggs if they wanted to but they could also leave them with us for next year. The parents thought this was great idea! I insisted that any eggs left with us had to be empty and whole – with tops and bottoms matched up (no leaving half eggs). We ended up with several cubic feet of empty eggs, plus 8 empty baskets.

This year I again provided “advisors” in the form of ceramic bunnies of different sizes and styles. Each child can pick any basket and advisor they want before the hunt starts. The advisors support the young hunters so that their parents are not tempted to help. I buy bunnies and baskets at garage sales and second hand stores all year so that the children have a wide selection to choose from.

Several of our Huawei co-workers came with their kids. I don’t think they hold Easter Egg Hunts in China so this was a novel treat. They had fun playing in WP668, our backyard caboose. The potluck lunch included a wide variety of dishes which everyone enjoyed eating.

International Women’s Day, TechWomen

I just talked with my husband by Skype at midnight his time, morning my time. He is in Shenzhen China on a business trip, and I am in San Jose California. John said that about about 9 pm, there were celebratory explosions in the street outside his hotel, presumably to honor International Women’s Day. In 2007, I blogged about enjoying Women’s Day in India. John and I both work for Huawei. It will be interesting to see how our China-based company celebrates International Women’s Day today at the R&D center in Santa Clara.

I am hoping that in honor of the day, we will see even more potential mentors applying for the TechWomen mentoring program. TechWomen will pair women in Silicon Valley with their counterparts in the Middle East and North Africa for a professional mentorship and exchange program at leading technology companies in June 2011. If you are a qualified mentor, please apply using the form on http://www.techwomen.org/get-involved/. TechWomen is funded by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA), managed by the Institute of International Education (IIE), and implemented in partnership with the Anita Borg Institute for Women in Technology (ABI).

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Filed under Hopper - Anita Borg Institute, Mentoring & Other Business, News & Reviews

Tagged as China, Huawei, John, Mentoring, Middle East, technical women, TechWomen

February 3, 2011 · 10:27 pm

Happy Year of the Rabbit

Working for Huawei means that I am much more aware of Chinese holidays and traditions. Happy New Year! This is the first day of the Year of the Rabbit in the traditional Chinese zodiac. Yesterday, Huawei had a big party for staff and their families, complete with dumplings, seeds, sweets, balloons, plus a dance and variety show from China TV on the big screen in the cafeteria. Today, many people wore their dressy clothes to work.

In honor of the new year, here is my favorite rabbit story:

My mother used to have two large pets in her San Francisco art studio: a rabbit and a six foot long iguana lizard. Both were vegetarians and they loved carrots for their leafy green tops. One day, my mother put a large carrot on the floor and both animals started for it. They stopped on either side of the vegetable and eyed each other.

You need to know that rabbits show aggression by growling and thumping their back legs. A combative iguana jerks its head up and down and turns its skin from green to orange. So, the grey rabbit was on one side of the carrot growling and thumping, and the lizard was on the other, bobbing and changing color. Fortunately for the peace of the studio, both animals were very stupid. Eventually one wandered off and the other sat on the carrot.

Here are pictures of the food at the Huawei New Year’s Party:

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Filed under Home & Family, News & Reviews

Tagged as China, Eleanor, Huawei, San Francisco

October 16, 2010 · 11:34 pm

Soybeans from China

My brother Peter has been studying the Mandarin language for several years and, when he heard that I am now working for Huawei, he strongly recommended The Search for Modern China by Jonathan D. Spence (1999, 2nd edition). I love history books and this is one of the best I have ever read. I am still working my way through and enjoying every page.

I was particularly interested in the story of James Flint, a trader who in 1759 tried to do business with Imperial China. The Spence passage which intrigued me was:

The East India Company tried to enlarge the scope for China trade and negotiation in 1759 by sending James Flint, a company trader who had learned Chinese, to present complaints to the Qing court concerning the restrictions on trade in Canton and the rampant corruption there. By dint of tenacity and a certain amount of bribery, Flint, sailing first to Ningbo and then to Tianjin in a small 70-ton vessel, the Success, was able to have his complaints carried to Peking. The emperor initially seemed to show flexibility, and agreed to send a commission of investigation to the south. But after the Success, sailing back to Canton, was lost at sea with all hands except for Flint (he had traveled south independently), the emperor changed his mind. Flint was arrested and imprisioned for three years for breaking Qing regulations against sailing to northern ports, for improperly presenting petitions, and for having learned Chinese.

This is the first I have heard that learning Chinese was historically illegal. I searched the net to learn more about James Flint and found
“History of Soy – Introduction of Soybeans to North America by Samuel Bowen in 1765” by Theodore Hymowitz and J.R. Harlan.

According to the “History of Soy”, Samuel Bowen was a seaman aboard the Success who was also imprisoned in China and, like Flint, returned to London by 1763 to claim compensation from the Court of Directors of the East India Company. In 1764 Samuel Bowen turned up in Savannah, in The Colony of Georgia, where he planted seeds which he had brought to America from China. The seeds were from soybeans – which Samuel Bowen is credited with introducing as an American crop.

Samuel Bowen and James Flint seemed to have continued to have business dealings with each other. Samuel Bowen’s two sons were named James Flint and Samuel Flint. The older James Flint was also connected with the ever-curious Benjamin Franklin who wrote a letter in 1770 about the food we now call tofu. In the letter, he refers to Mr. Flint.

I was thinking about all of this when I saw the billboard pictured below near where I live in Willow Glen (San Jose, California). We Americans are taught from a very young age about foods from the Americas which now feed the world: potatoes, tomatoes, and corn. I was interested to learn that one of our own staple food crops originated in China.

Chinese Name, English Name

Since starting to work for Huawei, I have learned something about Chinese names and English names. I am sure I there is a great deal more to know! I have even acquired a Chinese name of my own:

丁凯笙 ( in simplified Chinese) which sounds like Dickinson
Ding – 丁 – a real Chinese last name
Kai – 凯 – means glory or victory
Sheng – 笙- a type of Chinese instrument made of vertical pipes

My husband John Plocher’s Chinese name is:

蒋伯乐 (in simplified Chinese)
Jiang or Chiang – 蒋 – which sortof sounds like John
Buo Le – 伯乐 – which is a historical Chinese name and sounds like Plocher (if you don’t speak German)

How Chinese names sound and what they mean matters. My advisers in these matters said it was important to pick a homophone of my name in English. I can not just use my full birth name because it is hard to say and impossibly long by Chinese standards: in addition to my nickname of Katy, I have a three formal names of three syllables each! So, we settled on trying to find a Chinese name that could stand in for my surname only. Despite much discussion, I still ended up in some controversy because while the Chinese name I picked sounds good and has a positive meaning, it does not sound feminine enough. I like it anyway.

Americans often pick names for their children to honor a relative or refer to a famous person, or just because it sounds good. English names often seem to be chosen by Chinese because they (sortof) sound like the person’s original name in Chinese. English names are used by Chinese speakers to make it easier for non-Chinese-speakers to pronounce and remember. Also, having an English name saves them from hearing us mangle the pronunciation of their Chinese name.

One of my coworkers at Huawei in Santa Clara, California, picked the English name Michael. I do not think he considered that the name had an origin but Michael was interested to know that his is the name of the angel who is the general of the armies of God. My next-door-office-neighbor Olivia was interested to find out that her name was coined by Shakespeare in Twelfth Night (1601). Another co-worker was fascinated to find that three American women he knows whose English names sound very different to him (Katy, Kate, and Kathy) are using nicknames and all three share the same first name: Katherine. The concept of nicknames in English does not seem to translate well into Chinese. I used to work with a woman whose American birth certificate bears the name Suzie – because that was the only American name her newly-arrived-from-China parents knew. They did not know it was a nickname for Susan.

My favorite English name story is from my recent trip to Shenzhen, China. The staff I was working with generously took turns driving me to and from my hotel since it was so very hot and I get lost easily. One evening, Cheryl (whose real name is Tautau) said that my driver would be Lucy. I glanced around for a someone whose name might be Lucy, ignoring the energetic young man standing next to Cheryl, who then threw up his hands and proclaimed “I am the Lucy – man!” Since changing English names does not seem to be a big problem in China, I suggested that he might want to call himself Luke to reduce confusion.

English names for people from China, and Chinese names for Americans working with China, seem to be picked using the same criteria as picking a coffee name or a username – pronunciation and memorability are key.

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Filed under News & Reviews

Tagged as China, Huawei, Shakespeare

September 4, 2010 · 7:19 pm

Home from China

I flew into San Francisco late last night from Hong Kong, after ten days working in China. Our takeoff was delayed two hours because of a typhoon – as the cycling winds changed direction, we had to change runways four times. Finally, the jet had to return to the hub to top off fuel before take off. I did not sleep much, so I watched movies: Prince of Persia, The Last Airbender, The A-Team, Letters to Juliet, Nanny McPhee and others, courtesy of Singapore Air. In Singapore Air Economy Class, movies are unlimited, the seats are big, there is a foot rest and a place to put my glasses, and the food is good but fourteen hours on a plane is still not much fun.

This year is the 30th anniversary of the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone, with much honoring of Deng Xiaoping. There were balloons, flags, and illuminated red lanterns on the main streets in celebration. I think my Huawei business trip went well but I am glad to have this long weekend to rejoin my home time zone before starting work again.

I was happy to eat western breakfast food today – the food in Shenzhen is excellent and interesting but I would rather have food I am used to when I wake up. We went to Bill’s Cafe in Willow Glen – our favorite brunch spot. I am even happier to be with my family (John and Paul met me at the airport) and able to drink water from the tap. “Boiled-bottled-or-alcoholic” is the requirement for drinking in China.

I gave John and Paul some of their presents last night. Paul got some carved jade charms and I gave John a small bottle delightfully painted inside with two scenes of birds. The Chinese art of painting a tiny image on the inside of a bottle is delightful. I bought John’s bottle at a store called “Chinese Arts and Craft” in Hong Kong, which offered better quality artists than other locations. I also brought home tea (of course), sesame candy, and moon cakes. I was assured by my Chinese friends that the simple red bean moon cakes I prefer are not as good as those with an egg inside; however, when I came through SFO customs last night and saw the FDA agents confiscating all moon cakes with egg, I was even happier with my choice.

Here are some photos from my trip to Shenzhen and Hong Kong: