Or, again, to use the preferred nomenclature, the lingo of the day, I’m taking my talents to Hong Kong.
The timetable for this change is that I will begin with the new employer in early June and will pick up the white man’s burden as soon as the new boss thinks I’m ready. I am shooting for October, though that may be unduly ambitious.
This is, of course, quite terrifying in many ways. I have been doing extensive research about Hong Kong and have uncovered some disconcerting news. For example, in Hong Kong the local population speak a language called ‘Cantonese’ that apparently is quite different from American English, and beyond that presents significant obstacles for a non-native speaker wishing to learn it. The weather there varies from quite warn to unspeakably hot, and the locals are accustomed to the regular occurrence of something called a ‘typhoon,’ which looks suspiciously like what we Americans might call a ‘hurricane.’ Perhaps, again, this is part of the language barrier.
Beyond those discoveries, I have also been looking at Hong Kong real estate from afar, on the reasonable assumption that as the (soon to be only) in-Asia-representative of a professional software company I ought not live on a park bench. Having visited real estate brokers and forums for real estate seekers I have come across photographs of things apparently called a ‘living room’ that an American might call a ‘foyer’ or perhaps a ‘very short hallway.’ In addition, these ‘apartments’ have things called ‘bedrooms’ that you or I might refer to as ‘that tiny elevator sized closet.’ Despite these apparent ‘mistranslations’ the numbers describing the ‘rent’ are heartbreakingly familiar Arabic numerals, the kind any American schoolchild could decode. And, after bring provided with the current HKD to USD exchange rate, that same schoolchild could inform that I will be paying gut punch amounts of money for one of these ‘hallways’ with an ‘tiny elevator sized closet.’ In fact, the ‘tiny elevator sized closet’ may prove an unnecessary luxury.
However, all news, of course, is not bad. I am very excited for the opportunity to live in Asia, something I have wanted to do for years. The fine people at the company I will be working with are exceptionally capable programmers, support techs, and salespeople as the past years working with them on this side of the deal have shown. I know I’m taking a great piece of software that should sell itself, and considering my experience in sales it might have to shoulder it’s share of the burden. Travel to other locations in Asia, where lodging is available for a much more reasonable tariff than in Hong Kong, is cheap and quick. Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Bali, Fiji, Indonesia, Thailand, Macau, Philippines, and many other countries that Google’s spell checker knows nothing about are in easy range. Also, I hear these ‘Cantonese’ people make excellent spicy food.
It will, of course, be a bittersweet thing to leave my current job, and the many people there I have come to adore. And it will be a jolt to my New Haven self even greater than my last volley overseas to Austria. But this is simply too good of a deal, and too exciting a chance, for me to pass up.
Now then. Some housekeeping. My Yale email address will have some life left in it, but like all of us is still mortal. In addition, I have come to believe that Facebook, though dauntingly convenient and fun, is deeply and profoundly evil. This is for a host of reasons, but to put them briefly. It is an organization that has what is perhaps a commonplace, in these advanced internet days, disregard for privacy and and anonymity, but is still one I find disturbing. Second, it has come to my attention that one Mark Zuckerberg, head honcho of Facebook, has already accumulated a vast fortune, and he should no longer need my help. I no longer need encourage people to visit his company website where I very occasionally might say something clever, such that one of you, my friends, could in a moment of sudden intellectual weakness and distress, think, ‘You know, I think I should check out that Farmville, everybody seem to like it these days.’
There are other reasons, but those are for another day. The upshot is that I will be tapering my Facebook attention down over time and will eventually post nothing except perhaps links to my web site and twitter feed. And then, eventually, nothing at all. So, my yale.edu address and FB messaging are officially deprecated ways of contacting me (‘deprecated’ is nerd-speak for ‘It might work now, and it might even work for a while, but when it doesn’t work we’re not going to do anything about it so it will be your problem). In addition, I will be revamping and retooling my blog, www.thadbrown.com to be largely, or even wholly, about making this move and living in HK. Really. Promise. I’ll get on it.
I do hope you will all keep in touch.
TCB
This concludes this test of the Emergency International Employment Relocation System.