• Postcard from Monterey

    Published on January 19, 2025

    I have a new job, which also means new views! Million dollar views, in fact.

    I so love this part of the world: when Sabrena and I first moved to California back in 2018, we were so excited to finally be somewhere where we could travel with our dog, Cookie. We booked a trip and came to Monterey for my birthday that year. I wanted to see the aquarium, and I wanted to experience being in a hotel room with Cookie. We got that and so much more.

    7 years on, I now work at Monterey Bay Aquarium. How I got to this was pretty fun: I like going on long runs, and I like listening to podcasts on topics I know absolutely nothing about. Back in May, all of my running podcasts were about marine biology, marine science, oceanography and deep sea research. The podcasts often reference Monterey Bay Aquarium and our partner org, MBARI (Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute). I was obsessed with the stories about deep sea research, and the Into the Deep exhibit. I resolved to visit again, and to see the exhibit.

    A photo of the beach in Monterey near Fort Ord
    A view of Monterey Bay.

    While looking up information about the exhibit at the aquarium, I noticed that they were hiring a Director of Product Management — which is what I do! I applied, of course.

    The rest is history. Never in a million years did I think I would end up with such a cool position. I have an interesting commute where, once a week I take a shuttle from SFO Airport that takes me right into downtown Monterey. While there, I spend a couple of days, in a cute little room I rent. I live with a few other queer people, we like cooking for each other, and watching Interview With the Vampire at night, so it's been quite ideal, actually.

    After five years of almost fully remote work, or working two blocks from work, I was ready for a change of scene. I love to travel but can't travel too much internationally at the moment, so this was perfect for me.

    A photo of the bay in Monterey near Seaside
    Invasive ice plants near the water, right outside Costco in Seaside

    Sabrena came to help me setup the IKEA furniture. It was sad not to have Cookie there with us this time, but I'm getting to get familiar with the Monterey, Pacific Grove, Seaside, Marina areas. The coastal trail is my favorite: I can bike or run or walk to work quite easily, without ever coming across a motorized vehicle. Last weekend, I ran to several Korean markets in Marina and Seaside, where I came across the happy 'secret' that Marina / Seaside have tons of great Korean grocery stores with homemade banchan and many types of homemade kimchi.

    The produce that we get at San Francisco farmer's markets also all come from here, so the produce is cheap and good and plentiful. It's going to be hard living anywhere else after this. Good vegetables go for '3 for $5', which is a great deal (here in Monterey and in San Francisco).

    Some days, I grieve the life I left behind in Singapore, but I also know this for a fact: we've built ourselves a wonderful and beautiful life here.

    Even though the world feels like it's too much somes days, I feel unreasonably lucky to be here, to be able to work on things I care about, to be surrounded by people who give a shit about the world. And to be able to eat delicious food.

  • Cookie the Cavalier

    Published on August 6, 2024

    A few things happened.

    The main one being, my soulmate, my soul, the love of my life, Cookie pie, passed away. I am bereft, but not afloat.

    It feels like a brand new chapter in my life.

    A photo of Cookie the King Charles Cavalier in a plane under the seat in a bag on a pillow
    Cookie the Cavalier sitting under an airplane seat

    Cookie, born 1 October 2009 in Petaling Jaya, died 20 June 2024 in San Francisco.

    She was deeply loved through all 14 years and 8 months of her life. There was not a moment where she was not surrounded by tremendous love, warmth and care. She passed, surrounded by people who love her. She was snacking on treats until the end.

    Because of her, I learned to love my new home in San Francisco: fog, rain, cold and all. We went everywhere together. We saw everything. We ate: all the time.

    I have a thread on Mastodon with more photos and stories about our life together. While I miss her a lot, I am also looking forward to learning more about how to exist without her. She was such a big part of my life that I'm afraid she was almost central to my identity for almost fifteen years.

  • The One About Scallion Pancakes

    Published on May 10, 2024

    I have a weird story about scallion pancakes. It goes like this.

    Around this time last year, I was walking down my street in San Francisco when a woman waved something at me. I thought she needed help with something, so I went closer. Instead, she clicked something (she was waving a torch, the kind you ignite gas stoves with), and she held the flame in my face.

    I had no idea what she was doing.

    She said, "I'm going to burn you!"

    "Why?" I was really confused.

    "Because you're Chinese."

    Oh.

    That's what was happening. Until that point, I had largely avoided the worst of that stuff. I had no idea what to do. A bus arrived. I got into it.

    As I was leaving, she kept pointing it at me, and she said, I'm also going to burn your dog! She is.. also Chinese!

    I know she wasn't well.

    I know that she needs help.

    But I didn't know what I would do when that happened to me, finally.

    Not much, maybe other than a lot of crying. I got to take time off work. I had therapy. I talked to a lot of people. I thought often of the moment, of what had happened, and I don't remember anything else about her now (I am face blind, that helps). If I saw her again on the streets (this happened around the corner where I live), I would not recognize her. But I remember the flame that she briefly lit, and how it changed everything about my life and my experience of the city that I had, up until that moment, thought of as home.

    I don't think of her very much now. But it comes up when I least expect it. For example, when I took out a package of Trader Joe's Taiwanese Green Onions Pancake.

    Now, it's probably a perfectly fine product for most people, but it's going to be forever remembered in my home now as The Time I Had Trader Joe's Scallion Pancakes and Absolutely Lost My Shit.

    Somehow, the act of eating a frozen scallion pancake had unearthed all kinds of.. feelings. Mainly, why the hell am I here? There's racism, and there's frozen scallion pancakes! I would never accept frozen pancakes for any meal back home! Least of all scallion pancakes with COCONUT OIL made for WHITE PEOPLE, that aren't even flaky or layered.. or good!!!

    I was inconsolable.

    My wife never buys them anymore. She calls it my crying pancakes.

    (We really like this one. It doesn't make me cry.)

    My pancake nervous breakdown, that probably wasn't really about pancakes, but about immigration, identity, immigration, anxiety, concern about the state of the world and my personal safety, led me to book a flight back to Singapore.

    More than anything else, I just needed to know that I was going to have the safety and comforts of home in my family house with my parents and with food I like. Where I was never going to have to eat anything frozen, ever. So I did that, shortly after my pancake breakdown.

    And the first meal that I had when I got there was a scallion pancake. From here. Freshly made. By hand. Not frozen. Available for breakfast. For a buck or something. It was really good, and I did not cry.

    But my parents could not understand why I so desperately wanted to eat a scallion pancake. It was not something I would crave, or ask for. It's not even really... Singaporean at all.

    I could not explain how: between two scallion pancakes, one frozen and one fresh, laid the entire spectrum of my sadness and grief as well as my happiness and joy. I get to be queer, autistic, and to be with the person that I love. But I also get fires in my face, and frozen scallion pancakes that make me cry.

  • Launch of Public Sector AI

    Published on April 2, 2024

    I've been busy. Over the weekend, I launched:

    The motivation for doing so is, I am noticing an increasing amount of YOLO and FOMO with regards to artificial intelligence. Government is at once trying to regulate, as well as to determine how to engage.

    I'm hoping my perspectives as the director of product management at San Francisco Digital Services, the digital arm of the City and County of San Francisco, as well as my personal interest in the ethics of and latest developments in artificial intelligence, can help my fellow public servants around the world make sense of what's happening and how we can meet the moment. Or not.

    Especially if your boss says, we need to use AI! Here are some questions to ask; here's what other people are doing, and what you need to know.

    For now, I'm envisioning the site to be a resource on 'what you can do' / 'how you can think about' AI' and for the newsletter to be on 'state of AI / public sector' (there's a lot of news about AI now, and a lot of hype. Which ones are relevant to you).

    Let me know if you have any thoughts, questions, feedback.

  • The Internet Walgreens Test

    Published on March 19, 2024

    I lived the bulk of my life outside the United States, where I have been for only 6 out of nearly four decades. There are many things I appreciate about the U.S.; San Francisco in particular, which gave my wife and I a wonderful place to build our home and welcomed us at every step.

    One thing that I am not used to though, is the degree of imperial insularity.

    Other than Fahrenheit and imperial units, I think it's the first time I've lived somewhere that is so totally detached from the rest of the world. I feel it in my soul as I realized, with a shock, that bars here play only American sports, American news, and on top of that, hyper-regional versions of all of that.

    I realized that I was not hearing about the rest of the world, except in very negative terms: like in wars or in other crises. This, I noted, is new. (I grew up in a city-state and I think I had to learn the exchange rate to all 10 major global currencies as a teenager figuring out eBay)

    I know it doesn't come from a place of malice. Most of the time, it just is. As the superpower of the world, that's just the way it is.

    To keep myself amused, I have come up with a test that I think reflects my past experience as a non-American, interacting online with Americans who are not aware of their insularity.

    On Mastodon, I called this the Walgreens test. I phrased it a little less well on Mastodon, so I want to post this here for posterity:

    When you are on the Internet, and you ask a question about where to get face wash or shampoo, what do people tell you?

    The people who say 'Walgreens' even when you've stated that you're not in America, are the winners of my Internet Walgreens Insularity test. The idea that your local drugstore is available elsewhere in the world is a frame of mind that I personally do not understand. The idea that you are surprised that there is no (insert your local business) in another country is one that can only occur in an empire.

    Other people had fun ideas too.

    • 'when I talk about wanting to read a book and someone tells me to get it at my local library. but there are no local libraries where i live'
    • 'that Pi Day is 3/14 and only in America'

    Personally, I was really surprised when I encountered a very educated person here who had no idea that other countries used other currencies, and that other countries used other electrical outlets. They had never seen an electrical adapter before.

    I say all of this not to bash anyone, but to really only note that wow, I live somewhere completely different now.

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