Weekend Tales #7: Year ends and bodice rippers in the desert
Reflecting on 2024 while watching trashy TV. Also, links to articles I've written and have read.
Apologies for the late newsletter. I've just survived a tough quarter at work. By “tough” I mean, "Hey, OMG here are 100 tickets and can you get it done by today" kind of tough.
Before you start wondering what I mean by “tough”, I want to quickly say that I really love my job, and I'm not just saying this in case my boss has subscribed to this newsletter (er, hi boss if you are?). But my current role in tech has been the most rewarding role I've had. It’s one of the rare jobs that seem perfectly syncronised with my personality and how I'd like to work, down to project management systems.
I had a very tough pivot from journalism. After leaving journalism, I didn't think I'd find a career as satisfying, but technical writing has proven to my happy place, even better, dare I say, than journalism.
Journalism was glamorous though. I cannot deny that it was insanely wonderful to travel all over the world in the first 10 years of my career.
Of all the careers I've had (and I've had a crazy number of pivots), it probably satisfies my massive thirst for new experiences the most. However, it can be a demoralising profession, especially towards the end when the industry was falling apart.
Maybe, one day I'll tell you about this.
So, big apologies. My brain is a little overwhelmed of late I have fallen so behind in commenting on people's newsletters and I feel guilty. I do read them though, please be assured you are read!
Also, I want to share my gratitude to the people who have deigned to be paid subscribers. I don't really talk about paid subscriptions etc, because I know it's a lot of pressure, but I appreciate all of you, paid and unpaid, for believing that my writing is worth your time.
Anyway, I'm glad to have closed the quarter satisfactorily, and it's now time to begin a new one. However, this quarter I'm doing something a little different. Instead of in December, I'm currently doing my personal year-end evaluation three months early.
So, here I am in a Hilton suite writing this issue while watching the Korean Drama Brain Works and Chinese drama, Love in the Desert.
This was suggested to me by someone on the Internet and I thought it was a good idea to evaluate your strategy and restrategise so that you can meet your goals. It is sort of a "last chance to meet your goals" sprint, so to speak. Instead of ending the year with disappointment that you've fallen short of your goals, you can at least end it knowing that you've tried best because you tried another tactic to achieve them in the last quarter.
Personally, I'm not very pleased with myself this year, though I have to say that I achieved a lot of my work and writing goals, I have sorely underachieved in the health and social category.
I really, really need to improve my health! I'm of that age where it really matters.
But, anyway, before I bore you, I just want to quickly say that in the next few weeks I'm taking a break, but not from sending you Substack issues. I have a wealth of writing that I've published in the past that I'd love to share instead. And I hope you will enjoy them too.
Before I go, here are some things that could pique your interest:
What I wrote
I didn't write much beyond Tai Tales, but if you feel like it you can read my Chinese drama reviews here:
An amnesiac woman tries to be a dutiful wife. But in truth, she's being used as bait by her husband to lure a nefarious bandit. A rare, beautiful gem of a drama that will make you smile and sigh.
A big-shot banker is demoted to a tiny branch of his bank when he refuses to participate in his superiors' corrupt dealings. He refuses to lie low and causes ripples in his new place of work.
Okay, nerdier stuff I wrote:
The circle of competence and our information diet
When it comes to information consumption, am I focusing on a subject that will help me improve my life or make it worse?
Auditing my social media use and information consumption
When you get such extreme mental fatigue from social media and you just want to check out and sleep all day - you know you've got a problem.
Okay, maybe I wrote a lot LOL.
Great reads
Some interesting articles I read recently:
Has China's younger generation really chosen to 'lie flat'?
Even in Malaysia, Chinese youths face great pressure to excel. I remember watching a Youtube video of an naturalised American who visited China recently. There, he asked some Chinese teenagers about their plans, and they were already planning for their careers. He was so amazed by that.
I remember thinking, wait, Americans don't do that at 16?? When I was 16 I was already drawing flowcharts for my path towards a medical career and working for the United Nations. (Which, er, as you can see, took a sharp detour to journalism in my 20s.)
I'm not sure if Chinese youths in Malaysia or youths in China have the greater pressure, but it is a pressure all Chinese people understand well. The belief that the Great Exam will change your life is a pervasive one in China, and among the diaspora in Malaysia.
This newsletter from the fabulous Baiguan offers three stories around this lie flat phenomenon in China.
The long strange trip of Julian Assange
With Julian Assange giving his first speech since he was released from prison, I wanted to get up to speed about him. This is a good primer.
Can China’s Long-Suffering Idol Fans Catch a Break?
Since I moderate a Reddit sub (a “responsibility” that I question each day) that often discusses this topic, I try to read up about it. Honestly, I'm still flummoxed by how insane fandom can get and don't know what to think of it. Frankly, I think they're (the stars, the industry) are milking profits off these young, para-socialised minds and the symbiotic yet toxic relationship disturbs me.
What I watched
Happily devouring a trashy drama that can be best described as "bandits and royalty in the desert". Basically about a princess who ends up entangled with a bandit, a prince and a king. It’s not exactly “intellectual” TV, but it is about as much drama as I can handle right now LOL.
As I know subscribing to a newsletter can be quite a commitment, you can also give me a tip:
What a good idea to do year end 3 months early! Ok, I might have 2 months left now :)
I love your work. I am a communication scientist absorbed in what I could broadly describe as the new, emerging South East Asia driven by crosscultural interaction of young people like yourself who are inceasingly from multicultural backgrounds . Participant observation (observing people as they are in their day-to-day lives) is a well-recognised methodology in sociology revealing fascinating quantitative and qualitative information. Thank you, looking forward to more insights.