Something I found quite interesting when I visit China is that a lot of people think foreigners are automatically rich, and if you’re a Chinese expatriate people would think you’re loaded, too. When I am immersed in that environment sometimes I do feel I am wealthy and I tend to spend more money than I should. The exchange rate makes me feel rich in a mathematical manner, and I don’t calculate the prices to US dollars extremely accurately every time I buy something. As a coworker of mine says it, “it feels like I am spending monopoly money in China and I could buy so much more!”. Here are some of my stories about this phenomenon.

The first time I went back to China was in 1999. This was a full seven years after I left my home country and I was sixteen. I remember that my mom told me to not tell people that I am from America because they will try to rip me off. When we went back home we did some shopping, and we were buying quite a bit of stuff and the vendor was quite puzzled. She said to us, “you’re not Yangzhouese are you?” ( is the city I am from, the birthplace of Yangzhou/Yangchow fried rice). We both knew the merchant was an out of towner because she had an accent of another dialect. So my mom replied in fluent Yangzhouese, “can’t your tell by the way we speak that we’re really Yangzhouese? You’re the out of towner!” I thought it was funny that the way we spent money in our hometown marked us as tourists, and yet we had the essence of the locals because of our language.

The next time we went to China was 2006. China change so much in seven years and everything became much more expensive and the dollar has declined against the yuan, but this time we went with a tour group. We were inexperienced tourists and every time we were brought to a tourist trap shop we bought something. In Beijing my mom gave into sales pressure and bought a little statue for way more than it’s worth. She still blames us for letting her buy it today. I guess the problem is that this time they knew we were from America, and gave us the “special” high prices in the designated stores. The excitement of being back in China and having fun really got to us on that trip, and we went a bit overboard. Then again, I felt like I was supporting the economy of my homeland, and it wasn’t a bad thing.

The last time I went to China was shortly before I got married this year. My mother and I toured some of the most beautiful and remote places in China and I could write a lot more about this later. The people in these distant lands were so simple and beautiful and we bought a lot less things this time, but we were mostly happy with our finds. Then after the tour we went back home to Yangzhou and had dinner with friends and family. Of course my grandparents have told everyone how much money I make because they are proud of it. People were impressed because they always multiply the income by the exchange rate, and they don’t realize that we have fairly heavy income taxes and a high cost of living here. (in China there is still no income tax at this moment) It felt good to invite everyone to a very nice restaurant and pay for it out of my pocket because I am able to do it. Again, that feeling of being rich crept up.

It is dangerous to feel rich when you travel abroad to any country that has a currency that’s cheaper than the dollar because you can end up spending a lot and you will be noticed. It is better to lay low sometimes so you don’t get robbed or scammed. Additionally, I think what is worse is to feel superior to the people who have less than us. The next time I go back to China I will be with my hubby, and I will keep on reminding myself the reality of our life. We are not internet tycoons and we live a comfortable life, but we still need to be responsible with our money no matter which country we are in. It is so easy to get lost in the surreal surroundings of a foreign land and there is nothing wrong with having some fun, but just remember to count your blessings, and your spending.

I graduated from Berkeley’s Electrical Engineering and Computer Science program in 2005 and the Valley was in the midst of an economic recovery. It took me about a month to find a full time position paying $60,000 a year. Recently I did a little digging into the starting salaries of my major for the past 7 years just for fun. I am not surprised by my findings but it is pretty interesting.

This is the raw data from Berkeley’s career center which I copied from several different pages and pieced together. 2007 data isn’t yet available but the median salary is probably about 4 to 5% higher:

Since this data is self reported the reported salaries may be skewed a bit towards the higher end. Nevertheless it’s interesting to see that the class of 2005 is extremely small. I started college in 2001 and that was actually the year Berkeley EECS had the most applicants and it was the most difficult year to get accepted. I think the acceptance rate was somewhere around 11%. The reason was that everyone wanted to get into the high paying major and we all applied during the height of the technology bubble. However, I witnessed a lot of people drop out of the major after the economic downturn. Berkeley would then accept quite a few transfer students from community colleges to fill up the upperclassmen spots. I remember that my sophomore class was wittled down to less than 200 people, but junior year was filled up by an influx of new people so the final graduation count is above 200.

2003 was the worst year of all seven years, and the was this class. Companies cut down the starting pay drastically and people had no choice but to take it because having a job is better than nothing. Now four years later, it may still be too optimistic to say that salaries have recovered to the peak levels because the cost of living in the Valley has risen significantly. Gas prices in 2000 were less than $2.00 a gallon, and now it has doubled. The same goes for housing prices. In 2000 a salary of $62,000 is more than enough to purchase a starter home in the Bay Area. I remember back then that my parents were contemplating buying a condo near Berkeley and it cost less than 180,000. Our family friend also purchased a home around then in Albany for 170 to 180k. Now these homes are all valued at around half a million and a salary of even $70,000 a year is nowhere near enough to cover the mortgage. If we take the cost of living into account, I would argue that our real wages have dropped significantly in the Bay Area.

The lesson here is that negotiating for a higher salary when you just start out is really important. Also, it is true that not every Berkeley grad stayed here in the Bay Area so perhaps life isn’t so bad for those that moved on to cheaper areas. Also, if you graduated in a bad year you would need to ask for bigger raises to avoid being paid less than new grads. If you can’t secure a reasonable market rate raise then it’s probably best to change jobs.

I am not sure what will happen in the next seven years. Some say that there is another technology bubble already here, but I don’t think that is true. I am working at another startup but it has a great product that brings in a good chunk of revenue and from what I have heard many other startups are also quite solid. It should be an interesting ride.

Source of data:

has collected over 450 reader comments and there are some comments that are so entertaining and thoughtful that I have to share them in case you missed them. So today I shall highlight some comments from my article about

Some background on these commenters: qmc is my classmate from school and Alex is an ex-coworker and friend. We do know each other in real life and they’re both interesting and intelligent guys.

This thread starts off with a comment from an anonymous guy:

buy generic viagra online with mastercardon 11.28.07 at 1:04 pm

This reeks of sense of entitlement. At 24 you can not have as much experience as someone who has been doing a job for 10 or 20 years. You will see, when you are older and 20 year olds come in and think they know more than you, just wait you will see.

Then qmc and Alex chimed in, and I have to say Alex’s comment is absolutely priceless and the incidents he mentioned are hilarious.

buy generic viagra online with mastercardon 11.29.07 at 6:31 pm

30-something,Just because someone’s been doing something “longer” doesn’t mean they’re doing it “better.” Some of them have been doing it “longer,” but not “better.” Incidentally, from doing some interviewing for my employer, I’ve met some “Business Intelligence Engineers” with 5+ years of experience that supposedly work with databases all day, don’t necessarily know either (a) how to code or (b) how to write efficient SQL (strange union query with aggregates instead of a simple outer join?)That being said, I realize I don’t know everything, but I expect some learning to go both ways.

buy generic viagra online with mastercardon 11.30.07 at 10:35 pm

I agree with qmc. Age may, but does not necessarily, confer experience. There are definitely people who have been in the software industry for a long time and who are very experienced and whom I respect greatly.But then there are those who make be wonder, “How did you ever get this job?” I knew one guy who had been a programmer for years, but didn’t know DeMorgan’s Law. Several times he made changes to someone else’s code by pushing the NOTs into or pulling them out of a boolean expression without changing the ANDs to ORs and vice versa. What motivated him to make those changes I do not know; perhaps, he just didn’t like the way it looked. The first time he made that error, I dismissed it as a momentary lapse; but after seeing him make the same error multiple times, I realized that he didn’t know what he was doing. I tried explaining DeMorgan’s Law to him, but he wouldn’t listen. He tried to determine whether the code after his changes was logically equivalent to the original code by testing different cases in his head in an ad hoc fashion. I stared at him nonplussed; it was like watching an accountant try to add without knowing how to carry. Somehow he managed to survive many years as a programmer without knowing the basic tools of his trade.

Then, there was an incident with another coworker at Oracle OpenWorld; I’m not sure which story is more damning. We were given a free pass to OpenWorld as Oracle employees. For a couple of hours, we were allowed to walk around and tour the booths. At one booth, there was a slightly anthropomorphic robot. It would roll up to people and ask, “What is your name?” If you ignored it, it would ask, “What is your name?” over and over gain. So at first, I thought it was stuck in an infinite loop. But then, it said, “HEY YOU! What’s your name?” After a few minutes’ conversation, it became apparent (at least to me, and I think, to most of the audience) that there was a man behind the machine. It could recognize that a California state driver’s license was upside down and could recognize that a set of car keys had the Honda logo. Someone asked it to compute the square root of 3; it initially could not do it, but later it responded with an answer, after, I assume, the human operator plugged it into a calculator. I asked it what would happen if I put it inside a Faraday cage. It didn’t know what that was at first, but later it responded with a definition that the human operator probably found with Google. In any case, as we walked away from the booth, my coworker said to me, with all sincerity, “Technology these days is really amazing. I had not imagined that they could build a robot like that.” I stared at him incredulously and thought, “How can you be a programmer for so many years and remain ignorant of the state of our art? There is no way that AI is that advanced.”I do not know how some people managed to get by for so many years and remain so ignorant. Perhaps, it is an after-effect of the boom, when many people were hired indiscriminately without having their qualifications rigorously checked.

Alex’s comment is probably more appreciated by a nerd, but it is pretty awesome.

On Friday I performed an interview for my team at work. My job was to take the candidate to lunch and answer questions the candidate might have and attempt to assess his intelligence and “fit” for our team. This is one of those very rare interviews that actually turned out well and everyone who interviewed the guy liked him and we decided to hire him.

However, I feel like he may not join us because he is actually currently living in Austin, Texas. He said that he went to a nearby open house in Foster City and was shocked to find that a tiny townhouse less than half the size of his home in Texas is listed for $900,000. He used to live in Sacramento many years ago but the cost of living there is nowhere near the craziness of San Mateo. Then we chatted about the Bay Area in general and I said that I actually did some research on Texas and found that I could afford a 40% pay cut and still afford a better standard of living. He agreed with me, and I asked him if he would consider relocating and he said he would probably prefer telecommuting. However, after he finished his 8 hour grueling interview my team lead did mention that he would like all core members to be close to the headquarter and telecommuting from Texas is probably a deal breaker.

I imagine this is happening all over the Silicon Valley. There are a lot of great talent from other states that are interested in the companies here, but are totally put off by the cost of living and the cost of relocating. Additionally, I know dozens of people who are exiting this place due to the same reason. Even though I love the energy and dynamics in this place sometimes I wonder if it’s worth it. Yes, we do have fairly high incomes compared to the rest of the country, but with that we have extremely high taxes and a ridiculously high cost of living. When all the math is worked out, I think many of us who live in the Valley could have better lives elsewhere.

I thought that the job candidate is wise to investigate the cost of living before making a decision. I doubt that he is getting a 70 to 100% pay increase because Austin, Texas is also a very lively city with an abundance of jobs. On one hand, I do want him to join our team, but on the other hand I was honest with him and I want him to make the best decision possible for himself. I really don’t want him to join my company and then regret it and become grumpy!!

This is something that has confounded and annoyed me for months if not years. Basically, buying a home always has a moniker in the media as “The American Dream”. This is actually one of the main selling point of the realtors and home builders when they try to sell to first time buyers. I really don’t understand why having a giant load of debt is considered desirable and why it should be a “dream”. So I researched the term “American Dream”, and found that it was defined in a history book by James Truslow Adams entitled buy generic viagra online with mastercard (1931). The book states, “If, as I have said, the things already listed were all we had to contribute, America would have made no distinctive and unique gift to mankind. But there has been also the buy generic viagra online with mastercard, that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for every man, with opportunity for each according to his ability or achievement.” (p. 404). So why is the phrase “American Dream” now synonymous with being a home-debtor?

Maybe I am just not American enough and don’t understand this madness, but it seems that the “American Dream” has been twisted through the years to mean bigger homes, more expensive cars, and better electronics. It has become a marketing ploy for people to dive into materialism and lost most of its original sense of hope and goodness. I could see how owning a home could be a facet of the “American Dream” when a house represents the culmination of the owner’s hard work, but when that home is financed entirely by debt it contains nothing of the buyer’s efforts. When people buy things on credit and slip further and further into debt they’re not living “The American Dream”. Instead, I think they’re living what I would call an “American Delusion”, and eventually it spirals into the “American Nightmare” if they can no longer handle their debt obligations.

I think the modern American Dream as we know it is a lie. It’s purely a slogan for the credit card companies to spur on spending, or a line for politicians to garnish their speeches. As an immigrant I still hold on to a tiny piece of what the original dream is. I don’t think it’s about consumerism or materialism. It’s about getting a fair chance to achieve success through patience and hard work. It’s about building up a better life in a place where opportunities are abundant and available to anyone. The Dream is an ideal that can’t be bought, but unfortunately it has devolved into instant gratification and debt.

As I write this article a song is playing in my head and it accurately describes how I feel about America and the reality of the American Dream as it is now and I will share a little of it here:
buy generic viagra online with mastercard

I'm travelin' down the road,I'm flirtin' with disaster.

I've got the pedal to the floor,

My life is running faster.

I'm out of money, I'm out of hope,

It looks like self destruction.

Well how much more can we take,

With all of this corruption.Been flirtin' with disaster,

Ya'll know what I mean.

And the way we run our lives,

It makes no sense to me.

I don't know about yourself or,

What you want to be - YEAH.

When we gamble with our time,

We choose our destiny.

Chorus:

I'm travelin' down that lonesome road.

Feel like I'm dragging a heavy load.

Yeah! I've tried to turn my head away,

Feels about the same most every day.

I hope you’re not dragging a heavy load and flirtin’ with disaster, but I would like to know what your definition of the American Dream is. Are you living it right now? Are you as disturbed as me that the America we live in today portrays the quintessence of the American Dream as consumerism and materialism?

—————————————————————————————————-

If you absolutely have to borrow , never even go for something like . They don’t take much time in becoming and then you will suffer from too.