wanderer

We had a car accident.

Well, it was a minor and very weird one. We were on the way back from Key West, the very southern tip of Florida on last Friday afternoon. I happened to drive, just passing the top of seven mile bridge. On the downslope of the one-lane bridge, suddenly a tire was running toward us. I stepped on the brake, the vehicle didn't completely stop when the tire hit the right side of the front bumper. I felt a strong jolt and heard a muffled bang,  then saw the tire bounce back the road and fly off the bridge into the sea. The car chain on the opposite lane all stopped, the driver of the leading one, a pickup with a trailer boat, jumped out and checked the other side of the bridge. My buddy Ping, who's on the passenger's seat, stepped out the car too to see if our car was Okay. He was investigating the damage and mummed our car seemed fine. We urged him to come back since the road is highway, and the eye sight is not good for the trailing traffic behind us. Ping jumped in, I speed up the car, continued to drive about another 3 miles till I saw a parking lot, then pulled over there to pay a closer look on the hit.

As it turned out, the bumper was bent and warped, the right fog light was broken. Since it was a rental car under Ping's name, we debated a while and concluded we needed to go back to find that pickup driver, which we believe was the owner of the flying tire. We turned back, this time Ping's driving, with little hope of spotting the culprit. And we did find him, pulled over at the same spot with emergence lights on, a police car was already. At the police's order, we all slowly drove forward to the other end of the bridge and parked at a parking lot. The police came over to talk to each one of us one by one, then wrote a report. Basically it's the pickup driver's liability, one of the tires on his 4-wheel trailer was loose and magically ran free. His insurance is responsible for all the damage caused to our car.

What's interesting is how we recall the details during that 3 seconds period of time. Ke, who's on the backseat with eyes wide open, said she saw the tire was hitting on the right barricade and then flying up to the left, narrowly over the first car on the opposite lane. This is totally different from what me and Ping had described, even Ke repeated the story with affirmed tone again and again. Ping, on the other hand, said the first vehicle on the other side was not a pickup but a van, which he later conceded wrong. He said he was yelling at me 'brake hard! brake hard!' when seeing the tire coming to us. Ke and I didn't hear a thing from him. I remembered the pickup was a white one, it was actually deep blue color. The pickup driver was checking the north side of the bridge to see his tire because his wife, who's with him, said the tire was off north side, while Ping and me clearly saw it was on the south side. On whether to go back to confront with the driver, I was concerned if the pickup driver would point out it was me, not Ping, who is driving since Ping got off the car to check the front bumper. Technically, this could have his insurance voided. But Ke and Ping assured me they wouldn't remember a thing like that. And indeed, that poor couple didn't say a word of who's driving.

In an event happening in 3 seconds, our idle eyes gave us very inaccurate description of what is going on. Now I am very curious of how the authorities handle the witness verdict in civil and criminal cases. It is surprising how poor general people like us are at instant observation. My instant reaction was not superior, either. Luckily, I was not stupid enough to try to avoid the hit, which could easily lead to collision or swirl the car off the bridge. Only professionals like an assassin or a spy could have reacted to sudden outburst super cool. My own 3 seconds of emergency, now sounds lame in retrospect, left me a long time to chew on.

It can't be overestimated that how much technology has changed our lives. One of the amazing things is Internet. Internet has imposed the biggest challenge and threat to the newspaper industry, they are forced to put online edition, most of them free, besides the circulated paper editions. It makes the real newspaper reading a little old-fashioned. Sad at this or not, it is a progress in information briefing. Now the common practice is you report, I comment. Here are some examples why this is better.

May 12 is the 1st anniversary of Sichuan earthquake, which claimed more than 80 thousand people's lives. USA Today had a report that titled, 'Chinese earthquake park turns pain into profit'. The reporter explained how people there tried to make money by providing transportation service and selling souvenirs, and how the local government planned to build a memorial park out of the town wreckage to create tourism business, a outcry to the sorrow of the victims and their survivors. If there is any response to the story from the readers, it might be indignation to the corrupted bureaucratic. But the comments from online readers straighten the big pictures. Savvy readers quickly pointed out Oklahoma City also 'profited' from the Murrah bombing, New York City gained tourism after 911, New Orleans won sympathy touring after Katrina, the title is sort of insult to Chinese people. The comments associated the article make it clear that the reporter didn't really do a good job of reporting objectively. Inadvertently he showed his personal bias (link).

The next story is a commercial stumbled upon on the Internet. The video asks, what do all these people have in common: John Lennon, Nelson Mandella, Babe Ruth, Bill Clinton, Nancy Reagan, Faith Hill, Tim McGraw, Sarah Mclachalan, Steve Jobs...? Very diverse and impressive list. At the end of the video, it says, 'Adopted.' My first reaction was, 'Wow!.'  How powerful the message is. But one of the comments down below taught me not to believe something lightly. John Lennon, Babe Ruth and Bill Clinton were all NOT categorized 'adopted', the rest of the list needs to be checked carefully as well. The commercial is some religion organization advocates outlaw of abortion! Now it is still impressive, but totally opposite to previous effect (link).

More examples can be cited on politics, international affairs. Let us not go that far. The point is the readers are examining the news media while they are watching and scrutinizing the government, the business, etc. It is the second layer of mass inquisitive gazing that only benefits the general readers. Needless to say, gem hides in dirt, often insightful comment are among many gibberish, that is the price to let everyone to say. Nevertheless it is worth the price, because it helps us avoid of being blind-led. Maybe this is a better form of information packaging.

Hollywood movie business, or American culture at large, has a genre dubbed superhero. Stemming from the deep admiration of individual hero who has the improbable power saving the world, the authors and producers have presented us with quite a few box office hits, superman, batman, spiderman, X-man, etc. plus their sequels. Now entertainment aside, American media likes to use this 'man' suffix to describe some phenomenal persons in the world. One of them is tankman.

Tankman refers to a young man who stood in front of a column of military tanks on Chang-an Boulevard to prevent the tanks from moving forward to Tian-An-Men Square, the heart of of Beijing in the very eventful summer of 1989. The students anti-corruption movement afoot there led to the CCP's blood crackdown in the end. Video footage showed the man blocked the path of the tanks, and hopped laterally as the tanks wriggled to go around him. He even jumped up to the tank to speak to the soldiers when the army guys can't do anything but turn off the engine. He was eventually flanked and moved away by two men rushing to him. The whole scene were being observed and recorded by a bunch of western journalists who were on the nearby hotel balcony. At least one of them, Charles Cole, was alert enough to hide the film roll he just shot before the Chinese security officers entered the room. Days later, the photo was spread into the rest of the world, it became a wildly used symbol of courage aspiring for freedom, it appears on demonstration poster, on T-shirt, just like the image of Latin America rebel Che Guevara. Tankman's fate, naturally, became the world concern. No one seemed to know for sure if he is still alive. Then Chinese Chairman Jiang Zemin, when interviewed years later, said he might not get executed. Chairman Jiang of Grande People's Republic of China doesn't care a pipsqueak like that. But tankman was already a towering hero in many Democratical wonks and freedom advocates. People want to know who he is, where he is now after almost 20 years of the happening.

The footage and photos are easily accessible in places other than mainland China, for the known reason. Online posts by average Americans, plus pro reports, would tell Chinese youth would largely have no idea of the event. When exposed those material, those Chinese folks would doubt the authenticity, suspecting it is fabricated to blemish China's image. non-Chinese guys would say this is the indicator that Chinese young generations have been terribly brainwashed or become dreadfully politically indifferent, or both.

I am not among those Chinese youth. I was old enough to be a witness when the movement happened in 1989. The video and others were actually aired by China Central Television, CCTV, by then, accompanying the news hostess' comment, 'Look, how atrocious the mobs are.' The tone was solemn and not fully immune to sentiment, and those tapes were to legitimate the suppression. By my experience, I believe there must be a random guy out of the crowd who would step out to do something that defies the authority, being that a throw at mob police, or a very rarely public swear at a top leader, or a short halt of tank moving like this. In his mind, there isn't necessarily deep thinking of freedom, or shiny spirit of being a hero of leading the people. It is more out of impetus and some courage*. People don't think through when disgusted or emotional. No disrespect to tankman, but it just so happened in a place where he got the most possible publicity. What if he did the same thing and got run over by the tank at an otherwise remote corner of a street? Hero sometimes really depends on who sees it. In retrospect, the truth of history becomes less important than how prudent we judge those who write the history.  

Nonetheless, it is intriguing to see the mystery solved some day, when tankman would come out and tell the world what he did that day, or alternatively, the soldiers in that first tank disclose what tankman has said to them, or, the two undercover cops recall what they have done beyond the public eyes. The follow-up may not be as important as the secret audio memoir (due out in May 19 in the US) of late Secretary General  of CCP, Zhao Ziyang, who was then ousted for his sympathy to the students, but it definitely makes a great story. People want to know more about a hero, whether he is accidental or born.

* More accurately, a huge amount of courage.

(links: the photo and the video).

While I was cautioning myself not be too self-conscious, here comes Ke's comment after she skimmed through my stuff here, 'For all the blogs I've ever read, one of my high schools classmates, who works at a company in Shanghai, and my current colleague, Chinese girl Ying, have the most outrageous narcissistic tendency. They have this super uber ability to mix Chinese with some gaudy English words to show off their, uh, I don't know what the heck that is, taste, supremacy or unreasonably swollen ego? You read their stuff, sometimes you have the desire to finger out your eyeballs, or throw up something from your stomach. They both ranked No. 1, ' she showed a disgusted face at that moment, then suddenly turned into frivolous smile, 'And congratulations, you are No. 3.'

What??? Are you kidding me?  She reached over and padded my shoulder to ease the insult with a bigger smile. 'Sorry...Of course I was joking. But you have the problem of writing stuff with such ambivalence, big time! Look at what you have posted there, I read it three times, and I still had no idea what your point is. You don't have a clear cut of telling a story and  staging an argument. You can make it better.'

Criticism is never pleasant. Luckily, one of my best virtues is that I do take criticism, with or without sugar coating. Indeed, I am doing this pell-mell on purpose. There is no identity of mine here, and there is no particular point of interest to focus on. In a sense, I am worse than those two No. 1 are doing, at least they are concerning about fashion, wine, food, and the beyond-word-description inner aloofness and sadness. Seems there is another adjustment and change I need to take care of.

This page is the sandbox for writing. Writing is fun to me, I am honing my skills of telling stories, so I will pay more attention in this regard, whilst I shouldn't give up comment and argue, I should cut to the chase, make the comments and argument pinpointing in a fascinating way, being that mean, pique, hilarious or insightful.

This page is without an identity, a dark page on the Internet. I intend to make it anonymous. Apologies to the very limited readership. I do this because I don't feel I am ready for a novel. It is a tall order, toils me ever since I claim to do this. Maybe I will publicize myself like crazy when I have a few good short stories, or a few good photographs coming out first, then I will have more motivation to attack the novel monster. Till now, I am nobody with no identity.

Thanks for the flogging. And bring me more.

(This seems to develop into a chronicle for the musing, encountering and whining of unemployment days. Let it be, then, only to be watchful of the tendency of self-pitying or becoming sick narcissistic.)

Three days into my free life, there are some subtle changes. First I'm not alert during the morning hour, my natural wake-up moment naturally postponed past 7! Looks like I have the tendency to slack; Then another weakness of mine became more obvious. One day I scanned a headline saying human gene has the uncanny ability of combining together from distance. Hours later when I tried to retrieve the full text to read it, it took me over an hour to revisit all the sites, possibly over 15 trials, to finally get the link. Similar things happened before, I found the misplaced sunglasses only after I went on to buy a new one, or searched for the $100 voucher in vain and only found it after I bought the ticket without it. This lack of attention strikes sharper since now I don't have a job to worry. Organizing is a working habit, it is more of a mental condition.

Job search is the main task.  The process is like a socially shy guy expects a blind date in a coffee shop, looks up and down on every possibly accessible girl passing by, decides whether to caress the hair, flatten the clothing kinks and go approach her. The more the girls come and go, the more anxiety builds up, the more unsettling it feels. That's the toll of job search, I have to adjust and get used to it.

Beyond that task, I have huge chunk of time to spend. Reading online, then go to a library do the reading again, the next day go to a bookstore reading. Causal reading is fun, some examples that I came across these three days: Wall Street Journal has a sport page? They ran simulation 10,000 times to predict the odds of the game results everyday. So this is their technique to calculate the stock and security flunctuation and make money, I wish I could know more details; A nerdy guy asks online, 'What is the meanest insult you can have to someone?' 945 nerdy guys replied with their takes. One mentioned, 'You can't beat Churchill on that', then listed some real poignant lines attributed to him, truthfully or untruthfully; Another guy writes graciously on a physics problem in a magazine that how nonlinear terms in a system could result in non-equilibrium state as time evolves, contrary to the norm all system essentially goes to eqilibrium. It is equivalent to a cup of hot water and ice cube mixture being ice plus hot water after some time. Isn't that stunning? I want to have my own code to do that computation; Then there are discussions about evolution algorithm application in real problem, say, a solar panel adjusts the angel to track the Sun's movement; there are shallow but eye-opening articles on Internet consciousness, dark nodes, etc. I believe I could live like this forever if I don't have to worry about money and work. My most sinful dream life is to be a freelance guy, doing stuff that only interests me.

There's no such a species as freelance scientist, the closest equivalence is science dilettante, who might have a nickname: good-for-nothing. Now I have the risky tendency to be one, unless I have a good plan to use my time wisely. Plan, plan, plan. This is the biggest adjustment to do so far.

I lose my job.

The warning actually came to me two and half months ago, when my boss told me to prepare for a conference talk like a job interview, but I didn't expect she gave me the formal termination notice this early. Call it the brutality of life, or play some blaming game, it doesn't help. Now I am joining the millions of unemployed people who are out of whack in life. As grumble would go, I might cry out loud for the loss of my identity as a researcher, my already slim wage, my pride, my ego(if there's any left), and most of all, some cushion time to pursue my wildest dream.

But I'm not feeling particularly terrible, it's not the first time I faced the music. My girlfriend Ke and I decided to tell our friend Yeon first. Last weekend at the dinner table, I said, 'First I have some bad news for you......' The response was an expected wide-mouth gasp and light scream, 'Oh, my Gosh...!' Then she asked me what my plan was for next, I said I would start to send out resume, as I have been doing in the past months, but more aggressively. In the meantime, seriously think about the change of career, given my bumpy road on the lofty science. 'Oh, yeah, do some biostatistics, like we are doing.' Yeon smiled, 'Trust me, it is still science, and it is fun sometimes.'  Okay, I will have all my options open, but I have heard of some sarcastic comments on statistics. So I asked the two girls, 'Does it bother you that Winston Churchill said, 'there are lies, true lies, and there is statistics'?' 'Uh-huh.' The two both shook their heads, looking at me with emotionless facial expression. Then I said, 'Fine. Did you guys get offended that there's another saying, 'statistics is the only science that different people use the same set of data and draw different conclusions.'?' Yeon replied, 'that happens a lot. Why would I get offended. ' Yeon seemed still in a mild shocking state at my news, maybe she felt sorry and happy for me, fighting internally to find something to comfort me, 'Yeah, go back to school to get a Master, then you are on board....Hmm, what are you gonna do in the summer.....Oh, oh, you can go travel, cross the country, you don't have that chance often to do that.'  Ke agreed, 'That's what I suggested him to do. But there has to be budget for that. Can you make it 1500 for a month? Where do you want to go?' I said, 'It should be fun to drive alone. First I like to go to Acadia in Maine, then I'm thinking of driving along the east coast, down to Florida, then turn west to those southern states, Alabama,' I faked southern accent, 'then I go up along middle west, cover those states I haven't stepped in. And, I'll shoot tons of photoes......' The two girls pouted and complained, 'I wanna go with you.' But when cooled down, I knew the feasibility is slim, 'I might get bored in a week, believe me, driving along is heck of boring thing to do. What other suggestions?' I asked. Ke replied, 'You can train yourself for the marathon.' She always liked to put me in some torturing situation. Yeon still thought of outdoor, 'How about you go Appalachia trail, then write a book? You know there's a guy in Des Monies, he walked that trail and wrote a book.' I said, 'I know, it's Bill Bryson. He didn't finish the trail, it is two thousand miles, I had that book.' But this is a big reminder to my still sleeping ambition. How's it going with my novel, still unborn in my mind? ( Yeah, FBI special agent Jason Zajac chased around the country to find the Chinese guy Bin who was the suspect of killing the renowned quantum computation expert, Professor Samuel B. Zhang, and stealing the newly invented encryption/decryption device that could open the door to all the secured communication in the world...Now my plotting stuck at Jason stopped Bin in the library of a small border town between Vermont and Canada. What next?)  I made gaudy mistakes by broadcasting that I would do a novel, would run a marathon.  By far the real deal doesn't seem palpable. Now I have months of laid-off time ahead of me, suddenly I have the luxury, and no excuse, to do what I am claimed to do.

Casual chat dusted down, let me be realistic. I can't devote to these sexy endeavors without a base, I need a perch. Those are secondary, I can't lose my priority while losing my job. Time is ticking, and I am not a 22-year-old free spirited college graduate, declaring 'the sky is the limit'. There are limits everywhere we go. How about our great grand motherland, P.R. China. I made some phone calls to friends. First my buddy, low-rank official Z. He's still in the sorrow state of the loss of love when his college old flame decided to part ways with him during his tug of war of divorcing his current wife. I spent 45 minutes comforting him, and the last 2 minutes  mentioning my situation in the end. 'Next time, maybe.' I still count myself a guy that does research, so I called a high rank official who is in charge of hundred of millions of yuan funds in Sichuan. 'You are welcome to come back. you need a (work) unit to stay if you want to apply for money.' That's the direct message I got, and between the lines, I detected the dire mire to sort out all the guanxi (connections) and barriers. Do I have the sophistication to survive in the jungle? I think not. Similar message was conveyed from an ex colleague of mine in Shanghai. She kindly suggested me to think wider, think outside the box for the career sake. Then I had a candid conversation with my friend in Guangdong. I said I wanted to build a lab, initially need this amount of money plus that kind of expert to assist me, the return is enormous. But, but the chance of success is 30% based on my preliminary data, could you help me find some venture capitals (VC)? He said the biggest swindlers he ever met were those so-called VCs, and I missed the golden timing of exorbitant flowing money, that was two years ago. But stay tuned, he'd keep an eye on the opportunists in the south. Home is the last resort a wanderer can go, only you better have something cool with you