Alt Shift

And End and a Beginning

2006-10-23T21:03:00.000+08:00

Helene and I are now in Montreal, dazed and slightly jetlagged, now trying to figure out our next steps: finding an apartment, getting back in touch with friends, figuring out where 3 years in China leave us back home...

And so... This is the end; the end of this blog, that is. I started it 2 years ago with the goal of sharing my experience of living abroad with friends and the occasional straggler, and in those respect it's been a phenomenal success for me.

I will soon restart this blog and rename it Gaming Moments; as I did during the days leading up to E3, I will try and share the life of the videogame industry experts, as I join Ubisoft Montreal and get ready to once again get into the grind of AAA videogame production.

So, watch this space! And thank you so much for taking the time to read this blog.

再见！

The Last Night

2006-10-20T03:00:00.000+08:00

This is it. My last post as a resident of Shanghai... at least for the time being.

Tomorrow at 10 AM, our landlord comes around the apartment to take care of the minutiae of final checkout. Then, with our suitcases and Xi Shi in her cage, we take a cab to the airport. I've left Shanghai through Pudong Airport so many times now, it's gonna feel awfully weird to know I'm now leaving and not returning for a while.

As with every departure, I've been through rounds of spending time with dear friends drinking, chatting, and otherwise signifying to each other how we will stay in touch and see each other in the future for sure. I don't know if I'll see everyone again; I sincerely hope so, because I've met some incredible people while living here.

With so many people at Ubisoft Shanghai having moved on to greater things now that Splinter Cell Double Agent has shipped, spending time here almost feels like I'm visiting the Ghost of Shanghai Past; it's an empty place, almost, already filled with memories. I miss some of my friends already, but am comforted by the fact I will see my friends in Montreal again.

And here we are now, all done, Helene and I, save for some last-minute packing (you know, such as dirty underwear and last-minute presents), and a bottle of white wine to empty before we sleep. In approximately 12 hours, we will be ex-Shanghainese.

We came to Shanghai with barely a suitcase each, and no friend on an entire continent. I now leave with so much, it barely fits in my head and my heart.

Splinter Cell Double Agent now Gold

2006-10-13T19:32:00.000+08:00

Aaah, the sweet moment we expect throughout the entire production of a videogame...

Splinter Cell Double Agent X360 has now gone gold and is now being manufactured for distribution. This means it will hit the shelves on October 17th in North America.

Three days before I arrive myself. :)

Of Uni and Onsen

2006-10-08T14:14:00.000+08:00

Hello from Tokyo!

Two weeks into our Japan trip, I have to say, Helene and I are having an absolute blast. We started out in ultramodern Tokyo, enjoying cozy little bars in Shibuya, and late night izakaya rampages filled with delicious food and umeishu (plum wine.) Afterwards, we zipped to Kyoto by shinkansen (bullet train.)

Kyoto, for very personal reasons, turned out to be something of a disappointment. This owned mostly to the fact that we ended up in a ryokan (traditional japanese inn) on the wrong side of the train station, and entirely too cruddy and small to enjoy. This made getting out a chore in the morning, and we ended up shopping quite a bit, and seeing just a little of the innumerable temples dispersed throughout the city. The highlight for us was Grotto, a cozy izakaya near the shopping district with its delicious Kyoto-style pizza, and the nightingale floors of Nijo palace, special floors emitting a soft bird-like whistle when a would-be ninja stepped on them.

Slightly deflated from our 5-day stay in Kyoto, we were in for a treat, however: off we went to the outskirts of Shimoda, a small town (pop. 40,000) on the Izu peninsula, reknown for its seafood and its onsen (hot-spring baths.) We stayed at Kanaya Ryokan, a delightful inn featuring reputedly one of the best onsen on the peninsula. Our room was not just spacious; it felt positively royal after our small Kyoto cubicle. What followed was 5 days of pure relaxation, as Helene and I multiplied leisurely baths in hot springs, and quick outings to nearby Shimoda. On Thursday night, I achieved some sort of culinary holy grail, by eating traditional sushi in a small family-owned restaurant near the ocean. The meal was absolutely divine, and made all the more pleasant by the quiet owner who held her sleeping daughter in her arm while she expertly cut nori for her sushi chef husband. The uni (sea urchin), my favorite sushi by far, was so absolutely perfect and delicious I had to order two more and close my eyes to enjoy them properly.

And so, a little bit sad, and a little eager to return to civilization, Helene and I made our way back to Tokyo on Friday night. We're now in a modern little Western-style hotel near Roppongi, which is a drastic if somewhat pleasant contrast to our delightful ryokan near Rendai-ji station. At least, as Helene would surely be quick to point out, we can surf the web without worrying about the 8-inch monster millipede sleeping on the wall. (True Shimoda story, I'm afraid; I'm sure the pictures will make it on Helene's website soon. I initially wrote '6-inch', but Helene made sure to correct me. 'Including antennaes,' she asked me to add.)

Come Thursday, we'll be back in grey Shanghai, then one week later, will be bound for Montreal. But fortunately, we still have 4 days to wander around Tokyo and sample its many delights and surprises!

Endings and Beginnings

2006-09-21T12:08:00.000+08:00

Two days more to go, and Helene and I are finally on vacation. For me, it's also the end of the road at Ubisoft's Shanghai studio - at least for the near future. I'm checking out tomorrow, turning in my PC, clearing my desk... and off I go. 3 years of employment in the studio come to an end.

Splinter Cell Double Agent is almost done, and now everybody, from the team to the CEO, are pretty confident we have a hit on our hands. We're actually running out of problems to fix, and the game's really starting to feel finished... A few glitches left, and it's a wrap. I have spent a year and a half on this project; as a matter of fact, half my time in Shanghai was spent being a member of the SCDA team. It feels weird to know it's almost over, at last.

And so, Saturday begins 'hang time': the top of a basketballer's jump, when he just seems to float in the air, between rising and falling. Between an ending and a beginning.

We're off 3 weeks to Japan, something which excites Helene and I tremendously. Then, back to Shanghai for one week, to say farewell to everybody and pack our stuff.

Landfall in Montreal is on October 20th. Three years, two months and 20 days after we arrived in Shanghai. 1177 days.

Farewell, North Korean style

2006-09-18T11:47:00.000+08:00

Many of us on Splinter Cell Double Agent are being phased out of the project. Myself, as Producer, I would have stayed until the very bitter end... but since I am joining a new project in October in Montreal, the Senior Producer of the project will handle the final weeks, and then post-mortems, employee evaluations, etc.

So, I organized a last get-together for the expatriates on the team, last Saturday. And since this was intended as a night to remember, we took it to a very memorable place: the North Korean restaurant where I have celebrated my last two birthdays, possibly my favorite restaurant in Shanghai.

The restaurant was, I think, a huge hit. Approximately 20 people made it, which is a feat considering how the squeamish expats usually avoid any kind of 'weird' food. Yet there they were, nibbling merrily on some dog meat, and drinking, and sometimes even enjoying, North Korean alcohol made with fur seal penis(!!).

For Helene and I, the most memorable part of the meal was not the canine meat, but rather a 10-minute conversation we had with one of the waitresses. She was obviously fascinated by the rowdy crowd of foreigners in the restaurant, and she noticed that Helene and I spoke enough Mandarin to get by. So she approached us during the meal and chatted with us in North Korean-accented Mandarin.

When I think back on it, I realize just how far I've come in my experience of the world. Laughing and talking with this young woman, seven months fresh out of North Korea for the first time, was just a wonderful experience, and one I could never, in a hundred years, have experienced in Montreal. It was made all the more exciting by the fact that Mandarin was our common language. She was geniunely curious, had a very happy disposition, and seemed shy but excited about living abroad.

At some point, she asked Helene and I if we were brother and sister, since, according to her Korean eye, we looked alike. Ah, probably because we're white, and you know how all whites are the same! We corrected her by saying that Helene was my girlfriend (女朋友, "Nü Peng You") a term that seemed to confuse her. Before we left, she asked us to clarify in English: "Is she your Lady, or your girlfriend?" Ah, here it is: she was asking if we were a real couple, or a casual girlfriend-boyfriend pair. For some reason, this need to clarify this aspect stuck with me; it seemed very important to her, in order to fix her mental picture of us.

Before we left the restaurant, she insisted on giving us a small gift. We waited a few minutes, and the staff brought us some extra kim chi, seeing as we had asked to bring what remained on our table as a doggy bag. I think somehow, we made them a hell of a compliment by asking to take away their kim chi, which is a great source of pride in both North and South Korea. I was oddly touched by this offering.

And there you have it: right now, sitting in my fridge and stinking up everything forever, is kim chi made in Pyongyang, North Korea. Never have I been so proud of anything that stinks so much!

Kobe Beef Weekend

2006-09-04T12:24:00.000+08:00

Man, what a weekend we just had. Here's the invation I sent to everyone; let's just say it turned out to be a very accurate description...

Aaaah, the life of a Kobe Beef… You spend your life immobile, eating food designed to make you taste good, drinking alcohol so you remain placid and complacent, and you get body massages to make you as tender as possible.

FORTUNATELY! You don’t need to wait to die in this life and then reincarnate as a cow to enjoy the life of the Kobe Beef! Because we’re gonna have a Kobe Beef Weekend!

Here’s the program:

Step 1: Fattening the Cow

Place: Gintei Teppanyaki
Time: Saturday 7h00 PM
Cost: Approx. 180 RMB

Concept’s simple: we eat. A lot. We drink. A LOT. We have a good time.

Step 2: The Cow Goes Moo

Place: Partyworld Karaoke – Fuxing Park
Time: Saturday 9h00 PM
Cost: Approx. 200 RMB

A happy cow is an expressive cow. Come and belt out your favorite Sinatra or Elvis song! Plenty of alcohol, also, so if you’re afraid of being mike-shy… You obviously haven’t been to karaoke with us!

Step 3: REALLY Fattening the Cow

Place: Westin Sunday Brunch
Time: Sunday 11 AM
Cost: Approx. 350 RMB

Hope you worked off the calories on Saturday night, because we’re gonna go at it again on Sunday! Westin brunch, with plenty of seafood, caviar, sushi, chocolate… and free-flowing champagne!

Step 4: Tenderizing the Meat

Place: Green Massage
Time: Sunday 3 PM
Cost: Approx. 200 RMB

A 2-hour massage to top it all off. Gotta make the meat as tender as possible.

Step 5: Abattoir

Place: Go-Kart
Time: Sunday 5 PM
Cost: Approx. 100 RMB

Just in time for the end of the weekend, we go around a go-kart circuit at breakneck speeds and still buzzed on champagne. Every time one of us dies, secretive cooks come and pry us of the carcass of our karts, and cook us for the enjoyment of rich Japanese tourists who like their expat meat to be of the highest grade possible!

And off we went to one crazy weekend. Separately, all these activities are a lot of fun... But together, they amounted to an insane weekend. When we finally made it to the karting circuit, most of us had what could only be called party fatigue. After a heavy night of drinking and singing, eating brunch at the Westin then going for a massage was an overpowering experience.

That being said, none of us killed ourselves on the race track, so the rich Japanese guys were unfortunately deprived of their dinner. It's too bad: I'm sure I was especially tender...

The cat goes beep!

2006-09-02T09:09:00.000+08:00

It's a frantic period of late. Not only do I have to wrap up SCDA X360, but I also have to prepare my vacations and my move out of China at the end of October. I'm officially running out of days of the week.

Moving our stuff back to Canada isn't too complicated. But there's one important piece of our home that's a bit complicated: our cat 西施 ("Xi Shi".) Getting her out of the country is a tad more complex than, say, shipping a box of books.

The procedure involves getting her a rabies shot, but not just from any vet in the country: we have to go to a Governmental vet hospital for it. Said place is at the back of a garage, in the center of a collection of hot pot restaurants. When we stepped through to the back of the clinic, the place felt like a mad scientist's lair.

After her shots, 西施 gets a nice little surprise to keep track of her identity: the vet takes a big syringe, and implants a small microchip at the top of her shoulderblades. Yes, you read that right: 西施 has a microchip at her back. It feels like a small button. And the vet verified it worked by putting a scanner next to her.

And when he waved it over our cat, curled up in fright in the middle of a rundown vet clinic, the scanner beeped. We now had confirmation that our cat was not pure organic anymore, but was now part cat, part machine.

As my friend Hugo would say, 'Too much technology!'

The Crunch

2006-08-18T11:19:00.000+08:00

Here we are. Crunch Time.

If you're unfamiliar with the terminology, "crunch time" is that period of a game development project where you're entering the final stretch and working your ass off to get everything polished and functional. In some companies, crunch time is easy to identify, because the rest of the project, working hours are pretty normal. On Splinter Cell Double Agent, where we've been pulling long hours for a year in a row... not as easy.

But I can see the signs now. We had a major crunch on E3, but this is the real thing. We're finishing the game.

One important characteristic of crunch time is when you start losing track of the days of the week: with important deadlines on a Monday, for instance, Sunday will become one of your most busy days of the week, and Tuesday might turn out to be your weekend. Other times, you work for 15 days straight, and you find yourself hard-pressed to distinguish between Fridays and Mondays.

That's when little rituals become most important for the team, as they mark the passage of time. So, we have Pizza Wednesdays, where I order pizza for the team in the evening. Some of us have Friday lunch at Saleya (a french Bistrot), where we order a few bottles of rosé and try not to think too much about the length of our lunch.

As for the passing of days, it is currently marked by my "First Certification updates" emails, which (in theory) keep everybody focused on the bugs at hand; they go out 3-5 times daily.

We exchange our weeks for milestones, and our hours for bug counts: a sure sign that the Crunch is upon us. A few more weeks, and we'll have a game out.

SF Review: Accelerando

2006-08-06T15:36:00.000+08:00

I haven't posted a SF review in ages! To be frank, I've done very little reading, and when I did, I tended to gravitate towards contemporary fiction rather than SF. Fortunately, Charles Stross' Accelerando sucked me right back in the fantastic world of Big Ideas.

You can find my review on my SF review website, Future Shock.

Hot Water Wars

2006-07-31T09:07:00.000+08:00

I mentioned in the past that our apartment building has the most retarded hot water system in Shanghai - nay, in China. You see, most apartment buildings, hell, even small apartments are equipped with a small water heater. No fuss, no loss of energy: the thing turns on when you open the hot water faucet, and heats it just right.

But somehow, our apartment building got conned into installing a hot water tank. If only it were an apartment hot water like in North America, that'd be one thing, but nooooo... Instead the entire block has a single hot water tank. What are the advantages? I still have no idea.

So right smack in the middle of November, the apartment building management declared that they would turn on the hot water only at peak periods. Which means that if you wanted to take a shower at 5h30 in the morning, like Helene, well, though luck: all you had was ice-cold water. They eventually relented and turned it on during the day, mostly because the tenants were starting to have murder on their mind.

Fast-forward to June 2006, past a few hot water outages and other assorted chaos (such as having only hot water - even in the toilet!) The frickin' hot water tank breaks down without a garantee. The management wants to fix it, but faced with skyrocketing costs, they decide to bill the landlords.

All hell breaks loose.

I have only a sketchy idea of what follows, because all I have as evidence is signs written in Chinese. But what I know is this: there's been 3 meetings between the building management and landlords so far. The first two resulted in the typical Shanghainese shouting match. The last one was mediated by a Government official.

In the meantime, signs discussing the hot water problem multiply. (I have no idea what they say, but I see the characters for hot water - 热水 - everywhere.) Still, there's no resolution in sight.

Yesterday, things actually devolved to the point that the landlords held a... protest! They gathered in the courtyard, wrote some graffiti on the pavement, and made a fuss. The police was called in to monitor the proceedings while a man screamed in a megaphone. Yeah, you read that right. I actually witnessed my second protest - first one being the anti-Japan rallies - of my whole stay in Shanghai.

What about us, you ask? Well, remember I mentioned these small gas burners for hot water that all apartments except ours now have? Well, our landlady installed one in our apartment - Just as a temporary measure until they fix the tank, she tells us.

Well, I turned off the hot water pipe from the building, and we now use exclusively the burner. Hot water on demand, at last... But that's probably too easy a solution for the landlords... And so they keep protesting while we take our showers piping hot every morning.

Montreal: It's Official

2006-07-18T13:54:00.000+08:00

Just to keep you up to date: I have now signed my offer letter from Ubisoft's Montreal studio, and will move back to Montreal this fall.

The actual date is still under consideration... It should be around October.

The Small World of Expatriates

2006-07-17T15:48:00.000+08:00

Here's a sample of a conversation I had with a guy called Phil yesterday, at a colleague's party:

Phil: "It's so weird. Every expat seems to know each other here in Shanghai."

Me: "I know! I used to be jealous of how tight-knit immigrant communities were in Montreal. Italians or Chinese, for instance... They all seem to know each other."

Phil: "Erm. Wait a minute. You're from Montreal?"

Me: "Yeah! You too?"

Phil: "Yeah!"

Me: "Coudonc, t'es-tu francophone?!"

Phil: "Ben oui!"

So I got out my business card, and handed it to him, one Quebecois to another.

Phil: "Wow. Your last name is Roy?!"

Me: "Yeah... Oh. You too?"

Phil: "Yeah!"

Me: "Is your name..."

Phil: "My name is Philippe Roy."

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how I met a Quebecois in Shanghai who has the exact same name as my brother.

One Small Electronic Miracle

2006-07-15T15:00:00.000+08:00

Remember my atrocious evening at Microfabrique last February? At that time, I had sworn off the electronic music scene in Shanghai, disgusted by people forcing me off a table because I wouldn't pay 1000 RMB in alcohol, so that morons who didn't care about music could drown it by playing Chinese dice.

Yeah, that experience had left me quite bitter.

Anyway, yesterday night, defying all my bitterness, I decided to go check out a new microsession at Tanghui, a cool bar outside the jaded old bar strip, 5 minutes away from the studio. It took Akufen, a fellow Montrealer and highly respected minimal techno artist, to draw me out.

I went in expecting a shitty experience... And I was pleasantly surprised.

The crowd, although mostly consisting of expats, was respectful of the artist, and seemed to genuinely enjoy the show. Some moron played dice for 10 minutes, but I guess somebody told him to shove the dice up where the Sun don't shine, because I didn`t hear a single die roll after that.

The crowd was not exactly as cool as the mostly Chinese student crowd of Mutek Beijing, but the overall vibe was excellent, thanks to awesome visuals and audio.

I went there with a few friends (all but one of them from Montreal, interestingly enough), and the illusion of sitting in a trendy St-Laurent bar listening to electronic music was perfect. The performance itself was very good and made me happy and nostalgic for the Montreal scene at the same time.

So... I guess small miracles can happen, after all. Small, micro-electronic miracles.

Comfort from the Eggplane

2006-07-13T15:14:00.000+08:00

Yesterday, I went and investigated a new convenience store one street corner away from the studio. The small, welcoming place is called 飞蛋 ("Fei Dan"), which can only be translated as "Eggplane". Very weird. When I asked the girl at the counter, she explained to me that her boss is called Frederico, and that this was his nickname. The guy is frickin' called Eggplane, how awesome is that?

Anyway, 飞蛋 is a little foreign produce shop, which means they carry baguette, wine, cheese, and other exotic fares that warm the heart of expats, myself excluded. So I bought myself some bread, some Havarti with cumin seeds (a favorite of Helene), British beer, and two bottles of San Pellegrino (Italian mineral soda water that I have become addicted to; how snobbish of me!)

As I sat at home and had this little feast for dinner, it made me think just how much I was missing Montreal right now. Well, I don't miss it exactly... But I look forward to it again. As fate would have it, somebody from Ubisoft Montreal actually chose this time to call me and discuss the details of my transfer.

All this to say that if in 6 months, or a year, you see me buy frozen 小笼包 ("Xiao Long Bao", little soup dumplings) and drink some 白酒 ("Bai Jiu", Chinese rice wine)... Assume that I'm going back to Shanghai!

西施 Misses Helene

2006-07-12T10:53:00.000+08:00

Boy, I think I don't spend enough time with our cat 西施 (Xi Shi)... She's obviously missing Helene, who is currently in Thailand enjoying sunshine and quiet.

Yesterday, when I got back home around midnight, the phone was off the hook, which is something 西施 does from time to time... Except the phone receiver was lying right next to a VoIP card, on which I had stuck a Post-It note with Helene's Thailand mobile number on it!

I'll have to check the long distance bills carefully next month...

Canadian Whispers

2006-07-09T18:24:00.000+08:00

Like I said in my previous post, Helene is currently doing her best to enjoy the island of Samui in Thailand, while I toil away and do my best to finish Splinter Cell Double Agent.

Being alone was fun for the first weekend; not that I dislike Helene being here, quite the opposite!! But being by myself is a novelty, shall we say. I get to do outrageous, single guy things which I wouldn't do if Helene was around... You know, like watching horror movies and dumb guy movies such as The Fast and the Furious. Oh, but I'm so outrageous.

Anyway, she's been gone two weekends now, and the novelty is wearing off. So yesterday, I suddenly realized I was bored and in need of some activity. And this being Shanghai, I elected to go for a 3-hour massage extravaganza.

What made me initially hesitate is that, unless I go to a massage place where they're really used to giving massages to expats, the masseuses tend to get quite curious when I'm around. And as logic would dictate, the best massage places are precisely those that don't see a lot of us 老外. My current massage infatuation is with a place in Pudong, on Zhang Yang Lu near Lao Shan Xi Lu, where they give you everything from an oil massage to that funky back massage where they walk on you. And that's where I went.

I got the whole deal, of course, and it was a very pleasant and relaxing experience. But as I suspected, the masseuse really wanted to learn more about me, and pestered me with questions. Unfortunately, while I usually can grok most of what people say to me, in some rare cases, I'm just as clueless as if I had just arrived in Shanghai. Helene and I suspect this has to do with whether or not the person talking to us has learned a second language themselves; if they haven't, they sometimes have no clue how hard it is to understand Mandarin without them speaking clearly and with a restricted vocabulary.

Anyway, long story short, I spent most of my time yesterday night saying that I didn't understand a damn word the girl was saying. That really irks me when I've been here three years, and I can't help but feel it's my own damn fault.

Last time I went over was with my brother Philippe, and that time I had absolutely no problem chatting away throughout the 2 hour massage we got. I talked about my brother, about how I liked Shanghai, and about Canada. I told them, for instance, that Mandarin was Canada's third most spoken language, owning to how popular the country is with Chinese who wish to immigrate.

Fast-forward to last night, and the masseuse is trying to explain something to me yet again. This time I manage to make out what she's telling me, but it doesn't make any damn sense.

"I heard Canada has three official languages: English, French, and Mandarin. Is that true?"

Yep, Chinese whispers. Actually, Canadian whispers. Here I thought I had been quite eloquent in explaining the popularity of Mandarin in Canada to our masseuses last time, but in truth, I was spreading a big fat misconception about just how much Canada wants to speak Mandarin.

So, Shanghai, I apologize for spreading misinformation about Canada... But if you guys manage to convince the Canadian Government to make Mandarin the third official language... I'm all for it!

Shedding Shanghai

2006-07-07T22:43:00.000+08:00

I tell you; it's a weird psychological process to begin to think about going back to my home country after 3 years abroad.

If Helene and I had decided we wanted to stay in Shanghai, I'm sure we'd be fine with it right now; but since we know for sure there's little time left for us before a homecoming, it seems that we're emotionally disengaging ourselves from our current city of residence.

Now, here's something puzzling; I wouldn't mention it if, in an MSN conversation with Helene today (she's "busy" resting in Thailand while I toil away here), she didn't observe exactly the same effect on herself.

Since I've started thinking of a life in Montreal again, I've begun to re-acquire a taste for philosophical debates, discussions, and other intellectual pursuits. Now, it probably sounds crass, but hear me out; it's not that I didn't feel this way in Shanghai, or that Montreal is a capital of intellectualism... (Really not, as a matter of fact.) But it seems like the 'expat life' somehow pushes you in a mood that is much more contemplative and adaptive. Living in a country which you are struggling to understand, it seems you become a master of relativism, and you acquire a certain Zen about the weirdness of daily life.

But now that I'm thinking of friends back in Montreal, I feel something awakening in me that was pushed aside for a while. I want to read more books, to talk about them, to write scenarii for comicbooks, to write short stories, to watch obscure movies and discuss them. I used to do that a hell of a lot more before my own life became a movie. Maybe it's good, or maybe it means I'm going back to a spectator's life. Who knows for now?

And so, mentally, I'm shedding Shanghai, it seems. I just know I'm gonna go back to Montreal and start gaining a deep appreciation for my time here. I even know I'm gonna miss it all so terribly. I know all this... And yet I need to go back home if only for a while.

There's a French expression that goes, Partir pour mieux revenir. Going away to better come back. I think in my case, it will be Revenir pour mieux partir.

Homebound

2006-06-28T13:56:00.000+08:00

As you probably inferred from a recent post of mine, Montreal has been on my mind a lot lately. It's not so much that Helene and I are sick and tired of Shanghai; sure, some aspects are not as novel, and shall we say, not as cute anymore. Overall, though, I can't say I'm tired of living here, not by a long shot.

However, this notion that I could return, however temporarily, to Montreal has started to gain ground lately. Helene and I are feeling like we need to take a step back, take a breath of fresh Quebec air, and ponder and absorb what we've lived through in the last 3 years.

From a professional angle, the choice is much less clear. There are awesome opportunities for me both in Shanghai and in Montreal - in great part because of our success on the E3 demo - and I'm faced with the best kind of dilemma: the hardest one.

And so, I'm spending a lot of my time thinking and talking, as of late. I've already made my choice, mostly, but I now have to let it simmer a bit, and really ponder what sacrifices I'm making by taking this choice.

You see, as things stand right now, I'm heading to Montreal this October.

Is this the end of the Shanghai adventure? I highly doubt it. Simply put, I have deep ties of affection with Shanghai, and I suspect that stepping away from it for one year will simply make me yearn for the life here all the more. I also have excellent relationships here in the studio, and the only thing that keeps me sane in considering leaving the Ubisoft Shanghai studio is the fact that I can return at a later date, my head filled with new ideas from being exposed to Montreal's methods and challenges.

Lost in Translating

2006-06-26T15:05:00.000+08:00

Picture this: two Western men are standing in a street in Shanghai. They stand in exactly the same spot, looking around.

One of them is looking at the street with new eyes, being newcomer in the city. The heat, the pollution, the noise, the smells assail him and prevent him from clearly perceiving details around him. All he perceives is a mess of new experiences, jockeying in a screaming manner for his full attention.

The second one has lived in the city for many years, and has long since adapted to the pace of the city. For him, all inconveniences experienced by his companion are mere background noise. He glances around at the Chinese signs, and can make most of them out: Florist. Noodle restaurant. Clothes shop. The voices of the people around him bring him small echos of mundane conversations, about the weather, about the World Cup, about life as it is everywhere on Earth.

Now here's the question that fascinates me: how can two people, standing in exactly the same geographical location, retain such dramatically different experiences of the world around them?

How possible is translation between these two experiences? And if it is so difficult with the exact same point of reference, how could it be possible to communicate Shanghai to somebody, say, who has never set foot in Asia?

I'm pondering these questions at this time, because I had exactly this kind of cognitive disconnection these last two weeks; you see, my younger brother Philippe came out and experienced Shanghai first-hand in my company.

It's been a strange trip, I think, for him. Because of a number of factors, including my work just not letting me up, bad June heat, and a lingering sickness on my part, I didn't take him around China nearly as much as I feel I should have. For instance, we had initially planned on visiting Beijing for 3 days, but the prospect of climbing a mountain in 45 C degree heat, be it to reach the Great Wall, daunted us both.

Overall, I took him through the 'classics', hoping something would connect him to China and make him fall in love with the life here, but the good old tricks just didn't seem to work. Oh, he did appreciate a few things, for sure; he had a great time receiving grade-A massages, as well as discovering some of the food, but I didn't see in his eyes the spark that I saw, say, in my friend Flint's eyes when he visited. In other words: if China was a person I introduced to him, he would have found her a pleasant girl to hang out with, but probably felt no need to befriend her.

The rest, as we say, was lost somewhere in translation.

Gifts Great and Small

2006-06-02T10:21:00.000+08:00

Wednesday night, the E3 Core Team gathered at Ubisoft's favorite Shanghainese restaurant, 海上阿叔 ("Shanghai Uncle"), for one final cheer over our accomplishment. We had an awesome time, and much wine was drunk as we cheered on.

In the middle of the meal, Julian, our Marketing Game Manager, announced that the team had elected a "MVP" by unanimous agreement... and that this MVP was me. I was stunned, but not as much as when they took out a gift for me. You see, the team, to thank me for my work, bought me a frickin' 30GB iPod Video.

I was speechless. It would have been a very nice gift if Ubisoft had offered it to me, but this was a gift that my team bought for me. I can hardly believe it. Wow.

So this morning, I'm going to the cafeteria with my iPod playing some Jan Jelinek, when one 阿姨 ("ayi") calls me over. She had promised to give me some sticky rice with beef for breakfast this morning, and she was determined to keep her promise. So I waited idly as she microwaved some sticky rice for me, and went to my desk to eat it.

Eating sticky rice, while listening to my iPod. Enjoying two gifts at the same time, one great, and one small. That's a hell of a good way to start a morning.

Surreal Concert Tickets

2006-05-29T11:44:00.000+08:00

When I try to explain why I like the weirdness of Shanghai, it's difficult to give a specific example. It's not so much that you get used to small, precise cases of weirdness; rather, you get used to different weird things happening to you all the time. Here's one such event.

Sunday afternoon, our 阿姨 ("A Yi", cleaning lady) gave us a call, saying she had a pair of tickets for an event at the Shanghai Stadium in the evening. We were unclear what kind of event she meant exactly, since this convervation was entirely in Mandarin. Still, we understood it was music, and it was something from America. "I won't go because I wouldn't understand the words," said our 阿姨.

It was free tickets, it was for an American event, and it was in a stadium, so it sounded good enough to check out. "Besides," insisted 阿姨 when she came around to give us the tickets, "if you don't like it, you can always leave." So we made our way to the Shanghai Stadium, as I was mentally listing what rock bands could be in Shanghai at the moment.

When we got to the stadium, we saw that the center of the stadium was still set up as a tracking field... A sports events, then? We sat down, intrigued. And that's when we finally understood what it was.

It was a marching band show. Not a competition... An actual show, but the University of Georgia Marching Band, who had won some sort of international marching band competition, and got to show off their talent to a stadium full of Chinese people, some family... and two very amused Canadians who spent the next 45 minutes having American Pie flashbacks.

Was it good? It was definitely surreal. And as you quickly learn in Shanghai, weird is good.

Landfall

2006-05-23T14:24:00.000+08:00

The big travel circle that took me to Los Angeles and through Montreal on the way back is now complete: I'm back in Shanghai after two weeks that felt like months away.

I'm at a loss to sum up my time in Montreal in a few words. It was interesting, certainly, and it was fantastic to spend some time with my family and some friends. (I didn't have time to see all my friends, and I dearly apologize to those with whom I could not spend a moment.) However, now that I'm back in Shanghai, I'm confronted by just how homeless I am now.

Shanghai is a fantastic city, but I'm starting to feel exhausted at its furious pace. It took me 6 days in Montreal to notice how frantic life can be in Shanghai, and now I feel out of touch, like I've just been thrown out of a moving car and forgot to run when I hit the ground. I'm sure I'll get back to top speed soon enough, but it does make me wonder why I run at all.

Montreal was great, but once I sat on the plane to Shanghai, I began to wonder how long I would endure a return home. The first month would be great, surely, with all the dearly missed friends I would see again on a regular basis... But once habit kicks back in, what then? Will I suddenly remember why I sought adventure elsewhere in the first place?

What's left, then? Adventure in a new country? Perhaps. Perhaps I just need to go on searching, until one day I end up somewhere I really want to call home.

Or perhaps home really is where the heart is, and my heart is set on never settling down.

My Life as a Rock Star

2006-05-15T09:39:00.000+08:00

Whew! It's been an insanely busy week, and I'm glad it's all over. If you've been wondering how Splinter Cell Double Agent has been doing, let's just say the reaction has been truly amazing. We have received amazed compliments from everyone ranging from journalists to industry leaders, and Hideo Kojima himself took the time to check our game out. We also received two Game of Show nominations, from 1UP and IGN.

Here's a little rundown of how crazy my days at E3 have been:

Monday: I arrive in LA at 7 PM, strangely jetlag-less; I'm so incredibly exhausted from finishing the E3 project that I'm through jetlag and out on the other side. I'm worklagged. It's not enough of an excuse, though, to prevent me from linking up with Derek, our Senior Marketing Coordinator, who asked me to rehearse for an incredibly important presentation the next day.

Tuesday: I get up at 6h30, having slept very fitfully for 6 hours. (Keep in mind I still haven't rested after the project itself.) The reason: I have to present our game to 200 Ubisoft people, including the upper management and every marketing guy they can throw at me. As I sit in the conference room, I'm strangely, totally stress-less. Perhaps I'm just too tired. Anyhow, I get up on the podium, and I manage to deliver a pretty solid presentation. I even thank Derek for "not dying" during his run of the game. I receive, stunned, numerous congratulations from Ubisoft people, including Yves Guillemot, our CEO. I'm starting to feel the rock star vibe.

Wednesday: Still not very well-rested. I do 4 hours of interviews and demos at the Ubisoft stand in the morning. The formula is simple: stand up near a HD TV, invite people over, and play the game for them as you talk them through it. Rinse and repeat. Over and over and over again. I finally escape the show around 2 PM, and go for a nap at the hotel.

Thursday: I wake up from my nap at 7 AM the next day. I'm finally starting to feel rested. I'm looking forward to this morning, as I will be manning the Microsoft booth this time. All I need to do is to sit down, not explain anything, and play the game. Sounds simple, right? Four hours later, I feel like I am going completely insane from repetition. I try to escape the show at 1h30, but PR people keep catching me for video interviews. I manage to run away from the show around 4 PM, and get to enjoy a drink with Jürgen and Stacy from Voicegroup, two great people who produced the voice recordings for our game.

Thursday (continued): At 7h30 PM, Julian, our Marketing Game Manager, god bless him, brings us invitations to the PlayStation party. I excuse myself from the hotel bar, and make my way over there. The party is on the top of a mountain, and they offer you champagne as you get off the trolley getting you there. Incubus is playing live, and it's bar open for 3,000 people in the area. It feels amazing, and I briefly consider lying to my colleagues about Kojima puking on my shoes or something as impressive, then I decide I miss the guys and I head back with Chris and Thomas to the Ubisoft party, at a trendy bar called the Geisha Room. My entire team feels like a million bucks. We drink merrily and feel like we're entitled to stand on the prow of a doomed ship proclaiming our royalty over the planet.

Friday: Day after. I linger around before heading to the show, and carefully avoid the Ubisoft booth. Instead, I take my time going through the God of War II, win a notepad by beating everybody at Brain Age at the Nintendo booth, and otherwise check out stuff. I decide to return to the Ubisoft booth around 2 PM, where I'm promptly given demo duty once again. E3 drags to an end around 4 PM, but the day is far from over. We head to the hotel bar again for a drink, where we have a chat with Yves Guillemot, who graciously spends 15 mins at our table. Chris, ever bad at recognizing people who he should not forget, asks him after 10 mins, 'So what do you do at Ubisoft again?' to which Yves answers with a sly smile, 'I'm the President.' Chris spends the next two minutes wishing he could hide under a rock. We part ways a bit later, and head to the Microsoft XBOX Live party, where many XBOX Live hardcore fans gush over our demo of Double Agent on the spot. We get promptly drunk once again, and have the time of our lives as Crystal Method plays 2 meters away from us.

Saturday: The rock star life finally ends, as Hugues and I board a plane... for Montreal. I'm now staying at my parents' place, enjoying at last some peace and quiet.

And hey, if you're a friend of mine in Montreal, give me a call or drop me an email. I'll be happy to see my old friends again... rock star or not!

The Last Hours

2006-05-07T05:19:00.000+08:00

As the E3 Producer, it's been my task to carefully plan the E3 demo, so that we would finish with time to spare, and could relax in the last days. As my team, the rest of the guys have been busy refusing to finish comfortably on time, and did their best to ruin my plans. Bless the bastards!

So here we are, once more at the end of a sleepless night, polishing the crap out of everything in sight. I'll simply describe my feelings towards the team at this point as deep pride with a pinch of respectful annoyance. Audran (Art Director) and Ariel (Lead Level Designer), in particular, have made a masochistic point of making me stay up all night on the night before our flight to LA.

But here we are, and the demo's ready, and good enough that, jaded as we are after 9 weeks of gruelling work, we're looking at it in awe at what we accomplished. As Audran and Ariel put the final touches to the level, Shen Li (Lead Engineer), Wu Min Jie (Art Technical Director) and Ren Bo (Data Manager) are taking a nap in their chairs, awaiting the good news that sleep awaits at last.

It'll be here soon, guys. Sleep, then a long flight to LA to show the game to the world. But the hardest part is done.