Nine Consciousnesses Mad Libs

Humble Beginnings

My dad grew up in a farming village in Canton province. Electricity was absent. Shoes, if afforded, were shared among his siblings. Paper for homework, if existent, was used and reused. Education was a privilege that his family could not afford beyond grade school. He lost his father when he was three years old, when his father was falsely accused of being anti-Communist and therefore punishable by death. Many meals were ultra-watery rice gruel with bits of yam. He spent many days sleeping outside in the fields with much work to do instead of heading home for bed.

Emigration and Immigration

The shortest distance between China and Hong Kong, which was under British rule at the time, was 4 kilometers of water. That is 4000 meters. He made the trek. Twice. The first time he was deported back. The second time he gained refugee status and was permitted to stay in Hong Kong. He was industrious in all kinds of manual labor, including work in a laundromat. However, it was in sales and manufacturing that he would find much success. A U.S.-based colleague in the import-export industry saw his potential and sponsored him and his family to stay in the U.S.

Computer Sciences

Once my dad got to the U.S., he saw a lot of promise in computer sciences and immediately enrolled in college to pursue a bachelor's degree. It took him 7 years. Due to cultural and language differences, he was unable to get a job in this industry. However, he applied the skills he gained to sales and manufacturing and sold a program to fellow colleagues that would keep track of their inventory, invoicing, and product labeling.

HTML, CSS, JS

What we see on a website is commonly a combination of three things:
HTML (markup language), CSS (web technology for styling), JS (scripting language).

* If HTML is indeed the structure/house (and my dad has erected a couple of these before — in mainland China);
* If CSS is indeed the design and presentation (and my dad has had a knack for functional aesthetics);
* If JS is indeed the handyman that builds new rooms and functionalities and given that JS can even add nodes to HTML and inline CSS to these nodes (and my dad has indeed expanded his last place of residence with multiple rooms, multiple bathrooms, an additional kitchen, knocking down walls and building them to move a doorway, etc.);

Then my dad, who was exceptional at hacking life, he was JavaScript.

My Father’s Daughter

I considered my dad and me as quite different and on opposite ends of a spectrum, because I was very much occupied in the liberal arts for most of my life. As the years go by, I have gained great interest and appreciation in software engineering and how the field can enhance human-computer interaction.

After researching some potential word sets for a game I wished to play with kids, I saw the lack of age- and language-appropriate platforms. So I created such a game, making it accessible to speakers of Chinese and English, and customized it for a certain age level. Since then, I created another game for a graduation party at work. The game you see before you is the fifth game, whose focus is on Buddhist terms. In reflecting about my recent entry into web development, I realize I am very much my father’s daughter.

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