little. yellow. different. A weblog by Ernie Hsiung

labor brings prosperity

Although the hours at work are starting to ease up a little bit, I’m still pretty busy for the most part, and I’m still unable to talk about the project until it launches some time in March. So how do I write about things that happen at my job without not actually writing about my job? Hmmm.

Engineer: … so there are 650 images from Korea and Taiwan that have to be sent to us. The images are larger than what we requested, though - they’ll have to be resized and sent to us by tomorrow.
Ernie: Uhm… are you serious? That’s not a good thing, isn’t it?
Engineer: No, they just use a program that we give them that resizes images automatically. Wait, you don’t think they resize everything by hand, do you?
Ernie: Um…

---

(The setting: a factory, somewhere in China. There is a wherehouse full of 11-year old girls, sitting at computer terminals running pirated copies of Adobe Photoshop. A giant picture of Chairman Mao sits on a back wall, along with a banner written in simplified Chinese characters that reads “Labor Brings Prosperity.” And yes, italics are in Chinese.)

Foreman: WORK HARDER! These graphics must be re-sized and cropped for Yahoo! by four in the morning!
Xiu Xiu: But our eyes heart - we’ve been working for 22 hours!
Foreman: QUIET! I will not tolerate such laziness - keep up this lack of productivity and your village will not get the bushels of grain!*
Xiu Xiu: But mama… papa… they need the grain. They are so hungry!
Foreman: Then you will scale these images to 100×150 pixels! High graphic compression rate! LABOR BRINGS PROSPERITY!
Exhausted Girl #2: (to picture on the wall) Chairman Mao, you are staring down upon us! What wise words of wisdom would you extend on us, the hero workers of your mighty nation?
Chairman Mao: Shiiet, girl. Y’all are fucked.

---

Ernie: …Of course not. Of course there’s an image resizing algorithm. An algorithm. Yes. Where am I?
Engineer: (slowly backs away)

* I don’t know why a village in China would get bushels of grain instead of rice. Deal with it; it’s my dream sequence.

…rice _is_ a grain. :p

yay.

Actually, Ern, you’re not off base at all. There’s a service bureau in India that does nothing but crop and mask Photoshop images. Lots of designers use them because they’re cheap - $50 to crop an image is a lot less than local labor would charge.

Their name escapes me and Google and Yahoo don’t seem to know about them, but I’ve heard good things about them from Seattle area designers.

Eric in Seattle

I’m so glad that I’m not the only one who has these fevered dream sequences.

Shiiet, girl. Y’all are fucked? Sounds more like MC Mao than Chairman Mao to me. But then it is your dream sequence.

Poor Xiu Xiu. Why the hell doesn’t Exhausted Girl #2 have a name? I need to go to bed, my eyes heart

Globalization! Gotta love it. Jobs leave our country, and allow folks in other countries to work in sweatshops.
Okay, perhaps I’m being a touch too serious. But your dream sequence rocked.

I’m so glad I’m not the only who has dream sequences on food. I love your writing! Keep it up!

Labor does bring prosperity, just not typically to those who do the labor.

Your Dream Sequence Mao sounds very similar to your Dream Sequence Kingdom Hearts Goofy:

Gawrsh, Mickey, we’re fucked!

Hey Ern!

wuuuz’up? I’ve been reading your blog for a while but this is the first time I’ve ever left a comment. I’m not much for being politically witty(lol, if that makes sense), or maybe it’s just b/c today’s sunday, which means I don’t have to think too much. Day of rest…ahh…I was thinking the other day(like a yr ago…;))that my cousin Pierre would luuuuve you! Then I read your profile and discovered you had a boyfriend…=S If only we were in an alternate universe…=P

lol…Peace out,

Yay! Ernie’s back.

I thought norther China mostly used wheat rather than rice. Maybe your dream was set in northern China.

ern! you made me laugh so hard, my neighbor just popped his head over the cube wall to see why i was making such a racket! curse you. *doom doom DOOM*

Yes, Ernie… but let’s not forget what is happening in Korea…

Haha! Cool!

I too have had the dream of the warehouse full of 11 year old Chinese girls. But at the end of mine, the work whistle blew, the foreman left, and DJ Tsingtao magically appeared. He started spinning mind blowing Chinese techno music. The girls, though exhausted, danced the night away under an azure sky. Of course the next morning, they accidentally resized all the images to thumbnails, and were immediatlely punished. The point of this ramble? (read next line in your most horrificly stereotypical asian accent) Working in factory like favorite dish at Chinese restuarant… sweet and sour.

Weren’t the dancing techno chinese girls in a recent video?

But Ernie, the girls would then start sending encoded messages within the pictures, and everybody that used Yahoo would know about their plight! Of course, with their hearting eyes and all, those messages would ensure that all villages received their bushels of grain, and XiuXiu wouldn’t be exhausted anymore.

Here’s another thought I had when reading this..does anyone else think of the Clerks Animated Series episode with the “Bear who drives car” and the phrase “Crazy American Party..everybody is dancing?” Then it cuts to the big rat whipping the poor people animating? I’m sure it’s not set in China..but hey, it’s a good laugh.

hehe - unfortunately I’ve know too many shops in the US that are about that technologically advanced as well - worked for a few of them as a matter of fact.

“There is a wherehouse full of 11-year old girls” - A warehouse? LoL
“But our eyes heart” - This is very much a typo, but I felt that I could not point out one error without pointing out another. LoL.

Anyway, not trying to be annoying! I’ve been reading your blog for sometime now, this just jutted out at me.

hang in there man, i can totally relate!

ernie, you sooo funn-ay!

btw, where’s my invite for Orkut? c’mon mang!

hi…

Someone should tell those little girls about the batch process in Photoshop that will resize those 650 images in 15 minutes. Poor little girls.

I sware to god that I’m teaching myself flash so I can aminate this dream sequence…

to be continued….

It’s always fun to watch people have those little hallucinations. Their eyes kinda glaze over and then they suddenly snap back, surprised that they’re not off somewhere prancing with Prince and a pile of leprechauns.

Dude, there are actually programs on Chinese TV about using After Effects and Photoshop. The best thing is that (a) they’re on at prime-time, so if the 99 channels of Qing-dynasty soap operas aren’t serving your needs, you can just sit down with a beer and watch a guy explaining the finer points of the Twirl filter, and (b) as the entire program is in English, it’s obviously a pirated copy.