First Week of Work at Shanghai
It's the fifth day of work for me at Gameloft Shanghai.
The only reason that I'm blogging right now is the fact that my PC's a bitch. Apologies for those easily offended, but I bet you can't find a more appropriate word for a PC that reboots every now and then. The technical minded would ask me to narrow the problems down to a few conditions that would trigger the problem. It's impossible. She(a bitch's a she right?) reboots while I'm reading a document, running a virus scan or even copying files, there is no telling when it would throw the next tantrum. Worst still, she would definitely screw things up when I'm running a game. That means everybody gets to play Warcraft except me, boohoo. I asked for technical support from the company, and am still patiently waiting like a good employee... The only reason I'm not kicking her right now is that she doesn't belong to me.
Work's been pretty bland and uneventful, as expected for the first week of every job. I'm painfully adapting to reading Chinese IT terminology. Check these out, if you know programming and Chinese.
全局变量 = global variable
局部变量 = local variable
静态 = static
函数 = function
常量 = constant
指针 = pointer
类 = class
汇编 = assembly
传值参数 = pass by value
字节 = byte
Exciting aint it?
If you think reading is bad, talking to a mainland Chinese techie is even worst. Everybody takes me as "the guy from GuangZhou or FuJian" due to my Malaysian accent. Some say I'm from Singapore, some say Hongkong, some Taiwan, none hitting the bulls eye so far. Somehow not surprised, as I'd gone through a local magazine introducing cuisines of different countries, Malaysia was again conspicuously(to me) absent. Adding insult to injury is the presence of "Singaporean Cuisine". What do they have in there? No other than the likes of Penang Chaw Kuey Teow and Nasi Lemak, which are all authentic Malaysian food! I am making an assumption, so if I am wrong, you can kick me.
My colleagues seem to be from everywhere - Hebei, Hunan, GuangXi, Shandong, ChongQing, Shanghai - except GuangZhou and Fujian. Under these circumstances, I would really love to meet a "lesser alien", and see if I could kick up a smooth conversation. Xiao niao just gave me a call, and dude I got to say that speaking Malaysian was very pleasing!
The quote of the week?
The head of department told me this: "A review score of lesser than 8 at Gamespot is deemed a failure." I was also told that several projects were cancelled in Alpha stage to protect the brand name. Releasing an inferior product is not an option.
This morning, I came across this piece of news at Mobile Game Developer.
700 different versions of the same game! That provides the best evidence that developing games for the mobile is such a hassle. My only hope is that I won't be stuck doing game porting for long periods.
Yesterday afternoon, I attended a 1 and a half hour internal training for the BREW platform. BREW is only available on CDMA phones, and that means it is not available in Malaysia. That was the highlight of the week, that is otherwise filled with code reading and document studying.
One of the more popular inquiries I often get from friends is the cost of living in Shanghai. Nothing better to explain with a picture of the food I'm having now for lunch.
RMB8(equivalent to 3.67320 Ringgit) for 5 side dishes, a fruit and a soup of the day, delivered to my office! I am definitely getting fatter.
While you Malaysians are heading to a weekend, I have to work tomorrow(Saturday) as a replacement day for the one week labour holiday(May 1st to 6th) that everybody in China is getting!
I better publish this before the PC reboots again. Pardon any mistakes in the post, as I can't even view my own page, anonymouse and other web anonymizers are not accessible for reasons unknown.
The only reason that I'm blogging right now is the fact that my PC's a bitch. Apologies for those easily offended, but I bet you can't find a more appropriate word for a PC that reboots every now and then. The technical minded would ask me to narrow the problems down to a few conditions that would trigger the problem. It's impossible. She(a bitch's a she right?) reboots while I'm reading a document, running a virus scan or even copying files, there is no telling when it would throw the next tantrum. Worst still, she would definitely screw things up when I'm running a game. That means everybody gets to play Warcraft except me, boohoo. I asked for technical support from the company, and am still patiently waiting like a good employee... The only reason I'm not kicking her right now is that she doesn't belong to me.
Work's been pretty bland and uneventful, as expected for the first week of every job. I'm painfully adapting to reading Chinese IT terminology. Check these out, if you know programming and Chinese.
全局变量 = global variable
局部变量 = local variable
静态 = static
函数 = function
常量 = constant
指针 = pointer
类 = class
汇编 = assembly
传值参数 = pass by value
字节 = byte
Exciting aint it?
If you think reading is bad, talking to a mainland Chinese techie is even worst. Everybody takes me as "the guy from GuangZhou or FuJian" due to my Malaysian accent. Some say I'm from Singapore, some say Hongkong, some Taiwan, none hitting the bulls eye so far. Somehow not surprised, as I'd gone through a local magazine introducing cuisines of different countries, Malaysia was again conspicuously(to me) absent. Adding insult to injury is the presence of "Singaporean Cuisine". What do they have in there? No other than the likes of Penang Chaw Kuey Teow and Nasi Lemak, which are all authentic Malaysian food! I am making an assumption, so if I am wrong, you can kick me.
My colleagues seem to be from everywhere - Hebei, Hunan, GuangXi, Shandong, ChongQing, Shanghai - except GuangZhou and Fujian. Under these circumstances, I would really love to meet a "lesser alien", and see if I could kick up a smooth conversation. Xiao niao just gave me a call, and dude I got to say that speaking Malaysian was very pleasing!
The quote of the week?
The head of department told me this: "A review score of lesser than 8 at Gamespot is deemed a failure." I was also told that several projects were cancelled in Alpha stage to protect the brand name. Releasing an inferior product is not an option.
This morning, I came across this piece of news at Mobile Game Developer.
On the day of its release, Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Chaos Theory was made available to Gameloft’s 130 operating partners, as well as 150 affiliates. Seven hundred different versions were developed in Gameloft’s internal studios to accommodate 180 mobile phone models and 5 languages. The game is available today in 65 countries worldwide.
700 different versions of the same game! That provides the best evidence that developing games for the mobile is such a hassle. My only hope is that I won't be stuck doing game porting for long periods.
Yesterday afternoon, I attended a 1 and a half hour internal training for the BREW platform. BREW is only available on CDMA phones, and that means it is not available in Malaysia. That was the highlight of the week, that is otherwise filled with code reading and document studying.
One of the more popular inquiries I often get from friends is the cost of living in Shanghai. Nothing better to explain with a picture of the food I'm having now for lunch.
RMB8(equivalent to 3.67320 Ringgit) for 5 side dishes, a fruit and a soup of the day, delivered to my office! I am definitely getting fatter.
While you Malaysians are heading to a weekend, I have to work tomorrow(Saturday) as a replacement day for the one week labour holiday(May 1st to 6th) that everybody in China is getting!
I better publish this before the PC reboots again. Pardon any mistakes in the post, as I can't even view my own page, anonymouse and other web anonymizers are not accessible for reasons unknown.
posted by killarkai at 12:02 PM
13 Comments:
Quite some funny Chinese Keyword :p
Hey you know how to get games submitted to Gamespot for review ar? Am thinking of doing that for our 'games' :P
Can't comment on the chinese keys, all i see is boxes on my pc.
Food looks good tho. Complete meal.
A day off in replacement for a week holiday...I feel cheated here.
gameloft sucks!...nah, just kiddin'
Anyways, good to see ur living well there.
Out.
Peace
ur office computer properly DRAM is rosak liao.But ask ur company change a new pc isn't the problem i think,haha.
i envy the food u get.
the reboot could be all sorts of problem, ram, motherboard and even power supply. Only way to figure out is to test them out one by one.
regards,
lobak
hei brother, which part shang hai u work now? last year i been shang haio for 2 week.. that time i stay at "jing an" area, jiao Zhou road, near there got one big nice par call "chang shou gong yuan"... look back the pic u took, make me think back the time i have in shang hai.. a nice place!!!
hei brother, which part shang hai u work now? last year i been shang haio for 2 week.. that time i stay at "jing an" area, jiao Zhou road, near there got one big nice par call "chang shou gong yuan"... look back the pic u took, make me think back the time i have in shang hai.. a nice place!!!
have u seen a vid clip where a fat guy throw his monitor bcoz of the bitchness of his pc ?
hehehe.. as u said that u might get fatter, ill try not to imagine that one day.. u might do the same thing at the same bitch with the same lunch meals.
sabarr.. sabarr..
Email to that particular magazine director, give him 10 reasons y his magazine suck for not including Malaysia in there. ;P
Anyway man, I've something to tell you, in email.
Take care.
Hey, nice to see you managed to get a job in Shanghai. Kudos to you!
All that food for less than RM 4?? :|
Glad to know you've got a job there. WORK HARD!!!
We at Koinonia miss you.
Lepakkkkkkkkkkk
I thank God that here in Malaysia, we use English tech words. If i were to deal with Chinese, especially computer terminology, i'd kill myself. =p The reason is i am very very poor in Chinese, ever since primary school.
Food looks nice though ;)
Think i have not tell u this before
I MISS YOU AND LI CHEN!
I feel it the most when i am in CG or any CG gatherings. =p It's good that we can get your updates through this blog, and not to mention some good laughs!!
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