Technology In A Bank

Hello everybody, I'm back.

To talk about what happens inside a bank.

Before I started working in a bank, I thought that all the data was in fancy systems and applications, so when you want to retrieve information, you just press this button and it generates this report that you can use to display information.

Totally incorrect. We store data any ol' how, e.g. word docs, excel sheets, access database, and the worst display interfaces ever. Sometimes we don't even have places to put this information, e.g. the names of the people hired for projects, so we have to quickly come up with an excel spreadsheet that has all the names of people, and design it, and sort it, and try to teach people to use it!!

Every department uses technology differently. SharePoints are different, data sharing is different, and I find that hard to believe.

However, the people are nice, and that's one important aspect about work. Disregard the technology.

I very occasionally get thoughts of having a cat at home, who can wait for me to come home, and stick to me when I'm on the computer. That would be very sweet.

Jibby Jades and Jewellery

Happening of events:

1. We went into this underground jewellery place. With lots of jewellery, jades, precious stones, and rings.
2. We sat down in a room and an ordinary sales person came to talk to us.
3. About 3 minutes into talking with, the sales person suddenly 'receives' a message from his ear piece/outside and says: "what the boss is here??"
4. He hurries out, and a 'boss' comes in, and start speaking loudly and acting boss.
5. The boss starts telling us about these things:
- how it is destiny that we meet, because
- this is only his 3rd time here in 20 years of operation, as he has 200 stores across China
- but unfortunately, his son is having some health issues, and he even chose to be here with us
- he starts to give out some small jades, as a gift, his rationale was,
- he hopes that we can give his son blessing, when we receive the jades

Boss Lin thanks us for blessing his son

- he says he will not sell us anything, he will not do business with us today, otherwise he is not our friend!
6. We proceed outside and he shows us how to tell real jade from fake jade. He says wrapping a piece of hair around a real jade, will disallow it from burning when fire is put against the hair. He tested, and it was true!
7. He then reveals the 'secret' of all secrets of the price markup, which was approximately 3 times higher than cost price. He says he applies this for all his items.
8. Then he says, "These jades are all very expensive (some were marked CNY190,000 = USD$31,000), BUT because he is now our friend, he will give it to us at USD$1,000 with no room to bargain, because if we bargain, he will not be happy and no longer wants to be our friend. He says this is the king of all bargains.
9. Next, 7 aunties rush up to claim the jade. Face palm from some of us non-aunties.
10. My mum picked one and showed it to my dad. My dad looks hesitant...and just at the point of hesitancy, the boss appears and says: "Ok, because you are my friend, please take this gift from me - it is a ring I have worn everyday for 20 years, please take it." Then he takes it off his hand and forces it on to my dad's hand.
11. I go to see what was going on. The boss suddenly appears and takes off the other ring on his hand, and says: "OK this ring I have been wearing for 15 years. Take it. You are my friend." Unbelievable! I took it. It looked expensive, but it didn't look good on me. And unbelievable! Boss's 35 years of ring-wearing given away in just 30 seconds! Truly not-believable.

Boss talks abour rings

12. Then when he sees another lady hesitating about the purchase, he goes up to the sales man, and says: "You! What are you doing?? She is my friend. Give her half price now." The sales man says sorry sorry and bows, and offers the lady the new price on the calculator.

This was exactly what I paid for. Live Chinese drama.

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Check out this flight ticket:


This means, if you pay AUD$300 for a flight, and they will donate 1/20,000 of it to charity!

Priorities

There comes a time in life, when gaining weight isn't as bad as a lot of other things in life. So 'negate gaining weight' on the priorities list becomes lower and lower.

This may or may not be such a bad thing, depending on what is on top of that priorities list.

New Years Eve What To Do?

Ask Google. Or Google insight.


And the result we get is:


1. Question asked in December - expected.
2. Growing interest over time for this question - unexpected. (Oh by the way, this is not because more people are using Google. The data is standardized.)
3. Australia, being the most interested country to ask this question on Google - unexpected.

Conclusion:

I moderately conclude that the richest countries will be the most interested in what they should do for NYE. I weakly conclude that Australia is among the richest countries in the world, and the reason they are asking this question is because 1. they have sufficient time, 2. they are used to a playful lifestyle, 3. they have sufficient spend.

Linking this back to China, you won't see many searches in baidu.com on what they should do for new years eve. No doubt, everyone is rushing to go back home to spend 15 new year days with the family.

Few observations

1. I was intrigued to find almost nobody reading on the train from Chengdu to Beijing. There were people on mobile phones, listening to music that's played out loud, which is a very acceptable practice, sleeping, watching tv, but didn't see any books!

2. In Sichuan province, people answer the phone by saying: "Wei4", which is pronounced 'Way', not 'Way?' Anyone in Asia not from Sichuan province may find that rude.

3. Everytime I presented my passport at a net cafe, 5-6 people would crowd around me and say simultaneously: "what is that? what is that?" Sometimes they will come talk to me like a foreigner, except as a foreigner with black hair.

4. Strange animals such as camels sometimes can appear in the modern streets of Shi Jia Zhuang.

5. Police crackdown on churches is funny. If you get caught meeting as a church, you say, OK 'this church' won't meet again. Then you change the name of the church, and keep meeting somewhere else. The junior police who 'caught' the church, then won't be responsible. When the senior officers crackdown on the junior police, the junior police can say: "Surely we have disunited this church meeting, see it no longer exists."

6. I like to pretend to take a photo of the taxi's license card while on the journey. Taxi drivers however, like to hide that license card behind something, or anything, such as a the 'available' lights, meter ticker or the rear view mirror! Dodgy.

7. Southern China flight attendants can't speak English. Not a complaint here. Sometimes the translation doesn't make any sense. Sometimes the translation into English is just a few words. Example: "所有不帶下的行李由海官除理" turns into: "All luggage not taken off the airplane will be handled by the customer".

Maid in China

For some reason, I was looking for a nanny in Sydney.

And check out the Google Ad that comes up! Haha.


Zoom in.


It's a maid who can also do some Chinese tutoring when she's done cleaning the house!

Not quite sure about the relevancy. Btw, the only Google that is accessible in China is google.com.hk .

Tour: Cute Small Girl

A good reason to go on tour with a group is not knowing WHO you will meet, which is an exciting feeling.




See the common factor?

This small girl is:
- 6 yrs old
- at the age of not being scared of big people
- shy at first, but once getting to know you she:
- likes sticking to people, especially big boys
- formulates intelligent responses
- lovely, cute and huggable (to my subjectivity)
- tells you stories
- prefers to hold hands, and thinks it ridiculous when teased by her brother (10 yrs old) that I'm her boyfriend. I also think it's ridiculous =].

Makes me want a daughter today! But wait, if something is truly great, it is surely worth the waiting for.