Blog

Short blog posts, journal entries, and random thoughts. Topics include a mix of personal and the world at large.

Do not pass go

One thing I realized as I was leaving Guangzhou (China) heading to South Korea: the United States don’t care when people are departing for international. There’s no customs check, there’s no immigration check. America is probably so ecstatic at you leaving the country that they don’t want to spook you into changing your mind with additional barriers.

The only stamp on your non-U.S. passport when you visit the States is the entry.

(Countries I’ve visited) China has immigration control on exit. So does, Thailand, Japan, and Taiwan. This creates a need for travelers to get to the respective airports earlier. The security check presents enough of a choke point - why add another one? Homeland Security - or whatever a country’s equivalent - should only care about what’s coming in. You know, protecting the homeland. It’s the destination country’s problem to handle if a traveler ends up being the unsavory kind.

Surely a flight manifest is enough data for a country to determine if a person has left the country. Unless of course your name is Carlos Ghosn, and you had to smuggle your way out of Japan in a cargo box.

The way America handles this is the right way - immigration upon entry only. Unless of course the government of a particular country wants to prevent its citizens from so easily leaving its borders. Though even North Korea wouldn’t need immigration check upon exit? Because I am (hopefully correctly) assuming that there isn’t an airline in the world who would sell/operate a flight out of the upper Joseon peninsula to a North Korean citizen.

Look at that, America doing something outside of international norms, but it’s actually good.

You can track me

To log in to the WIFI at Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport, you must first scan your passport to authenticate. This is completely different from all the other airport I've been to, where they let the public login freely. (Pro tip: use a VPN when you’re on public WIFI.) It seems to me like the authorities there care about what the public browse on the Internet. Would you get hauled right to jail should you Google a topic not in favor with the current government?

What I also do not understand is the need to go through security screening before entering Guangzhou subway stations. I don't see the need for yet another extra layer when the city is already massively surveilled upon. Are cameras in the subway station not enough? (This isn’t full autonomous self-driving!) I don't remember hearing about any subway bombings in China these past decades. Who the heck would be dumb enough to commit anything when you are so easily caught? Word on the street is that people don't even dare to pick up abandoned wallets full of cash.

Contrast that with our situation here in the States, and it might as well be barbarianism. We can't leave anything in our vehicles without hugely risking it being taken. There's spots in any American city where no one in their right mind would wander through past midnight, unaccompanied.

Of course, there's heavy bill to pay for that safety. American culture would never tolerate the sort of overbearing surveillance system in China. A central government knowing our every move is the stuff of dystopian action films.

But those are the tradeoffs. It cannot be argued that you feel absolutely safe in China. No matter where you go, at whatever time, no one will rob you. Nor will anyone pilfer from the convenience store you're currently shopping at. In the abstract, isn't this what governments - with sole power of the police - should aim to provide for its citizenry? I certainly want to live in a city where quality-of-life crimes are negligible to zero. (Hi, Japan!)

The methods to get there matter a ton, obviously.

What in the *r/tragedeigh* is going on here?

Direct flights, baby

As a member of the jet-setting class entirely reliant on credit-card points (rather fake-rich if you ask me), I've had the pleasure of sitting in the various classes on an airplane. (Right to privilege jail, right away.) As obvious as it may be that the further front you sit the more comfortable, in my experience it doesn't ease the pain of the truly long-haul flights. 15 hours from San Francisco to Hong Kong is arduous no matter if you are wealthy enough to lie completely flat to sleep. A pressurized metal tube with superbly dry air is a bad combination no matter what.

I think the lever to pull in terms of comfort is shortening the time spent on an airplane. It's a shame there were never follow-up to the sound barrier shattering Concorde. For the rest of plebs in the real world, direct flights are absolutely worth the extra costs.

Since 2014 - only interrupted by the COVID pandemic - I've flew back (birth) home to Guangzhou, China every single year. 2025 marks the first year I took a direct flight from San Francisco. Previously I had to make a transfer at Hong Kong, entailing another four hours of travel time on top of the 15 hours I just continuously spent on an airplane. Usually I am completely spent by the time I reach home.

Let me tell you: direct flight is magnitudes better in experience. This year I was back in the heart of Guangzhou by 9:00 AM (previously it would have been at least 1:00 PM). Not only that, it's a slightly shorter flight to CAN compared to HKG. For the first time, I actually had energy in reserve on arrival day, rather than zombie it through until I can properly sleep on the first night.

Let's hope China and United States relations remain amiable enough that the direct route from San Francisco to Guangzhou remains viable. But honestly the next three years is super difficult to predict. As I write this there's a 145% tariff on goods originating from China into the States. It does feel kind of weird to be a former Chinese national with a U.S. passport traveling between the two countries…

Back your ass up

As an IT support monkey, one of the worst parts of the job is having to tell the customer their data is gone. Even when the data loss is through no faults of my own (of which sadly I have done once), the empath in me feels tremendous guilt for delivering the final negative verdict to the hopeful customer. Obviously, no one likes to hear bad news. If you’re the people-pleasing type (that’s me), you want to avoid being the messenger at all costs.

Friendly reminder: have backups of your digital life. A single point of failure can indeed fail at anytime, sometimes with no one to blame but god.

It’s frustrating when I am unable to book plane tickets via the Chase travel portal. (I want to use my credit card points, and get 5X back on the purchase, obviously.) Apparently, the portal might not show all available seating configurations, or that particular flight at all. Of course, the safest option is always to book directly with the airline, but then I would be losing out on precious reward points. Not in this economy! At least for me, I’ve never had an issue in all the years booking stuff through the Chase travel portal.

Due to the ticket unavailability on the portal, I had to book my fight directly with China Southern Airlines. Their website looks like it barely made it out of Web 1.0 era design language. I guess it’s easier to manage the backend when the frontend isn’t fancifully full of code. But who cares about shiny coats of paint so long as a website functions correctly. After a bit of clunkiness, I was able to book my ticket for the 2025 trip back home to China.

Instead of getting back 5% on my thousands of dollar, I have to settle for 2%. Very sad!

Spend spend spend

The 2024 Summer Olympics starts this week in Paris. If it seems like it’s only been a short while since the Tokyo Olympics, that’s because it was held in 2021. Thank you, Covid pandemic. We hardly think about you these days. Due apologies to the long Covid sufferers.

I keep hearing the term “revenge travel” these days. Coming out of the pandemic, people are eager to travel, to make up for the lost time. My only question is: “How the French are people affording to travel?” I flew out the country twice this year (already, though no more plans to do so) and honestly I had some trepidation about spending the money. It was all worth it, obviously. In these days of high inflation I would prefer to have a bit more buffer in the bank account. You just never know when the cost a thing (that you absolutely need, of course, like YouTube Premium) will suddenly spike in price.

Though, word on the street is that Japan is currently relatively cheap to travel to. Because the Japanese yen is weak point against foreign currency. Weeaboos rejoice: your American dollars will get you more things in Akihabara.

Maybe the revenge part of revenge travel is on bank accounts. Swipe it on credit cards, pay it (much) later. If a chance leak at a lab in Wuhan, China (allegedly, probably) can trigger a global death event without any warning, wouldn’t you live life with a more short term view? Let’s cram all the fun things we want to do now. Who cares if we don’t have the means to pay the tab - we might be dead in a few years anyways. (DJ Khaled voice: “Another one.”) In America, debt of the deceased dies with them - next of kin bears zero responsibility, unless they (stupidly) co-signed on the debt.

Sometimes I feel like a crazy person, still concerned with thinking for the long-term. YOLO is a good BTS song, not a protracted life strategy. Travel to Paris for the Olympics? Not in this economy of the $200 per night common hotel room.

Bangkok, Part 10

Traveling to Thailand was my first time ever attending a so called destination wedding. My friend’s now wife resides in Thailand, so I guess he lost the fight as to where the ceremony should be. San Francisco would have been must easier logistically for the friends on his side, obviously. But, we’re all in our late 30s making decent money, so a wedding on the literal other side of the globe is affordable, if not exactly affordable.

Even if I hypothetically had to debt-spend my way to Bangkok, it’s still an easy decision to attend. Money can always be made, debt can always be repaid. Your friend you’ve known since high school is only (hopefully) going to get married this one time. It’s a can’t miss.

And for my friend, a ceremony in Thailand has got to be way cheaper than the equivalent in San Francisco. As I said in previous blogs about Bangkok, the American dollar goes a massively long way when exchanged for the Thai baht. The friend was able to rent hotel rooms for his people, charter a bus to ferry us to and from the venue, and the venue was this amazing compound with everything one can possibly need for a wedding. If it were similarly held in the States, the total bill is likely close to $60,000.

What’s most important when attending a destination wedding is that you actually make it there in one piece. This is especially so if you are in the wedding party. I can see how in a city like Bangkok, one can go fully The Hangover and never make it to the ceremony. Because you’ve broke an ankle, lost all your money, or worst, got arrested and thrown into the Bangkok Hilton. If I’m going to Australia for a wedding, I’d put the over-landing trip through the Outback after the ceremony - not before!

Bangkok, part 9

Thailand was the first destination I’ve ever travel to that I did not know or understand the language. China and Korea, I know the languages. I only took Japanese for one year back in high school, but there’s a ton of Chinese characters in the Japanese text. In contrast, the Thai written script is completely foreign to me. Without romanization (like written Vietnamese), I can’t even begin to memorize anything.

Obviously, it’s not detrimental to not understand Thai. The country sees plenty of tourist every year, so English - the lingua franca of the world - suffices just fine. However, not knowing any Thai means I couldn’t get too deep into the super local stuff. Imagine going to a restaurant and the menu is only in Thai script - no pictures, no translations. In China and Korea, I can easily go where foreigners don’t.

Speaking of foreigners: there are indeed quite a few older white guys with much younger Thai female “companions” in Bangkok. I encountered at least a couple every single day I was there. This is not a judgement, simply a statement of what I saw. So long as both parties are consenting adults, it’s cool. Are the power dynamics skewed - white guy with money and a poor Thai girl that needs it for survival? Probably. But perhaps it’s hugely assumptive of me to automatically look at the situation that way.

On that other hand, Thailand is indeed notorious for being a destination for pocket-heavy foreign men seeking sex thrills. I was in Soi Cowboy - a street full of bars, clubs, and other things, and it was the largest concentration of white guys in Bangkok I’ve seen. An older white guy was literally shoving his hands down the string bikini of a hostess at the table next to ours. Pretty wild stuff.

Again, no judgement. Consenting adults. Hopefully.