Siu Lun

I’m in Tokyo for Chinese New Year. Escaping the crowd of gate keepers down my apartment in Hong Kong that awaits you to hand them red pocket money even if you’re not married yet.

I went to Japan in December, with the company I’m with now to Osaka. That was my first time here, it was a good experience.

I love the culture, the atmosphere, the language, the food. I feel like I can call this home any time I want. The only barrier for me coming is of course the language, to which I’ve already tried studying it in university, then there is the fact that I’m not rich enough to just immigrate here, and there is a fat chance I can come here as a foreign worker in the web industry.

Well I don’t mind, being in Hong Kong and being able to come here every now and then is satisfying enough. I still want to one day work here and live here though. I’ve always felt I’m more japanese than chinese/english.

If there is any web development houses/agencies in jp that wants to hire me, please get in touch … whenever the occasion I’d seriously consider it.

But back to my main point on this post about Tokyo, or perhaps Japan in general. The reason I love japan is that it has all the eastern culture, ethics, food etc.. yet it also has that western feeling of individualism and freedom.

Japan is fast becoming THE fashion country of the east like France/Italy is in Europe. Japan is also where doujinshi, mangas, and other free flowing material normally considered morally wrong or contrabands can actually exist and is widely accepted. The thing that people don’t understand about such things is that it opens up a golden door of imagination to the young minds. Influencing each other, making them think about what’s possible and what’s not. This is what I love about humans. The ability to innovate. You don’t get that in a lot of countries, and those that do actually shows in the world as being the most advanced.

I can’t say much for my ‘home’ country, China, which has a history of revolts, uprisings, changing of dynasty, but to the core of it all – corruption. This is also down to the fact that culturally, chinese likes to make sure everybody is doing well – within the family that is.

This creates an effect where people look out for others to the point that it doesn’t matter if you fail in school, as long as you’re the son of an important person, you’d do well in future life. It’s no longer following the darwining evolution of ‘the fittest’ survives. Hence it is a rather ‘backwards’ culture, which every now and then creates unhappiness in it’s inhabitants until somebody decides to do something about it.

I don’t like that about China, but I do like the fact people in China really do care about their family. There are good and bad side to both systems.

Enough about that though, the point of this post is actually just to highlight Japan as not only the technological capital of the world, but culturally it is also very polite and fashion is top notch. Moreover acceptance here of the weird and wonderful sub-cultures are fantastic.

Sorry I just love innovative places that can be highly liveable with people being courteous towards one another (most of the time)

As tech people who works for money will never advance themselves the right way and you’d end up with people who doesn’t really care about the production quality to which ‘non’ tech savy people cannot see – until something goes wrong.

This is a very common occurance in the Hong Kong made websites – it is an observation I’ve made in Hong Kong’s ‘digital’ department.

This problem is not unique in Hong Kong as it happens all over the world, as non-tech savvy people usually do not see it happen until it’s too late, meaning management won’t get pressured until the shit hits the fan – so to speak. However it is more pronouced in Hong Kong due to the cultural background and attiude of working for money.

Hong Kong does not promote individual thinking, people are brought up patronised, people are brought up not to question but to accept. So in the end, they’re brought up to work for money, not for pride or interest. Of the very few who does, they cannot exist in this environment.

So any companies in Hong Kong who wants to get, and keep good technical talents. Search for those who does it for interest, keep them well, they’re your best friend, your partner, not a dog that obeys commands, but a human to help you advance.

They may make mistakes, but resolve it in a civil manner, like you would with your partner. Sit down, chat, ensure both of you trust each other. It is a marriage between the technical savvy and the non.

This is always a question from a strategical standpoint on just about everything.

For me, it’s always either a matter of team building or coding.

For coding, I’ve always preferred to code from scratch. With technology advancing by the day, along with a multiude of dependent technology on the web. Coding from scratch has always served a better purpose as it allows me to fully grasp and control the latest technology.

Utilising existing code base is a very rare thing for me, especially when I’m unfamiliar with the code base. Existing code base, such as frameworks, I’ve always been against. This is because such frameworks are built to be as generic as possible, therefore a lot of coding has to cater for all scenarios. Every scenario the code base caters for adds additional logic the server must process in order to execute.

The only framework I’m using in web development so far in my career is jQuery. I’ve also tried the Zend Framework for a couple of projects. jQuery is good as I’m not an expert in javascript programming. So jQuery has enabled me to not be an expert in javascript programming but still able to make fantastic effects and actions.

Zend Framework, well I’ve never been a big fan of any PHP framework, but Zend Framework is the only one that I’ve tried that can be considered ‘acceptable’. Because Zend Framework’s library is optional, and you can include bits and bobs of it in your projects. Rather than a lot of other Frameworks out there tries to be the only 1 stop solution.

I was told Code Igniter is also a good alternative, though haven’t had the chance to try it out.

In any case, if I take my logic over to building a team. I guess I still prefer to start from scratch than to utilise existing resources. I support the idea that training existing resources is better than hiring new ones, but that assumes that the existing resource is working well together, just not up to the standard.

Starting from scratch from a personnel perspective is better in that you can mould people’s mind set into what you require, even if – when they join – they’re not up to the required standard.

The most important thing for personnel in the web development world is the mind set. The mind set that they need to perfect, they need to constantly improve, constantly learn and willing to work in teams, as a team. If current resources do not have that mindset and you are forced to work with current resources, then the only way is to try and shift the mindset.

But if you can shift a mindset so easily, you must be a Jedi.

In a country that thoughts surrounds what to eat, gossips and money almost exclusively. My thinking tells me it’s best to influence the young, than it is to become a Jedi.