Offend Tai-Sui?

This year is a year I offend Tai-Sui in Chinese culture. Recently I'm feeling that it may be true. My part-time worker disappeared after the Chinese New Year, and a new designer I hired one month ago who was supposed to come last Monday called and said that he will join another company. Now I have to try to look for another person as soon as possible to catch up the already delayed schedule. What a good start for the new year!

On My Name

When I first joined this company last year, I was introduced as Richard. It was very interesting to see how people try to remember it. Most people try to associate it to a name they are familiar with, and that's what I want to share with you.

You can really tell a lot from what occurred to them when they think of the name Richard. Some people think of Richard Clayderman, so I know that they like piano or easy-listening music. Some think of Richard Marx, which implies that they like American Pops. A young girl calls me Gere, and I know she probably likes movies. The most interesting is that someone calls me Uncle Richard. I didn't realize why he calls me uncle because I'm not that old (yet). Finally I figured it out last night. I'm sorry that I have to explain it in Chinese because it's related to the pronunciation. Uncle Richard (理察杯杯, Li Cha Bei Bei) sounds like Uncle Policeman (警察杯杯, Jing Cha Bei Bei)! He must have been intimidated by his parent as a small kid that, if he did not behave, policemen would come and arrest him. Ha!

Ouch...

I hired a college student as part-time worker in my office last October. I liked him a lot because
he was very polite, responsible, and hard-working. And why do I want to write about him? He simply disappeared after the Chinese New Year holidays. I called his mobile and land-line phones
, both unanswered. Despite that I was worried if something happened to him in the holidays, I didn't went out searching for him. After all, he's a grown-up already, and I doubt that anything could happen to him so serious that his family did not get the phones.

Today he was fired by my company. We will send an official notice to his address, and start looking for a new candidate.

As Brief Summary on the New Year Holidays

This Chinese New Year holidays was my son's first one, and also the first time he met his grand grand parents and may other family relatives. Of course, it was also the first time Allie and I experiences how it's like to travel with such a small child for more than two days. In short, I was so tired that I didn't had the energy to write about it until now.

Yoshi was well-behaved on the way. He did not yell, scream or struggle on trains or taxis. However, he could hardly sleep in the nights while in Kaohsiung, partly because he was not familiar with the environment, and partly because his third teeth (upper maxillary central incisor) was coming out. So, we were all very exhausted.

He went to Kaohsiung, Jia-yi, Zi-guan (in Kaohsiung county) and was introduced to about 30 people. Luckily Yoshi seemed enjoyed meeting people he'd never seen before. He smiled a lot, laughed a lot, and people seemed to like him, too.

After Kaohsiung, we had back north to Tamshui and stayed with Allie's family. And, after that, we visited Eric's place at Taipei before we finally went home. Good job, son!