Eastwind Westwind

At 11:30am, Karen walked over, “Lunch?” I have a tons of things to do, so without much thinking I automatically replied that I will probably have to work through lunch today. “Oh come on, let’s go Pho.” Alright I am convinced. I like pho, besides, it’s a bit unusual for Karen to insist to have lunch alone with me.

I was right. We haven’t even walked into the parking lot, Karen explained, “I need to talk with you about some personal stuff.” It turned out she has some decisions to make and she would like to chat.

In the name of giving her advise, it downed on me the changes occurred in the last decade in management philosophy. From the very hot Emotional Intelligence, employee development, motivational leadership that we somehow embraced in various degrees, today’s management styles are quite a departure from them.  From reading SJ’s biography, the observation from some of the practices in our daily work life, to this evening’s article about Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s style described by his employee, that it seems the corporations today have limited themselves to minimal development or catering of employees’ emotional needs. We say it was “Plug and Play” employees before, now it seems employees are required to be “Plug and Play and Zero Maintenance”.

“If your confidence in your own abilities is self-generated and emotionally secure, and you are seeking someone who will pose to you ever-greater challenges to surmount, then Mark Zuckerberg is a pretty good fit for you. However, he is not there to “develop” you – that’s your own job.”

No wonder the head of one million worker company wants to replace it’s human fleshed bodies to robots at 1:1 ratio. Managing humans seems such a messy business for the highly efficient and effective driven executives.

So, do we need to modify ourselves to these machines to meet the requirement, or are we going to be obsolete because of we as humans can not meet the demand of corporations that supposedly have missions to meet human needs, or are we dividing a wider gap between what humans need and what humans can do.

New Year’s Eve. Coastal city, Southern China. 2011.

I traveled back to visit my family. It was one of those short visits I have been paying over the years to my family, whether it’s a stolen day from business trips, or a short visit en-route to my travels to other continents. A scene of my visit to family usually happen in the kitchen..

As usual, Mom is cooking and I am hanging out in the kitchen, either at the door or just a step in the door, close enough to talk with her and far enough not to be in her way while she slung pots and pans around.

My role in or around the kitchen seems quite fixed as far as I can remember. I am just there for the moral support and a combined role for various kitchen aids. “Smell it, enough salty?” Mom asks, handing over a bite of dumpling filling by chopsticks. “Not enough but okay for everyone else.” I’d say, self moderating my heavy taste. “Good.” It’s a tradition between mom and I. She uses me as her kitchen measure cup, tea spoon, a thermometer, a roller, a dough kneader, a dumping wrapper maker, a tester, a dishwasher, a cutter, any simple skills a 10 year old or a 50 year old daughter can master, when I am around.

But I am never around even when I was growing up. The kitchen is my mother’s world. Kitchen is not my world. My mom’s another world is the classroom. A career teacher, mom covered both her career and family quite successfully. I sometimes would ask her, “How did you do it?” It seems that my brother and I have ended up quite okay, at the least we are not in the losers’ bin. ”I didn’t do much, you had your own wills. Remember?” She’d say. Yes I remember. I remember how I determined not to be tied down by the time consuming chores so I can spend as many hours as I want to read a book, or jump the ropes for hours, or spending my time on school projects.

Thinking about it, if my mother was not as supportive to my activities outside home, I might end up living in a similar world as my mother’s.

Perhaps not. Not for my generation, or next. “You are ahead of time.” As a friend of mine said many years ago. Perhaps. The effect of living ahead of time can be uncomfortable, but sufficiently adventurous to jump out the familiar world of mother’s or grandmother’s generations.

After dark Thursday and Friday, I decided to go to San Francisco for a recovery. But where to go? Ocean Beach? I’ve been there four times already. I started to search web. “Beaches in San Francisco.” One of them came up caught my attention. Baker Beach, one of the few nude beaches in California. “Nude Beach?” I thought that’s a European thing, usually old European men and women with wrinkled butt and baggy breasts, lining up in front of beach ice cream stand, together with their clothed grand children. What’s up with these people who enjoy exposing their private parts to the world? I decided to go to Baker Beach in this sunny and warm winter day.

When I arrived the beach with my purple rain boots, there are so many people crowded on the beach. Children are playing the sand and water, gay and heterosexual couples embracing each other, a few large groups of young people walking and laughing together, a lone fisher man focusing on his fish pole, a surfer gauging the water while his dog loyally standing next him. The Golden Gate bridge in the distance looks as spectacular as it ever is, its unique color is as eye catching as it ever is. A nude beach? There are people everywhere but they are all well clothed. An old man in his 60′s were naked but rather unsightly. I lost my interest after just one photo in that direction.

I started to take pictures from various angles, the beach, in the woods, near and far, bridge direction, cliff house direction. The oil tanker slowly bulldozing into the harbor, a sail boat floating in the distance, a few birds flying across the beach making throaty sounds, chasing each other. A couple of dogs playfully run into water and back, sprinkling water off.

It’s such a peaceful day. I can definitely have more of these days, especially after the stormy and depressing Thursday and Friday.