Saturday, July 09, 2005

Enlisting help

We realized immediately that we cannot accomplish this new mission all by ourselves. We started to mobilize family, friends, and strangers. We are still busy with this effort.

The big decision

Going to China has been on our list for a long time. Sun-Ling always wondered what it would be like to function as an adult in a country where she grew up. Admitted China has changed so much since she left. It might as well be a different country. John always boasted how he would be speak Chinese fluently, given the opportunity of living in China for six months.

On June 9th 2005 Sun-Ling was given notice by IBM to find a new job within 30 days or take a layoff package. John happened to be in the middle of exploring an excellent job opportunity with Sun Microsystems. Sun-Ling did what's expected (by who though?) and started to look for another mobile job. Two weeks later, we found out the Sun opportunity was not as good at we had hoped. Things became clear then.

Our Jacksonville experience taught us that life is about new experiences, not security. So, on June 24th we decided this is the time we make the move. For various reasons, we decided to look for tech jobs in China. For one thing, this will allow us to keep our house (a.k.a. very expensive storage) in Raleigh and have a US base.