A little thing called Happiness

I used to think life is short and I should make each day count. Make each day a happy day. This has become my motto in life. So then I've learned how to make myself happy.

I discovered many different ways to turn my mood and emotions around, even when I'm bored, lonely, sad or at the edge of depression. Experimenting new recipes, zulupping noodles, traveling to exotic countries or find a good book to ready, while having coffee with cookies. These have always been little tricks to indulge myself and keep myself cheerful and happy.

Happy people can spread their joyful and happy spirit to others. I truly believe finding ways to make myself happy is doing my part to create a better and happier world.

To stay happy and healthy, I also avoid depressing people. There are way too many unhappy people in Hong Kong. They never stop complaining about the government, their career, their love life, their sex life... it's like a never ending list of complains. I find it annoying when people making complains without doing anything about it. These people are contagious, they spread this negative energy to the world like SARS, once it got started, it takes forever to control. So, I decided to avoid them in order to be immune from the negative spirit. At least, in this way, there are one less depressing person in this cruel and difficult world.

But recently, I'm starting to doubt about my definition of happiness. If life is short, shouldn't we be pursuing the kind of happiness that goes beyond our life? In this way, happiness is not only an indulgence to oneself, but to the people around you, with or without your presence.

This is probably the biggest lesson I've learned from my Mom, who has left us just recently. Of course, it's one of the most devastating thing that happened in my life. But the support I got from my Mom's friends, even some that I never met, really tells me what an extraordinary woman my Mom is.


My coolest Mom


She was definitely a happy person. Not that she never complained. I've heard countless complained about her job, about her marriage and about her worries. There were times that I was even trying to avoid her, because of so much she complained. But she would always find a solution to these problems, which sometimes was so challenging that it felt like a miracle.

When I was about to graduate from secondary school, I was dying to study overseas for university. My mom used to share with me how much she worried about not being able to help support my dream to study overseas. Though the family income was not be able to afford that, my mom still made me researched and applied for universities abroad. Back then Mom was stuck with a company that she worked for a decade and was about to restructure. But miracle happened.

Not only she found a new job that almost doubled her paid, she was also laid off right before she resigned. Therefore, she was able to get a much better paid job plus a huge compensation from the previous company. With all the extra liquidity, she didn't spend them on indulging herself with a new bag or shoes, she spent it on my education!!

I seldom see her indulge herself on anything. She seems to indulge herself into working long hours, into volunteering, into helping friends, and more importantly, into pursuing her dreams. With so much responsibilities, work and difficulties in life, she was still able to find her dream, which was opening a bookstore, and pursue it in her 50s. That's something that I admire the most.

Although the bookstore is still a small one, it is bringing a significant impact to not only the business partners that she worked closely with, but everyone visiting it. She was really happy and spreading that happiness, not through indulging herself, but help people to deal with realities and complains in life.

I'm very proud to have such a courageous and wonderful Mom. I wouldn't trade for anything from a different Mom. It's ashamed that my definition of happiness was so limited to myself. Wish I could get the strength and wisdom to bringing happiness beyond myself but to people around me, just like her.

Oracle is buying Sun! What's next?

This is the reason why I like working in the technology market. In the middle of the economic recession, there's still always exciting happen at the technology market. It's a market that never gets bored.

Oracle has been known for it's bold acquisitions. The company bought most of its major competitors in the business application market, People Soft, JD Edwards, Siebel, within 2 years. Then the year after, I remember seeing Oracle bought a company almost every MONTH! Do you see that happen in any industry? Some companies don't even close a major deal every month, let alone buying a company?

Well, after being in the industry for so long. I'm starting to get used to see these dog-eat-dog world . I don't get wowed easily anymore since Oracle's series of acquisition. But this latest announcement got my nose so close to the monitor, just to make sure I'm reading what I'm reading.

Of course, this deal was announced at one of the most interesting time of the market. There is probably never a better time to make major investment when the market is almost at its lowest deep. It is also announced in less than a week after IBM fail to close the deal with Sun. But what interest me the most from this announcement is that, Oracle is getting into Hardware business!

The enterprise software giant entering the hardware business could face with a lot of challenges. Can you imagine from managing developers to engineers? They could both be nerds, but the software developers are very different from hardware engineers. Also, hardware business involve managing manufacturing plants, components sourcing, distributions, logistics, managing inventory, which was never an issue for software companies.

OK, Maybe some people would say it's not surprising. Since the company announced its database appliance back in the fall, it is prepared for hardware business. All these challenges may even get Larry even more excited, because he just loves all the attention and spot lights he gets from making bold acquisition.

But I believe hardware is a retiring business. No matter how slit Netbook looks or how powerful is the Roadrunner (No.1 supercomputer built by IBM for US Department of Energy- http://www.top500.org/list/2008/06/100), I believe hardware is no longer a growing business. It will continue to exist, but eventually enterprises are not going to run data center at all. That's exactly what Cloud Computing or thin-client are all about.

The significance about Oracle getting into hardware actually proves my theory that hardware is passé. Sun has been struggling from its hardware-based business, margin is shrinking and growth has been stagnant. Apart from Sun, other hardware vendors major acquisition in recent years also indicates hardware can no longer be a standalone business: IBM bought PwC Consulting, sold its PC divisions and recently acquired Cognos, EMC bought VMware, HP bought ESD, all these indicates hardware vendors can only survive if it diversify its business into either software or services business. No hardware vendor will continue to survive in the market as a hardware vendor.

The only component that Oracle hasn't covered in the formula right now is IT services. My bet is Oracle's next bold move will acquire IT services companies. The question is, who is next?

Who do you think? Let me know.

Mal's best moments in 2008

Another year to pass... another year to start. It's time again for setting new year's resolution... that's what most people would say.

But I never like setting new year's resolution, or try to avoid that, because I could never make it. There's always something happened that either delay or changed what was planned. So instead planning for the future, I think it's more fun to look back the top 10 best moments in 2008. They reminds me how much I've achieved and help keep me going in 2009 :)


Best Wedding... ever!
I always find weddings are cheesy and boring, especially the Chinese style big banquet. It has always been very difficult to understand why would people turn their wedding day, supposed to be the most romantic day, into a big show. Wearing the monkey suite, greeting people that have not met for years (or have never even met before, because they were guest invited by the in-laws) and taking pictures that's never meant to be seen again, does not sound a bit romantic to me. Then comes the pre-wedding pictures slide show, shark-fin soup and toasting all over the venue, these all look just like a “show-off” to me.

Probably being single, has gotten me really sarcastic about weddings. But 2008 has given me new perspective about weddings. I had two very memorable weddings this year, all happened within one week. They were both my best friends, one was my buddy since secondary school and one was my roommate back at college days. These two weddings were surprisingly wonderful for me. Being so close with these two couples and their families, the whole wedding rituals become more meaningful. Happy Marriage for Nadia and Donovan, Katherine and Tomo! :)



Best Holiday -- Hokkaido
I love to travel. Every year I'd plan at least one exciting trip. In 2007, I went Morocco, learned Moroccan cooking and visited my friend Amy at Doha on the way back to Hong Kong. The year before I had a live-on-board scuba diving trip in Malaysia. That was my first live-on-board, the idea of being stuck in the boat for a 3 days with a whole group of complete strangers was not as bad as it sound. But definitely exciting when I spotted, not only one, but two 3-meter sharks!!

In 2008, I took the chance between jobs to take a week off to Hokkaido. Different from most Hong Kong girls, I'm not a big fan of visiting Japan. I always find it boring to visit Tokyo, even it has all the great food and nice shops. I'd always prefer my holiday to be something different from my daily city live.

Hokkaido was a perfect destination. Even better, I got a travel company and skiing buddy! Gigi, was the person to blame and praise. She suggested going to Hokkaido together and brought me the best trip of the year! We had the wonderful yummy crabs dinner and sushi breakfast, as well as the exciting snowboarding and relaxing in-room hot spring!! I still can't forget the great food at the Sapporo beer garden BBQ and cute little penguins at Asahiyama Zoo. Definitely want to go back there again some day :D



Biggest career move – Leaving Journalism
2008 is also a year that I've made the biggest change in my career. After 8 years of being a reporter, I left journalism and pursue a new career. It was a complicated and difficult decisions. I still don't know whether it was a good move. But it was a big step and I'm proud of myself to be able to bring that adventurous spirit in my career. Probably that's a safe way to say it, in case I blew my career.

It was not an easy transition to move away from journalism, which I think fit perfectly for my character. It was particularly difficult with the office environment and work schedule. People were nice, but they are “normal” in the new job. Journalists and writers could be wacky, but totally fun to hang out with :) Work schedule is also very different with the new job. No fixed deadline, made me feel like I'm never done with any project. But I'm getting used to all these and starting to enjoy my new job.

In addition, moving to this new job allows to see better how the entire IT industry works. Maybe it could bring me into other areas in IT, or who knows, bring me back to journalism with more expertise from the IT industry. Wish me luck la!

Best new toy – First MacBook
Being in the IT industry, I probably should talk a little about my gadget. First, I have a confession to make. Even I've been in the industry for quite a few years, I'm never a fan of gadgets. I'm just a girl that likes beautiful shoes more than cool mobile phones.

Yet, this year, I finally find a way to mix beauty and coolness. The answer is Apple! :) After months of consideration and a few calculation with numbers in my bank account, I've bought my first MacBook! It is the coolest laptop I've ever got! Glad that I've finally got rid of the bulky IBM and boring Windows. I can't think of anything else in the world can combine beauty and coolness. You can only say a gadget is sexy and beautiful, when it is a Mac :)




Best historical moment -- US Presidential Election I'm never a big fan of politics. But after meeting a new friend, whose dream was to become a politician, I started want to learn more about politics. On top of the influence from this new friend, the entertaining level at the US election in 2008 was also brought me great interest over politics.

As mentioned in my other blog entries, I think it's quite sad that many of us, non-Americans, find the US Presidential Election very entertaining. From the bright side, this probably arouse more people's interest over politics and understand the world better.

Of course, the significance of the 2008 US Presidential Election was not only entertaining. Seeing Barack Obama, the first African-American being elected as the US President was truly moving, even I am not black nor American. Though how much change is he going to bring to the country is yet to be seen, he certainly brought a change in attitude from how the world see the US. Finally, no more white trash at the white house!!


Most inspiring moment – Sichun Earthquake
2008 is a great year for me with all the good change and great things happened to me. Yet, it was not so great for China. Despite the success of the Bejing Olympics and Chinese astronauts visiting the moon, our country had a tough year. The snow storm early in the year and Sichun earthquake reminds me that there are still many people in China suffering and struggling for a simple living.

Actually, this is probably the first time I refer China as my country. Being raised in Hong Kong, a colony of Britain, I never see myself a Chinese citizen. It feels more like a Chinese ethnicity being outside the country. Even after 1997, I don't have a sense at all of being patriotic. It probably takes something more significant for me to recognize my nationality. Sadly, it was the Sichun Earthquake. May those who passed away from the disaster rest in peace and those injured and hurt recover in 2009.



Best meal – Can't choose!
I love food! Even my taste might change from time to time, loving food is something that never changed. So, a review of 2008 MUST include something about food :)

The problem is I don't know how to pick my favorite food of the year. There were so many good food and great meals, it was tough to choose one. Zulupping noodles at Pho 26, trying out the little BBQ seafood place and XinJiang restaurant at my neighborhood are definitely one of the many great meals.

But after so many great meals, I've learned in 2008 that the best meal comes with not only great food and nice environment. It was the great company that turned good food into a wonderful meal! In that case, the best meal of the year is probably my birthday dinner, when I had a few good friends to share the special moment with me. Small party, good food and wine, it was a fabulous dinner :)

I'm glad to have so many good friends in 2008 to share all the wonderful dining experiences with me!