Welcome to Growing Up Geek , an ongoing feature where we have a look back at our youth and tell stories of growing as much as be the nerds that we’re. Today, we have now our personal Senior Associate Editor, Richard Lai , who also happens to be the Editor-in-chief of Engadget Chinese.
In line with my Tiger Mom, my first encounter with gadgets started as early as on the age of 2 — I somehow managed to ceaselessly destroy home telephones on the time, thus forcing my folks to elect the cheaper models. It’s rather ironic that i am now the person who owns one of the most variety of phones inside the family. Sooner or later around that age I also accidentally killed my father’s tank of koi carp by feeding them washing powder, but ’tis a narrative for an additional day.
Surprisingly, i don’t believe said mischief shaped my interest in gadgets afterward. It really began with our new life in Australia after I was four, and my uncle there happened to have a Nintendo Entertainment System. I still remember the “wow” moment once I first saw this gray box and the pixelated plumber at the Super Mario Bros. cartridge. Due to the inability of game-saving ability, my determination to uncover all of the secret boxes and chambers quickly ended in my first pair of prescription glasses.
Excited by it, we did not have an extremely rich selection of gadgets, nor were my parents keen about electronics. The foremost impressive piece of tech back then would was my father’s cell phone — it’s rather amusing seeing how he went from a major brick the entire option to a small candy bar through the years. i suspect he still keeps his first ever Motorola handset in his office for showing off, if not for self defense (admittedly, i used to be too frightened to the touch it once I was tiny, fearing I’d drop and break it). Do not be mistaken, though: I definitely didn’t get my nerd genes from my old man — this dude doesn’t actually have a computer on his office desk, and he can only nearly use a mouse. It was only last year when he showed interest within the iPad, so I got the couple each an iPad when Apple started clearing stock for the iPad 2.
i suppose my lust for the newest and greatest gadgets come from my competitive nature, and the indisputable fact that I’ve always been capable of quickly determine tips to operate them or set them up without taking a look at the manual — it was (and still is) pretty satisfying when this happened, especially in front of impressed adults back then. There’s just something about cables and graphical user interface — they rarely get in my way, but for a similar reason, I’d spend hours fidgeting with the troublesome gadgets and software installations before giving up.
Alas, i did not quite have the similar determination with my studies in my first year at highschool, and looking out back now, the numerous aforementioned distractions were unquestionably component of the issue, and that i also discovered PC games that year. The result of this was my parents sending me off to a boarding school in the midst of nowhere, aka Wiltshire inside the UK (near Stonehenge, if that rings a bell for anyone). Thank goodness that i used to be capable of fly back home two or thrice a year then, since the countryside offered little greater than grazing cows and the occasional fertilizer stench to kids trapped inside the campus. In my first couple of years there, the nearest I got to a few new technology were the Royal Air Force jets roaring over us sometimes.
After all, i did not really hate the countryside nor the faculty. In reality, that special place offered many opportunities for me to turn off my nerdy side in various ways. Most notably, i used to be one of several few kids in my first year there to own a digicam (a hefty 1.3 megapixel Fujifilm FinePix 1400 Zoom), and quite naturally, I became a general photographer for my schoolmates to document some skateboarding, pranks, birthday bumps and parties. Inside the later years I became our faculty magazine’s photographer, so i used to be capable of borrow the more powerful and whimsical Nikon Coolpix 4500, after which i finally convinced school to buy a Nikon D50.
While i used to be off my photography duty, I also built a number of websites: one for the beekeeping club (yes, i used to be in it too; that’s how awesome the varsity was), and one for our senior boarding house. Just last week, my brother asked where I acquired my HTML skills, and all I remember is that ever since I received my first laptop — a bulky but tough Fujitsu LifeBook C2010 — i began twiddling with FrontPage (come on, who hasn’t?), until I got bored stiff with the restrictions and migrated to Dreamweaver. i did not take any lessons except the few times after I asked an IT teacher for some advice — the dude was even kind enough to offer me a one-to-one crash course on making simple Flash animation.
On top of that, I gradually became my schoolmates’ and teachers’ go-to guy for all computer related problems. My proudest achievement was beating a technician at getting a projector to speak to a laptop just moments before we were as a result of perform Les Misérables in London’s West End. Might I add that we were the 1st to accomplish a university production of said musical, hence the invitation to accomplish in London for one night — I played the farmer who kicked Jean Valjean off his farm, though interested by it, I should’ve pushed for a rice paddy field while i used to be at it.
It could sound like I had a clean record at my boarding school (and that i wasn’t even going to say me singing tenor within the choir), but allow me to share my darker moments there. Leaving the few fights within the early years aside, in some unspecified time in the future in my final year I “needed” to get around the ports to access the Internet from my dorm (hey, i wanted my daily dose of Engadget before bed), and let’s just say my operation might have involved a wireless router, a self-made “WindSurfer” antenna booster (it really works, look it up), plus a couple of HomePlugs. Oh, I got caught red-handed alright, despite the fact that I hid everything nicely inside a computer tower in the boarding house’s computer room — ironically, the technician who spotted my rig were there to work out how to enable Internet connection for our boarding house’s isolated internal network (which was mainly used for Counter-Strike from time to time).
It was a rather awkward conversation with the deputy head master, especially since I was also the deputy school captain or something like that (no, not the Zac Efron kind). Anyway, I got away with just having my connectivity gear confiscated, and I managed to behave myself for the remaining months in that school year.
Engadget and similar tech blogs weren’t enough for me — I also wanted to touch the new gadgets, but thankfully, I was still able to keep myself up to date with the few trips back to Hong Kong each year. Over time, walking across the computer malls in Sham Shui Po and gadget shops in Mongkok became a habit of mine (and eventually I would extend my coverage to Shenzhen’s Huaqiangbei ), so my friends and relatives learned to come to me for shopping advice. I, on the other hand, looked to a pc-related course at university, thinking some coding and circuit building would suit me well given my unhealthy obsession with electronics.
Oddly enough, I ended up enjoying the photography club and writing for our student newspaper more than the course itself. I should’ve seen this coming — I had already spent two summers as an intern soldering countless prototype circuit boards for some car audio head units, and that was quite possibly the most boring thing I’d ever done. Sure, the course at uni was much more than that, but similarly, I quickly lost interest while staring at circuit boards and codes for hours within the labs. Too bad I didn’t heed the advice of one of the engineers at the company: he plainly told me to pick any course other than electronic engineering to avoid being stuck in his seemingly boring job (his words, not mine).
Don’t get me wrong, though, I thoroughly enjoyed the company of my awesome (and super bright) coursemates at uni, and they were the ones who actively encouraged me to throw myself into Engadget. Coincidentally, the rare opportunity arose twice for me: one from an open call for a London editor (which I didn’t get through), and another from a brief meetup with ex-Senior Editor Thomas Ricker. Eventually, i’d quit uni for this job; and that, my friends, is how you seriously upset your Tiger Mom and Tiger Dad.
Do I have any regrets? Only a bit. I should’ve checked the male-to-female ratio when picking university (no offense, Imperial College London). As for this job, I don’t think I can get any geekier given my circumstances (though it still feels good to know vaguely what Fourier transform’s for), not to mention that I get to lay my hands on some products well before my envious friends can. Well, the small proportion of friends who care that much about gadgets, anyway.
Richard is currently based within the Hong Kong, surrounded by an unlimited range of gadgets and delicious food. On Twitter he’s @richardlai , but be warned: he does tweet loads . This guy’s also just turned 24 today.
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