All of a sudden everybody on WeChat started sharing their life moment of the same day 4 years ago, I realized today is the leap day for every 4 years. I started recollecting what’s my life like at the time. I spent 1 hour skimming on Wechat Moment, got some flash memories.
I lost my luggage in my hometown
I just got back to Shenzhen from my hometown Yueyang for the Chinese New Year break, where I lost my luggage in the trunk of a cab. I was very disappointed. 😩 I never thought someone would’ve taken my luggage . I even didn’t lock it (I still don’t have the habit of locking luggage). I didn’t take the receipt from cab driver, that’s a big mistake.
I made numerous calls to the taxi coordination center, broadcasted the bounty from 200 RMB all the way to 4000 RMB in few days. I knew there are so many security cameras on the road for each traffic light, I knew the very precise time I passed those intersections, we should able to see the plate number for the cab as long as we have access.
Then it started my first time in life seeking help from the local government, they disappointed me big time. Those people working there treating me as an uninvited visitor, they didn’t care what I need, just keep directing me to other government branches. I ended up visiting 7 branches in the small town, and they don’t give a damn. It’s quite ironical every government branch has a title “People’s xxx”, they don’t really care about local people. Actually I’ve always known those local government not responsive for local people, unless you have “关系” (aka internal relationship) or big money.
In a hindsight, if I booked from Didi or Uber that night, which the shared economy were surging at that time, it would be a whole different story(I’d have digital contact with the driver). As a self-professed tech hobbist, I’ve always been an advocate the tech solutions, I made a bad choice that time.
Working life
As my work, I was very happy working in Jpush at the time. A new manager came to our team 1 month ago and we got along pretty well. I was living/working with a few bachelor colleagues 24/7. We were always staying in office very late because we got nowhere to go besides the office, that was a simple happy bachelor life memory. Before long, things started changing drastically, there was a huge miscommunication between me and the management and I didn’t know it until it broke out, I had to leave JPush unwillingly.
I had a good time there, I made many friends (Though most of them we’re not in close touch any more). I learned the good lesson of communicating and managing up, I learned it a hard way.
If anyone thinks I’m good at communication, I started learning from that. 😼
Preparing study abroad
In the meantime, I was preparing for studying abroad the US. I’ve always wanted to checkout the world. I failed my study application 1 year ago, it was a seconds attempt and I had no clue what would happen.
I vividly remember the recruiting staff Frank from the school gave me a call and started the conversation with “How are you doing today?" I got lost at that very beginning, all I knew for conversation starter is when people say “How are you”, you can respond “I’m fine, thank you!" I stuttered quite a while and brought up what I did in that day. 😅
My English was so bad, that was a hard time, I’m very glad I’ve gone through this far. I can’t believe coming to the US and lived here every since, that was the first time I went out of China(besides Taiwan). There was no accident, no surprise for my visiting, I had no relative or friend living in the US (I did have one in school which is AJie), it has been 4 years. Coming to the US is one of the best choice I made in my life, I’m very proud of that.
Bitcoin
Right before I decided to come to the US, I sold all my Bitcoin/Litecoin holdings. At the time Bitcoin had been going sideways around $500 - $700 for 3 years. I bought them in 2013, I waited 3 years. I was about to start a new journey, I chose to reduce my uncertainty, even though I wasn’t short on money. I lost more than half of my initial investment in Bitcoin. I didn’t expect that Bitcoin skyrocketed 10+ times just 1 year later. Ironically, as I’m writing right now Bitcoin price has upped 20 times comparing the time, and I’m gonna get back on it. Of course, I’m not gonna put all my stakes on it, but since the production halving is about to happen in 2 months and the global stock market is stumbling, I don’t see any other good alternative choice to go.
In the end
That’s all I can recall for this date 4 years ago, I hope I could have some more pleasant memories next time around. Stay tuned. ✊