Is it about gender? Or is it something else?

Happy International Women's Day!

I have some thoughts about gender inequality.

First of all, let's take gender out of the equation.

When we hire people in tech, we do not and should not focus on gender or nationality, but should instead focus on skills, capabilities and how the candidate fit into the team. That's what we called equal opportunity employment. Along the same line, we should treat everyone equally in the workplace. Would I say, "Oh, you are a very good leader because you are a man." Or "You are very strong in Java programming because you are a man"? No, you are a good leader or a good programmer because you are good. Am I good at my job because of my nationality or gender? I believe I'm good at my job because I work hard and I'm good at work I do. I understand it's easier to generalize and label based on appearance, and judge based on one's previous experiences. It is my hope that people can go beyond the surface, and try to get to know everyone they encountered as unique individuals. We are all different; we all have our strengths and weaknesses; we are all special in our own ways. Try to embrace the differences.

Now, let's put gender back into the equation.

To our male counterpart, it is difficult for you to understand why and how inequality exist for men and women. I don't normally talk about it, because I don't want to sound like complaining too much, but it seems that people just don't understand unless you put the writing on the wall. So here is my own story, and I'm sure every other woman has her own unique story to tell.

Growing up in China, we were taught in school and in the society that men and women were equal (they said: "Women can support half of the sky.") However, the Chinese culture had a long and dark history of discrimination and mistreatment of women, which pretty much started since the recorded history. So this kind of ideal was hard to achieve.

When I was growing up, in addition to having to study hard in school to get good grades; at home, I was taught to do all of the house chores, such as making and pouring tea, cleaning the house and dishes, cooking, laundry. Every summer vacation, in addition to doing my daily summer homework, I would help mop the floor, pick up the house and do the dishes before going to play. In one word, I was brought up to serve. Don't get me wrong, I did not feel being mistreated, and I was happy to help my parents.

On the other hand, my brother and my male cousins didn't have to do any of those "duties." They could play, take Kung Fu or computer lessons, travel afar, because that's what men do.

In elementary school, I was always among the top of the class, and more girls did better than boys. In middle school, math and physics became difficult. Then one day in middle school, my physics teacher took me aside and told me I didn't do well in my physics tests, but "it's OK, because physics and math are hard for girls." When the society and your own teacher were telling you you couldn't do something because you were a girl, at that age, it could seal your fate, and you could give up trying.

Luckily, I had a strong grandmother who always taught us the importance of persistence and staying in school. I also had a lot of positive encouragements from school in the US that allowed me to try physics and math again, and I did really well (go figure). That allowed me to complete a degree in computer science and working in the tech industry.

I suspect things like this is still happening to girls these days, that they were not given equal treatment in learning. That could cause less women entering school to study STEM, which result to less women entering STEM fields, and other inequalities follow.

Let's not forget that the society expect different things from men and women. Women were expected to (or innately) care for the family, bare children, and many women have to do that on top of a full time job. In that way, women are working harder than men. These women deserve great respect.

We (women) are not expecting free rides or preferential treatment, we are just asking for level playing field and some due respect. It's unreasonable to ask for women to be in 50% of all fields. Everyone is responsible for his/her own success.

Ask yourself, do you intentionally or unintentionally treat your female colleagues differently than male colleagues? As parents, do you treat your sons and daughters differently? As teachers, do you treat your male students differently than your female students? Do you treat men and women differently? If everyone's answers are unequivocally no, then we can start talking about achieving gender equality.

A difficult word

Last Friday morning I had a phone call with my colleague, Mr. D., to explain to him some work related steps.

After my long-winded explanation, I concluded by saying: "Well, this is a convoluted explanation, so I appreciate your understanding of what I'm trying to say." Mr. D. responded: "Wow, I'm impressed that you are using the word 'convoluted.' It's a difficult word even for Americans and English native speakers." I guess it surprised me a little that the word came out so naturally, as if I planned to say that all along. Then we spent a little more time to have a pleasant conversation about learning English as a second language; and his living in Germany, where he only learned enough German to order foods and drinks in the restaurants. I explained to him that when I came to America to study, learning English was for survival, so I had to study hard and it was difficult at times.

I still remember in numerous conversations in the past, people would ask, "How long have you been here?" I would say: "6 months," or "1 year," or "3 years", respectively; and they would be impressed and said, "Your English is very good. It must be difficult learning a new language and study all these subjects in this new language." They were so encouraging, and I still appreciate their support til today. These days, it is more difficult for me to impress people with my English, knowing that I've been living here for more than 20 years. So I appreciate Mr. D.'s compliments, and I told him so.

It reminded me that one time I was working in the lab with my colleague, I think that was early days of my career so I had been living in America for about 10 years, I told Mr. S. "Oh, my computer is out of juice," and Mr. S. was flabbergasted. He laughed and said: "What did you say? I didn't expect that to come out of your mouth." Then we joked that I was being more American everyday.

Tooland, toyland

Saturday morning we got up early, so we made an excursion to the Peninsula to run some errands. After the errand, we enjoyed breakfast with wholesome souffles and delicious latte at Panera. Jack asked if we could go to this shop to get some tools before going home. I reluctantly agreed, thinking worse case I would wait in the car.

Hardware stores to me is like shopping malls to Jack. It is pulling-my-hair-out-boring. It boggles my mind how can anyone get excited about nuts & bolts, pipes & wrenches, faucets & kitchen sinks? A lot of times I just hangout around the nursery, and imagine a colorful garden for our house, but sometimes I wait for him in the car.

In the same way, Jack couldn't stand shopping malls, but I love it. I like shopping and window shopping and looking at fashion styles, and I can be there for hours. Sometimes Jack would be happy to be left at the Apple Store, but a lot of times he just waited in the car. When it comes to shopping, we both have to make compromises.

It didn't take us long to get to this place called TOOLAND in Redwood City, just in time for them to open at 9 AM.

When we went into the store, Jack's eyes sparkled with excitement; and my eyes opened with bewilderment. This place had wrenches & sockets, washers & ratchets, and many other tools that I could not name, in every size!

So when Jack consulted the expert shop keeper on his project questions, I snapped some pictures to capture my amusement. No they don't have a nursery, but on the back they have some heavy duty equipment like table saws and drills. I also learned some names of tool manufacturers like DeWalt, Stanley and Bosch. On the cashiers counter, instead of candy bars and chewing gums, they have small flashlights and mini screwdrivers. These people really like their tools!

It reminds me of a luxury car commercial: Adults, are just like kids, with much much better toys.

Lessons learned of a conscientious blogger

My blog is a window into my mind. When I ponder over each new topic; when I contemplate over word usage and sentence formation; and when I read them with nostalgic enjoyment. If I were to send out any kind of energy to the cyberspace, I wanted it to be cheeky and cheery, and I carefully made it the purpose of this blog for over 10 years.

However, the last post about Disney was downright negative. After I wrote that post, my mood was dark for a week as my mind was reliving the unhappy events from two months ago. I was vindictive and could not let go. It was like I purposely smeared my mind with dirt a second time, and let the incidents ruined my mood all over again.

Life is messy and the world is chaotic. There are many external things that are out of our control yet downright hurtful, and we are tough on ourselves a lot. We need to protect our own well-being. Find out things that disturb us, and learn to stay away from those. At the same time, find those things that make us happy and stick with them. Learn to heal from physical pain and let go of emotional sufferings, and keep our friends and love ones close.  Be kind to ourselves and others, not only for Karma, but also because it will help keep our own peace of mind.  

A not so favorable review of Disney World Orlando

My memories of Disneyland in LA were kin. For me as a younger and carefree person back then, it was indeed the happiest place on earth. So as we made the trip to Disney World Orlando, I had high hopes. After all, what can go wrong with taking a few days vacation from busy work in the middle of the June?

We even used Uber instead of renting a car, which was a pleasant surprise. See, as we gave this 'new' trend a try, we did 'accept' this less regulated gig economy. Old dogs can learn new tricks after all.

My beef is with Disney and every corporation like it. We bought the park hopper tickets online, so first of all, these multiple park thing is super confusing for first timers. You have to spend $500+ per person to go to these parks that you don't know anything about except for their illusive names such as "Animal Kingdom" and "Epcot", and there was no guarantee that you, as adults with no kids, would enjoy anything in these parks. The online corporate photographs with quintessential American families with their happy grins were not so assuring to me. (Since when have I become so negative? Sorry Disney, this has to be told in my own words.)

The first day we got to Epcot 30 minutes before the park opened and there were already people waiting in lines. It wasn't too bad, and the park opened on time. As people moved forward to enter the park, I saw that there were two types of scanners at the front of each line, one to scan the ticket and the other to scan each person's index finger, and there was an employee manning each line at the kiosks. Immediately, I was very uncomfortable. Even though it's likely that my personal information was hacked and might be already out in the black market for sale, I could not get myself to knowingly give up my finger prints to enter some theme park, no matter how creative Walt Disney was and how much I loved Snow White. Is this even legal?! I was beyond myself and puzzled that everyone else didn't seem to have a problem.

When I got to the front of the line, I refused to have my finger print taken. The friendly employee courteously explained that this was not a finger print scanner, it was just getting my bio-metrics as a personal identification. Oh? I actually knew something about this and knew that it was just some lip service. Because the finger print scanner is exactly taking your bio-metrics, so giving it a fancy high tech name couldn't fool me. I was not going to launch into the employee, as she was just doing her job, but come on Disney. If you want my finger prints, YOU PAY ME! I wondered if anyone, including the employee who wanted me to scan my finger and got out of the way knew that Sony, Disney's parent company, had the biggest data breach last year? There is no such thing as digital security. So if anyone asks for your bio-metrics or your facial scan, just say no. They have no rights to ask and you have all the rights to refuse.

So I was stuck in the front of the line until another friendly staff came to escort me to the customer service where they checked my driver's license and took my picture.  In which universe is it acceptable to require personal information just to enter a theme park, I don't know. What baffled me even more was that everyone else seemed to be fine with it.

This really ruined my mood. Imagine every time I access the happiest place on earth, I had to go through a three step program, refusal of finger print; some lecture about "no, this is just your bio-metrics," and pictures taken or check ID. I tried very hard to remain calm and not make a scene every time. I tried very hard to be the observer instead of being angry at the situation. I even wish my mind would forego the notion of right and wrong, so it wouldn't ruin my vacation. I used all that I learned from my Yoga training to somewhat keep my sanity.

Everything else in the Disney parks was impeccable. Despite catering to so many families daily, there was no single garbage on the grounds. The workers were super friendly, and they mastered the art of ushering people in and out of canteens and queuing them up into long lines without being pushy. The food was good. The man-made attractions were beautiful, and the rides were exciting. It was obvious to me Disney was unbashfully sucking money out of each visitor, from ice cold drinks to gift shops at the exit each ride to snack bars and restaurants. But it is a well-run city of its own, with happy Mickey-Mouse-ears-wearing vacationers  

Disney World is undoubtedly the king of all theme parks, and commercialism at its best (or worst).

Genius, a National Geographic docudrama

Recently we watched the finale of the National Geographic docudrama: Genius. It's a show about Albert Einstein, his life and accomplishments.

Einstein lived in the era of both of the World Wars, when new weapons were developed on both sides to "win the wars", which combined to kill close to 100 millions people (loosely citing Wikipedia). Wars are dark and cruel, in addition to the casualties, countless people were displaced and their lives ruined. It's ironic, if the cost was so many lives, then how could it be a "win?" What was the gain? Who is the winner? I say, both sides were losers and there was no winner. What kind of ideology was worthwhile of people's precious lives?

Einstein was a pacifist. He was against the use of science to build weapons. But some of his colleagues had different aspirations, so their talents were exploited, and they went on to create the most deadly chemical weapons and the atomic bomb. I think Einstein's biggest regret had to be his association with the massive destructive weapon - the atomic bomb. He might have wondered whether he could have done more to prevent the catastrophes.

People living in war times live under a dark cloud, and their day to day lives were around survival. At the end of WWII, people were severely scarred. My grandparents lived and survived the dark days of wars. My parents were born around the end of WWII, and experienced poverty in their youth. Back then, no one took the hard fought peace for granted. People just kept their heads down, work hard, live decent lives, and taught their children good values.

Now we are many years from the end of WWII. Living in the U.S. with relative peace and comfort, despite isolated terrorism and gun violence, have we become complacent with the peace and prosperity we are enjoying? There is no rule saying we are entitled to live in peace, while our previous generations lived in turmoil. We need to work hard to keep peace around us and around the world, but not be arrogant and feckless. Isn't this the purpose of learning history?

Do not assume

I feel fortunate to have spent my school years in San Francisco. For college essay assignment, we wrote about stereotype (that's when I first found out what it was); and we had minors such as Asian American History and Holistic Health. Critical Thinking class was a General Education requirement. I also enjoyed Humanities, where I learned to use my student discounts to go to the symphony, plays and museums; and I read the mind-blowing "The Brave New World". Tai Chi and Aerobics for P.E. were fun and healthy! For the final assignment of my Speech class, I wrote about Hilary Clinton's Commencement Speech at our school. Of course, I wished I didn't drop the Philosophy class, and that I took more arts and music classes, and even business. But studying computer science was not a piece of cake, so the last couple of years I really had to focus on my major.

Even after that kind of education, I still made unintentional cultural taboos. At my first job in Austin, I asked my Indian co-worker: does everyone in India practice Yoga? When he said no, I was surprised. But then I instantly realized that it would be as if someone asked me: does everyone in China do Kung Fu? Which would be kind of ridiculous. Or when people told me: Asian students were good with math and science. From then on, I made an effort to keep an open mind about others. I love to talk to people about their culture and background. To me, it was a way to realize the fact that the world is round, and we are all different and it's OK.

Here are some other things I encountered over the years when one can make easy assumptions/generalization, but one would be wrong:

Being from China, I do not ride the bicycle, and I have at least two cousins who don't ride the bike.

Not all Koreans, Mexicans, or Indians can take spicy food.

Not all Germans drink alcohol or ski.


Indeed, the only thing we can count on is: we are all different, and the world changes.