Let's write about this business trip that started on March 11 and ended on March 14 while on the plane.
The flight was at eight in the morning, and I left home at six. I had a breakfast of milk, oatmeal, and fruit that my wife prepared the night before. It was still dark outside, and I took an Uber. The app mentioned that the driver might be a bit deaf or have difficulty hearing, which made me a bit anxious. I felt a little sad, thinking it was somewhat discriminatory of me, and I didn't engage much with the driver during the ride.
Upon arriving at the airport, I had to take out both laptops for security checks. After passing through security, I bought some gum at the airport and, just before boarding, I saw my colleague, R. He is very tall, carrying a messenger bag and a luggage bag, wearing white sneakers, brown shorts, and a black shirt. I was dressed in a black long shirt and pants, carrying a backpack and pulling a black suitcase with equipment, along with a cotton jacket. Our styles were quite different.
He asked me what I thought about business trips, and I said I didn't mind, but it must be tough for my wife to take care of our two kids alone at home. He agreed, saying she must not be happy.
I had planned to write an article on the plane, but before I finished, we arrived in Denver. We got to the gate for our next flight, but there wasn't much good food nearby. We arrived in Los Angeles around noon, thinking we could have lunch there. However, our flight had some issues and boarding was delayed for a long time. I finished writing the article on the flight from Denver to Los Angeles, and then I had nothing else to do. I checked if there was free WiFi on the plane, but there wasn't; it cost $8 to purchase, but there were free text messages, so I chatted with my wife for a while.
By the time we got to Los Angeles, it was already 3 PM. R and I went to the baggage claim, and it turned out he had checked a bag. He said he brought a lot of work clothes and things he would need after work. While waiting for our luggage, I felt very hungry. I saw a vending machine not far away and thought about buying something to eat, but in the end, I didn't go, preferring to get a car and buy a burger on the way.
After getting our luggage, we went to find the car rental place, only to discover it was quite a walk away, and we had to take a shuttle. So we waited for the shuttle to arrive, and when we got to the rental place, we found a long line with about twenty or thirty people ahead of us. R checked and said it would take over an hour to drive from Los Angeles to the hotel, and we might not make it by 5 PM. We had planned to have dinner with M, who came from Arizona, at 5 PM. While R was waiting in line for the rental car, I was really hungry and regretted not buying a snack from the vending machine earlier. Finally, we got the car and set off, with the navigation showing we would arrive at the hotel by 5:12 PM.
We drove for an hour to the hotel, which should have only taken about 30 minutes, but the roads in Los Angeles were very congested, and we left around four, close to rush hour, so the traffic was slow. We were also in the carpool lane, which only allows cars with two or more passengers; violating this rule incurs a minimum fine of $341.
On the way, I texted M to discuss our plans. We agreed to eat first and then check in. He was waiting for us at a PF Chang across the street from the hotel. We were both starving. From 6 AM to 5 PM, plus a two-hour time difference, it had been a total of 13 hours without food or drink, but thankfully I had eaten a little before leaving home.
I ordered a bowl of noodles called "glass noodles," which turned out to be vermicelli. No wonder they called it glass noodles; it was a failed order, but I was too hungry to care and finished it cleanly. M and R both ordered a beer, and after chatting for a while, M mentioned that his family often vacations at the beach nearby. We thought about going to the beach one evening. M also asked if I had kids, and I said I had two. He then asked R, who said he didn't have any; it's not a high priority for him. I felt surprised that R, who seemed older than me, didn't have kids.
After dinner, we checked in at the Marriott and asked if breakfast was included; it wasn't. I inquired if they offered breakfast, and they said they did, a buffet for $29 per person. So we agreed to meet in the hotel lobby at 7 AM the next morning to have breakfast outside before heading to the company.
By the time we returned to the hotel, I was exhausted. After taking a shower, I fell asleep, waking up once in between but then dozing off again. In the morning, I put on my work clothes: a pink shirt with black dots and dress pants. I forgot to shave before leaving home, and after a long day yesterday, my hormones were active, causing my beard to grow. I didn't bring a razor, so I just let it be.
I went down half an hour early to buy a coffee at the Starbucks in the hotel lobby. After finishing it, I saw R and M coming down. R had mentioned he wanted to get up early to walk nearby, which he said while driving back to the hotel from the restaurant yesterday. M asked him how much he needed to walk each day, and R said he aimed for 10,000 steps. I mentioned that my wife complains about how she walks 10,000 steps daily while taking care of the kids. M asked if my wife worked outside, and I said no.
This morning, when I saw R coming down, he was holding a cup of coffee brewed from the hotel room's coffee machine. I guessed he didn't go for a morning walk. Later, he mentioned he was too tired yesterday and didn't go out for a walk this morning.
We went to a café called Nat's West for breakfast. I saw a breakfast special and ordered it, mentioning eggs, bacon, and tomatoes. In the end, they only served me those three items: two eggs, two pieces of bacon, and two slices of tomato. Looking at M and R's orders, they had two eggs, bacon, boiled potato chunks, toast, and coffee. The potato chunks were plentiful and filling, so I failed again in my order.
During breakfast, M asked R what his wife did for a living. I didn't catch it all, but they later talked about lung transplants, and I figured she worked in a hospital, either as a doctor or a nurse. M suddenly asked R how old he was, and R said he was 52. I noticed his hair was half gray, half black, so he might indeed be that age, while M had even more gray hair, suggesting he was older. Sure enough, he said he was older than me and recalled how his father often smoked in the car while taking them to school. He implied that this was detrimental to lung health. I didn't fully understand what he meant, as he used a lot of "you know," and I found it hard to grasp some of his word pronunciations.
I was surprised to learn that R was 52 and childless; he seemed to be part of the DINK (Dual Income No Kids) group, which I hadn't encountered in the U.S. before.
After lunch, we arrived at the company, and to my surprise, R and I could swipe our badges to open the door, but M's wouldn't work for some reason. R wore a short-sleeved shirt with a tie, while M was dressed very formally in a seemingly brand-new dark blue shirt with black stripes and neat black dress pants. I wore a light blue shirt without stripes, so I didn't think we would clash. I planned to wear it on the 14th.
We had a brief discussion in the morning before touring the clean room. When we came out, M accidentally dropped something from his ear while removing his dust suit. He hurriedly picked it up, and I glanced and guessed it was a hearing aid. I also noticed the cap of his tablet pen had fallen, which he hadn't seen, so I picked it up and handed it to him.
At noon, we ate in the company cafeteria, and a guy named J joined us. I ordered a tofu rice bowl, which was quite tasty. M asked J where he was from, and J said he was born in Alabama and had been in the military, previously stationed in San Diego. After leaving the military, he joined this company. M remarked that he didn't hear any accent from J, to which J explained that his parents lived in San Diego, and when he moved to Alabama as a child, he told himself not to pick up that accent. However, he had no way to learn non-Southern English, so he inevitably picked up some accent, which was still present but not very noticeable, becoming more pronounced when he was drunk. They then discussed various topics related to English accents, mentioning the differences between Northern and Southern Ireland, even though the latter is small.
I focused on my meal and couldn't join the conversation. After a while, J asked me where I was from. I wasn't sure if he meant where I worked before or where I was born, so I answered both. I said I previously worked at another company and was born in Southern China. Regarding accents, I mentioned that my hometown also has many accents, and I recalled a classmate from a neighboring county in high school whose speech we couldn't understand.
M said it was just a difference between Mandarin and Cantonese, and I confirmed that Cantonese is a language from Southern China. Over the past 30 to 40 years, it has become widespread mainly due to Hong Kong being an international metropolis with a developed cultural industry, leading to many TV shows and movies in Cantonese.
M asked which language I thought was more widespread now, Cantonese or Mandarin. I said I believed Mandarin was more widespread, as there are more speakers, and Hong Kong's influence isn't as strong as it used to be.
M mentioned he had been to Hong Kong while on a business trip to Shenzhen, where he had to fly to Hong Kong first and then drive to Shenzhen. He asked if I had been to Shenzhen, and I said I hadn't, but I had been to Shanghai, which is similar to Shenzhen. He really liked Hong Kong and Shenzhen, saying the streets were clean and everyone was friendly. I chuckled to myself, thinking he hadn't experienced some of the PUA (Pick-Up Artist) culture and negativity in China. Moreover, Chinese people are generally friendly to foreigners but can be quite irritable with familiar locals. However, I didn't contradict him; I didn't want to speak ill of my fellow countrymen, and I considered that my vocabulary might not allow me to express myself clearly. Many times, discussing with Americans requires careful consideration of vocabulary, and if I find I can't articulate my views clearly, I prefer to stay silent.
J also mentioned he had been to Hong Kong during his time in the Navy, where their ship docked at the harbor. He said the harbor was deep, and once, his anchor almost didn't sink to the bottom. He admired how Hong Kong moved its airport from its original location to the current one, which was a massive project. I was unaware of this and said that the Hong Kong airport is indeed an international airport now. Thirteen years ago, when I came to the U.S., I flew out of Hong Kong because the tickets were cheaper. I took a boat from Shekou to the Hong Kong airport. I thought they might not understand Shekou, so I just said Shenzhen, but then I remembered I had just said I hadn't been to Shenzhen, which was contradictory. I smiled slightly to cover my embarrassment.
In the afternoon, when there were just the four of us in the conference room, J said he was very interested in the projects we were working on and asked if we were still hiring. R, sitting across from him, looked confused and said, "M is my boss; you can ask him." M rambled on about our organizational structure and what each group does, peppered with many "you know" phrases. J seemed to understand, but we didn't see him in the conference room for the next two days.
By the time we finished work, it was already past five. We drove to a grocery store to buy some fruit and water. I got a few pears and a bottle of water. M mentioned he had other plans for the evening and asked if R and I wanted to go out for dinner together. We decided not to join him; R wanted to go for a walk, while I preferred to return to the hotel and watch TV. So we agreed to meet in the hotel lobby at 7 AM the next day and went our separate ways. We had discussed the proposal from the night before in the car and decided to cancel it because the weather forecast indicated strong winds in the coming days, and we were quite busy. After finishing work at 5 PM, it would take another hour to drive over, and by the time we experienced the strong winds, it would likely be dark.
Back in my room, I thought about how to handle dinner. Considering that Los Angeles has a large Chinese population, I figured I could order some authentic Chinese food. I decided to order online and wait while watching TV in my hotel room. I found a wonton that looked good in the photos on Uber Eats, but it would take 70 minutes to deliver, which seemed a bit ridiculous. I waited while watching TV, and when it was almost here, I went downstairs to the lobby to change a $20 bill for some change. I ended up giving a $9 tip, unsure if it was too much or too little. The delivery driver was a young white guy with an Indian woman in the passenger seat. When he saw the tip I gave, he thanked me.
Back in my room, I ate while watching TV. The wontons were okay, but the noodles were overcooked and hard to chew, likely because they had been sitting for too long. They weren't very spicy either, so overall, I was quite disappointed with the Chinese food in Los Angeles.
The next day, I woke up early and went to the gas station across the street from the hotel to buy a razor for $5, which I used to shave at the gas station. After seeing R and M with their clean-shaven faces yesterday, I realized I had left home without shaving, and after two days, my beard had grown out. Back in the hotel lobby, I ordered another cup of coffee at Starbucks and waited for them.
We went to the same breakfast place again, and I wanted to order what M and R had yesterday. After failing to order it yesterday, I looked at the menu for a long time and ended up ordering something different. In the end, they served me sashimi, which I really dislike, marking another complete failure in my ordering. Reluctantly, I finished my breakfast.
In the morning, the company arranged several presentations for us, followed by brainstorming sessions. They mainly discussed the site's past efforts towards digitization, and one engineer expressed skepticism about our ability to help them achieve digitization. M kept reassuring him that the project was already in the company's system and that we wouldn't abandon it.
We had lunch in the company cafeteria again, but R didn't join us. His phone malfunctioned; his Android phone's login password was a pattern, and he might have accidentally cleared it without knowing the default pattern, so he couldn't unlock his phone. He quickly grabbed a lunch and left to go to Verizon to unlock his phone. I had helped him find a nearby Verizon store on the way to work that morning, and he noted down the address, which wasn't far away. For lunch, I had sushi, which I quite like. I heard they serve sushi on Thursdays, so I ordered it. The sushi was made with rice wrapped around sashimi, and while I found it a bit surreal, it still tasted like regular sushi, and I thought it was quite good. During lunch, M asked why I thought my previous company was declining, which led me to change jobs. I hesitated to say it was a sunset company, so I mentioned that the company's strategy was to streamline our department, which I believed was part of the overall company strategy.
In the afternoon, we started working on the PPT. M gave the person who was hosting us, D, a template, and she began working on the PPT while I helped by adding some photos I took during our tour yesterday. D grew up in San Diego, and her English pronunciation was very clear, and her speech was well-organized and to the point. She loved the community in this area and had many friends and classmates from around here. She also asked if we had seen "Dune Part 2," a recently released sci-fi film that received good reviews. I planned to watch it on my computer when I had time. She didn't join us for lunch, likely because she brought her own meal. I hadn't left my equipment in the conference room for the past two days; instead, I kept it in her office, which was in a corner with excellent lighting and surrounded by windows. We finished the PPT just as it was 5 PM, right when work ended. On the way back, R needed to stop by Verizon, so we waited for him in the store. I wandered around the store a bit and then went outside to explore, noticing a tree full of red flowers, signaling the arrival of spring.
After R finished at Verizon, he still couldn't unlock his phone. He said he needed to go back to the hotel to continue unlocking it with customer service. He mentioned that if M and I wanted to go out for dinner together, we could, but he needed to sort out his phone issue first. So we ended up not having dinner together again. I had already found a seafood restaurant on Google Maps and wanted to go out alone to eat and explore a bit. After parting ways with them at the hotel, I dropped off my bag and set out. I walked to the seafood restaurant near where Verizon was located, found it, and ordered two plates of oysters. In the end, they served me a total of eight garlic-baked oysters, which were delicious. After finishing my meal and settling the bill, I strolled around a nearby mall and saw a bookstore called Open Book. I wondered if it was a free bookstore, so I went in to check it out and noticed a Disney animated book about Mulan for just $2, so I bought it for my son. By the time I returned to the hotel, it was dark outside, and I had walked for about ten minutes. I was satisfied to have enjoyed my favorite oysters for dinner.
That night, I watched "The Stars Fall and Turn to Sugar" in my hotel room. Some scenes were hilarious, and it had been a long time since a show made me laugh that much. I remembered a long time ago in college, there was a show called "Li Wei as an Official 3" that made me laugh until my stomach hurt. I was pleasantly surprised to find another funny show like this.
The next day, we agreed to meet at 8:30 AM in the lobby. I woke up early, watched some TV, and came down at 8 AM. I saw R and M waiting in the lobby, so I quickly walked over to return my room key. We went to the same restaurant for breakfast again, and this time I ordered a steak, just like R did yesterday, along with two fried eggs, which was pretty good. I also ordered a muffin, thinking it was a waffle, but it turned out to be a muffin, marking another mistake in my ordering. What bad luck!
We arrived at the company by 9 AM, and at 9:30, we had a meeting that lasted an hour and a half, attended by the site's top leader, indicating they valued our collaboration. After the meeting, our work was done, and R and I had a flight at 5 PM. M was going to a different airport, saying he would take an Uber directly and wouldn't join us. M and D recommended Hermosa Beach to R and me. So we set off, driving straight to Hermosa Beach.
It took us over an hour to get there, but fortunately, the beach was not far from the airport, and we had plenty of time for lunch. On the way to LA, R mentioned that his biological clock had been completely disrupted by this trip, as he usually lives a very structured life. This was quite different from me; I'm more adaptable and can sleep anywhere when I'm tired. I felt like a poikilothermic animal, while he seemed like a homeothermic animal. Homeothermic animals are clearly more advanced, and my life background has made me a lower-tier being. We parked in a metered spot that wasn't too expensive, costing $3 for two hours. R changed into beach attire in the car, while I remained in my work attire of a shirt and dress pants. We first headed to the pier that juts into the Pacific Ocean.
The weather was beautiful, with clear blue skies and a few white clouds. The wind by the sea was manageable, and we walked onto the concrete pier, which offered stunning views of the expansive beach on either side. Waves crashed onto the shore, creating a soothing sound and forming frothy white caps. There weren't many people on the beach; some were sunbathing, while others played beach volleyball. The sea reflected the blue sky, stretching far into the distance. We could see two large ships anchored offshore, motionless. Seagulls occasionally flew by, sometimes landing on the pier, unafraid of the strolling tourists.
Across the ocean lies my homeland, where many of my relatives and childhood friends reside. I haven't returned to that land in five years, and it has become a place that's hard to revisit. In middle age, returning home would mean bringing family along, which is not so easy. The memories of my hometown are mixed, both good and bad. The environment of my hometown has shaped my personality today, with both positive and negative aspects. From being a poor kid who left home, I ventured further and further, working hard alone, becoming a cog in the American middle class. When I reflect on my life experiences, I often feel proud of myself. Sometimes, I wonder when my hometown will have conditions like those in America. Comparing the cultural and material conditions of my hometown, I often sigh and tell myself that it might not happen in my lifetime. That place has gone through thousands of years of development and is still like this; the people there believe that their ancestors' ways are the best. Even when they are shown the outside world, they still think their ways are reasonable, orderly, and proper. Such thoughts are deeply ingrained in their minds and are hard to change. It's hard for me to imagine what my life would be like today if I hadn't had the opportunity to study abroad. I feel like a wandering thinker, seeking refuge in America.
R and I walked down the pier and explored the area nearby. He chose a Mexican restaurant, and we started having lunch. I ordered the most expensive item on the menu, a seafood grill, which was somewhat successful, though it came with a lot of sauce that I didn't particularly enjoy. Halfway through, R reminded me that I hadn't opened the bread, which was meant to be eaten with the vegetables and rice. I had almost finished the vegetables but managed to wrap a little in the bread to eat.
After lunch, we still had time, so we decided to take a walk nearby, planning to leave around 2:30 PM since we needed to return the rental car and take the shuttle to the airport, unsure if we had enough time. However, we had some time to stroll along the nearby beach, which had a dedicated concrete path for walking, with a small fence keeping the sand out. There were many people walking and biking along the path, some bikes even playing loud music. On one side of the path were rows of small villas with various styles, some with lush vegetation, cacti, and many tropical plants. Walking along this path, I felt the warm sunshine and the gentle sea breeze, which was incredibly pleasant. I looked at the people passing by and thought they must be feeling the same way; nature has given us such a delightful season. Although we would return to the freezing cold of Minnesota after this afternoon, this short walk lifted my spirits and felt healing.
After a brief walk, we returned to the car and headed to the airport. Returning the car went smoothly, and we arrived at the airport by 3 PM, with plenty of time to spare. R mentioned he wanted to soak up some sun outside before going in, saying he had TSA Pre. I parted ways with him, wanting to find a place in the airport to watch a TV show, thinking I might apply for TSA Pre in the future.
By the time we reached Minnesota, it was already past midnight. My Uber was a Tesla, and it was my first time riding in one, but it felt familiar, probably because I've seen so many in news articles and on TV.