11 years ago, when I graduated from high school, I had one goal in mind — stay away from my father who has been disappointed in me at every step of my life. In exchange, he made a choice for my future — study Computer Science in the next four years in Beijing University of Chemical Technology. My father had hoped that I stay in Chengdu, where I can choose many top universities and the family can be together more often. But I insisted this time — going to Beijing is not negotiable, and everything else he can decide.
Moving from a small village to a modern city like Beijing was a huge change for me. The biggest challenge of all is to fit in with people. Girls don’t talk about watching stars in summer evenings at the fields, they talk about celebrities whom I don’t know, fashion styles which I can’t afford, or places which I have never heard. A handsome and popular boy walked into my life at the first week, then walked out at the end of the first month, and I never figured out why.
As a computer science student who doesn’t have any computer nor prior interest for learning computer science, life can be quite interesting. To study computer science, reading books is not enough and practice is far more important. Luckily I got a spare key from one of our teachers who was in charge of the computer classroom, and I would often spend Friday nights with a small diverse group (love birds, game players, movie watchers…) in the computer room, then doze off Saturday mornings at the psychology classes.
Towards the end of the second year, after some English tutoring work, I was finally able to afford a Dell laptop. It was a magic experience. I spent so much time on the laptop, not just watching lengthy Korean soap operas, but seriously exploring the operating system and different software. I learned system maintenance and reformatted my drive many time because I had so many virus infections. Together with my tech-savvy boyfriend, we put some posters in the campus to sell computer services such as burning DVDs, making flash videos, photoshop photos, system installing and maintenance, and some other hackingish services.
It was going so well, until, one day my laptop mysteriously disappeared. It was a time full of sadness, despair and distrust. The story behind is long and complicated and it brought devastating experience to all of the five girls who were living together. In a short version, the self-positioned rich girl decided that she needs some money so she took the computer one morning and travelled three hours to the computer market and sold it at a small portion of the original price, while we were all in class. After police’s involvement and this incident resulted in the girl being gracefully expelled.
I almost didn’t graduate. I took a minor at international trade in the last two years of university, that was when I started to look things quite differently: computer science, internet, globalization, international trade… They are all connected and this is where the future is going to be. My first attempt to merge my learnings was to lead a project to provide real-time location updates for global transportation services with the help of Google Map API. After that, I retreated to internet in search for the next big thing for my thesis project, and my conclusion was Social Media.
It was 2009, and there was no great wall, Facebook, Google and Twitter are all accessible in China. My thesis title was ‘How Social Media Can Help Small and Medium-sized Company Grow’. I had pages of trend analysis, case studies and predictions. After I nervously present my thesis project, the committee members looked at me in disbelief, ‘ Why did you write everything in English?!’ I knew it was a risk and I said we don’t have translations for a lot of the terms yet, English would be the most accurate way to write. And they ask, ‘what has this to do with computer science?!’
‘What has Social Media to do with Computer Science? ’ I asked myself and I couldn’t justify either. I was just following my passion and my blind instinct. How could I explain social media when ’Social Media’ was not even a thing in China’s mainstream tech media? I stuttered and gave up. My classmates and teachers suggested that I choose a new area and restart while there were still some time. Feeling defeated, I just curled in the corner and tried to fool my mind into living in another reality where I’m understood and accepted.
Perhaps due to the traumatic thesis experience, or maybe I just didn’t see a future where I code my way into corporations, or it’s possible that I simply yearn for exploring the unknown world all along. One day, I saw a magzine called CityWeekend and turned to the last few page where I saw some crazy-priced real estate rental listings and I called the hotline. The boss picked up. She thought I was the client. I said I hope to work for you. She said you have to come for an interview first. A few days later I called the reception and said, ‘I talked with M, she said I need to come for an interview. Could you help arrange that?’ Thus my two years of real estate life unfolds.
