Chicken (鸡)(鶏)(닭)

My first interaction ever with an animal is with a chicken, in China as a three-year-old trying to feed chickens in my family's backyard. There are pictures to prove the event and also to prove that I was a little scared of those chickens, ironically. Little did I know back then that those feathery friends would become dinner later for the family to eat. 

I sometimes wrestle with the notion of eating meat in my head. On one hand, eating meat is as natural for me as using the bathroom or getting up in the morning, it's something I've always done and enjoyed. Never have I gone more than a couple days without eating meat, despite trying in vain to instill a "meatless week." On the other hand, seeing chickens in their live habitat and actually moving around and having a sense of purpose and living and breathing like humans do makes me wonder if we're entitled to just deprive them of their life for one good meal we have. It's like when I kill a fruit fly that's invaded our apartment: sure a bug is gross and a menace, but does it deserve to die and have I gained the right to kill it to advance my own enjoyment? One of the universe's minor questions, but I know how I'd feel if I were the chicken: Our species is already trying to feed you guys protein with all the eggs we poop out for you (by all accounts healthier than chicken meat) yet you greedy people want us to die too?" 

I certainly felt this way today in the Arts District of Downtown LA, an underrated lively area of downtown L.A. near Little Tokyo with galleries and breweries and some nice residential communities forming. There were about 10 chickens being raised in the back of a restaurant/ beer garden area with the chickens having their own coop to sleep in and a backyard area to walk around. The owners even gave names to some of the chickens based on the color of their feathers like Henrietta (a great universal name for chickens) and Else, etc. The chickens were (M.J. has gotten me used to this adjective) peaceful, just living their lives and being in each others' company. Yet as a society we slaughter these animals in mass numbers, and by some accounts in inhumane, uncomfortable conditions, feeding them genetically enhanced foods. 

On the other side of the coin, this past week I won a contest from the new Chick Fil A restaurant that opened in downtown L.A. to get 52 free chicken sandwich meals within one calendar year (basically one a week). Chick Fil A is a pretty successful chain whose entire business model revolves around selling chicken meat, and to promote its new stores they do an event each time they open a new store allowing for people to get free giveaways, and I participated and won! It was actually a pretty fun event, involving going to various areas around the city as part of a "Scavenger Hunt" wearing Chick Fil A t-shirts (basically as a walking advertisement for Chick Fil A). With all the new restaurant chains opening up in downtown LA like Jimmy John's, Shake Shack, etc., I'm not so sure it's the best business decision, but they certainly were busy on the first 2 days of business. Anyway, the Chick Fil A Scavenger Hunt was a pretty fun event and a break in the monotony of everyday life for me, something I really needed, and probably the closest thing to being on the Amazing Race I'll ever get. (Chick Fil A Amazing Race Downtown LA edition!)  

Anyway, now I have to eat more chicken! Just when I've been reminded of chickens' value as living creatures! It really is a shame that they're so delicious, and they're an essential staple in the human diet: really no other food compares to the instant protein and calorie intake and just the feeling of having meat that tofu and other veggie substitutes can try to replace but just can't quite do so. It's something I'll have to do more research on and examine within myself for the rest of my life! 

Fantasize on,

Robert Yan 

Smells (におい) (냄새)(香味)

In my continuing series of posting blog titles in 4 different languages (Serge Ibaka the basketball player recently gave an interview in 3 different languages, fluently! So I'm jealous) I examine the powerful but underrated role of scent in our memories and senses. Japanese and Korean both have distinctive terms for the idea of "scent," but in Chinese the word for a smelling scent is close to like "smells nice" and the second letter means "taste," so it's associated more with like a flavor that one can taste in their mouth. It's an interesting way to describe scents, but scents go way beyond just tastes.

I don't profess to have a keen sense of smell, but just like I can remember most people's faces and have a knack of remembering who someone is based on their face, I instinctively remember experiences based on smells, and especially so if it's a strong scent or smell. I think a lot of people have similar experiences, but it's hard to identify experiences just based on smell......Oh remember that one time we went by the ocean and really smelled the seaweed and salt of the ocean? Oh remember when we outside after it rained and could smell the dampness all around? People don't usually identify their lives based on what going from scent to scent, but it's an important bookmark for our lives.

1.) I didn't actively try to sniff girls back in my single days (cuz that would be creepy), but I admit that I got attracted to girls more if they smell extra nice (that's where the fragrance companies really did great work). The less artificial and natural smelling, the better, like flowers or what I imagine a serene waterfall would smell like.

2.) Grocery stores definitely have a distinctive smell, probably designed to get us to buy stuff, but it's an earthy, organic feel at Whole Foods and Trader Joe's that makes us think "healthy." And a warehouse kind of smell at Costco that makes us think "buy in bulk."

3.) Restaurants, especially bakeries and coffee shops, the smell is super important. Match a good ambiance with good coffee roast smell or fresh bread and good smell, and you could have people staying around for a long time.

4.) Subway gets a bad rap I think for artifically wafting their bread smell out into the air around the store. I once passed a couple outside of Subway who seemed visibly distraught that they had to endure the smell of Subway, like "I knew I smelled Subway! Damn it!" I don't mind it, but I do get the cheapness of the smell.

5.) The smell of casinos, of all the different cigars and cigarettes compiled together, has further turned me off of Las Vegas. Worse, my clothes smell of casinos when I get home (this applies to gentlemen's clubs too, when I used to go there).

6.) The smell of a baseball game adds to the American pasttime feel of it, the beer and hot dogs and concession stands.

7.) MJ insists on the smell of incense at home, which gets out the smell of man that I apparently emit. Understandable.

8.) Someone recently told me in a conversation that each of our bodies give off a distinctive smell when farting or burping, so that we all kind of enjoy our own bodily gases but get turned off by other people's. I'm not gonna disagree with that.

9.) The smell of money.....is overrated. Nobody really uses cash anymore.

10.) The smell of new books is underrated. Makes me want to read more.

Fantasize on,

Robert Yan

Bookstore (서점) (本屋)(书店)

There are few things in the world that fascinates me more than a bookstore does. Unfortunately, there are few things in the world disappearing off the face of the world than bookstores. Or so I thought since ten years ago, yet bookstores are still standing strong, a lasting presence in shopping malls all over the world. It makes sense why bookstores would eventually go out of business, but I think they've survived due to being linked with coffee shops, DVD sales, and other surrounding businesses. I, for one, am always fine with stopping at a bookstore if we've finished our grocery shopping, window shopping, whatever.

If the pictures and paintings in art galleries are a window to a different world, books are an even more concentrated mass of portals, each book cover promising their own dose of fantasy (yes, I judge a book by its cover). Each book has its own set of ideas, own narrator or author telling their version of their worlds through their eyes, all through shiny newly printed pages that cry out for attention. Actually getting all the way through a book cover to cover is a chore nowadays, but the fantasy of being able to sift through different books at a bookstore still is really rampant. In a matter of a few minutes I can jump from interesting topic to interesting topic depending on what catches my eye, leaf through quickly and get the flavor of a book, and move on. Never mind that bookstores probably hate this, but this is the new book-consuming experience: the idea of books, the knowledge that I can enter these different worlds at my own will, is a joy in itself.


Not that I'm not into reading good books from cover to cover. Currently engrossed in a medical non-fiction (I'm more into the real world nowadays) called "Being Mortal" discussing the sadness of aging and one's golden years, but how hospitals and nursing homes don't have the right approach to the elderly who have lost so much of their physical and mental capacity; doctors can treat the diseases that are harming the patients, but not the depression and psychological effects like loneliness and lack of meaning. Sometimes it's better to put elderly in a more friendly environment, or put a friendly dog in a nursing home or so birds (to hear the birds chirping) just to give the elderly some inspiration to live, the author argues. Most of the world doesn't think about what happens when they get old (I certainly haven't planned for it) so they just take the "put them in a nursing care" approach without knowing what really happens in a nursing care. Especially with the average age going higher and higher due to medical advances (my grandpa is 92!) it's important to keep good mental health and explore quality of life for the elderly. I was just watching an elderly gentleman getting on the train in LA the other day. When the train arrived on the platform, I walked right in through the doorway of the train, but the elderly gentleman was inching forward towards the door with a walker but was in danger of not making it in before the doors closed. It's such a sad sight, just as the childhood exuberance of a newborn is exciting with so much potential for the rest of their lives, the sad sight of an elderly who has lived out their lives and once was powerful and strong deteriorating into their current state, and the knowledge for everyone else that that's a fate we all will endure one day (if we live long enough) is really harsh but requires us to face it. Many elderly's quality of health is fine, fine, fine, and then one day it just drops off a cliff, the body shuts down, so it could happen to anybody, anytime, and we need to be ready for it when it does happen.

Korean bookstores are awesome! MJ and I went to a used bookstore today in Koreatown and they had tons of stuff, mostly Korean which I tried to translate into English with various levels of success. And they anticipate my needs more than the average American bookstores, tons of books for Korean speakers learning Japanese, or Korean speakers learning Chinese, or vice versa. A cornucopia of Asian language learning! Asian bookstores ( in Korea and Japan) from what I can tell have a different standard for their quality of books, with extra bindings and wrapping their books in nice wrapping, making them an even more valued product. Each book is a window to someone's soul, it's a gift to be able to read it!


Maybe one day they'll have a book that teaches me how to remember to tend to the food still on the stove. I keep forgetting and having the water boil over and out of the pot! Urgg!!!


Fantasize on,

Robert Yan

終身雇用(Lifelong employment)

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to have permanent, lifelong employment at a company. I currently do kind of the opposite, where I take contracts with different law firms and help with whatever they need for a few weeks or months, but I'm not considered a permanent employee. Faced with the challenge of sporadically needing to find a new job (so far I've been pretty successful in doing this because my skills haven't been totally rendered obsolete by technology and machines), lifelong employment does sound rather attractive. But it is everything it's cracked up to be? 

Life long employment, or "shuushinkoyou" in Japanese, was popularized by the Japanese after World War II, with the idea of instilling a sense of loyalty and belonging to employees, a sense of family at the workplace. 

1.) Lifelong employment is the best antidote to fear of layoffs. Layoffs are messy; employees don't want it to happen to them; employers don't want to have to do it to employees. But it's the economic reality and helps the bottom line of companies. The theory goes, you'd rather cut 10% of the work force than have to cut 100% if the business goes bankrupt. Unfortunately with lifelong employment, businesses can't cut delinquent employees and those who are just holding on for a paycheck, so it's hard to cut costs and survive against companies that ARE willing to do so. (Unless you have an awesome business, like right now I think it's pretty nice to be an Amazon or other tech company employee). 

2.) What if you don't like your coworkers and work environment? I happen to work right now in a very friendly, welcoming work environment where almost everyone gets along pretty well with around the same educational background and level, so conversations are witty and intellectual as well as productive. But what if Day 1 of the lifelong employment job, you find that it's miserable? Is loyalty worth the daily toil of the job? It's one thing to be stuck with your family who brought you into the world (if you don't like them), but then to be stuck with your work family that will last forever? Cross your fingers and hope to get lucky with the place you work for I guess. 

3.) It would be really nice to not have to complete paperwork for new jobs, get all these tax forms, fill out background checks, etc. In the law field there's something called "conflict checks" which require listing all the cases you've worked on for the last 5 years or so to avoid having a conflict of interest with clients, and keeping track of that information is a HUGE challenge.Also it'd be nice to settle down in one area for life so you can, you know, buy a house, start a family, etc. Regardless, it'd be nice not to have to wonder where the next paycheck is coming from, or where next month's paycheck is coming from, or next year's. A constant source of stress for non-lifelong employment jobs, but is it a good stress? Does it make me work harder to get more? 

4.) Money!!!! Do you get raises at a lifelong employment? Bonuses? What's the incentive for working really hard? What if I do really at a job and another company wants to pay me more? Seems like some similar challenges as communism faced, the problem of limiting incentives, innovation, and creativity. I've felt it before: when I know my job is safe, I get complacent, not as hungry, and start to focus on other aspects of my life. But because of the cutthroat nature of the workplace in America, I pretty much stay on my toes all the time and constantly looking for an edge to put myself in good position. 

5.) Similar idea in the academic world is the idea of "tenure," if you work at a school/university for long enough you become "grandfathered in" and have a certain sense of job security, much more than non-tenured professors. Job security is nice, but does it mean more responsibilities, more pressure to perform better? I think there's a reasonable argument that people work better WITH more job security, that they can argue they can put the stress aside and just worry about new ideas. 

6.) There's a reason people switch jobs, switch careers more than past generations of people. There are so many new things out there, the world changes much faster than before, that we want more experiences in life than the same old grind, especially at a job where it's more likely to be the same monotonous tasks day in and day out. There may be some productivity bump just from being able to switch to doing something new that you're interested in and stimulate the mind, like coming back from a weekend with a fresh perspective and fresh eyes. 

Ultimately, even Japan, the originator of lifelong employment, is doing away with lifelong employment. It was a good idea for a long time back in the simple times of just living one's life, going to work form 9 to 5, and work as part of life, but with so many different industries and changes going on and tumultuous economic conditions, it's just not realistic. I guess one can be a lifelong member of a company by starting their own company (a restaurant! A tech company! A basketball franchise!) but as a regular Average Joe employee, it's just a dream I suppose. 

Fantasize on, 

Robert Yan 

Pro Bono

The Professional Responsibility Code of Conduct for lawyers suggests a total of 50 pro bono hours per year. I can safely say that I've never reached that lofty goal, but I've done at least some pro bono work every year I've been a lawyer. What helps is going to free legal clinics hosted by bar associations, where low-income residents from the community come seeking legal advice.

I've never felt "at the top of my game" when it comes to being a lawyer, always feeling like there's someone who could do a better job, who knows the law better, and there always probably will be someone like that. However, lawyering is not always providing the best representation possible, it's about doing what your client needs to the best of your ability. Many clients don't know the legal process at all and don't even have the means of filing a complaint, or contacting the other side's attorney. They don't know what a deposition is, or what to expect when they are summoned to go to one. Many get the obligatory "You have been sued!" notice in the mail after having been served and panic......"I've been sued! What now?" is a very common reaction. That's when pro bono legal services really does help, to help the everyday person whose personal finances and life in general could be affected by a lawsuit, not the corporate entity who stands to only lose a few zero's off their quarterly bottom line.

Pro bono work reminds me of what most lawyers probably get into the law for, to help people solve their legal issue. Just like it's easy to describe or picture what a doctor does (see the patient, diagnose the disease, prescribe medication, perform surgery if necessary), describing what a lawyer does should be more simple: (see the client, diagnose what kind of legal help the client needs, go to court/provide the legal services). However, once one enters into the big universe that is the legal world things aren't as clear-cut. There's the matter of billing, and what to bill for, what services does the client really need versus what might be more of an inclusive approach, what might benefit the lawyer to drag the case out longer and be able to bill more (that's why lawyers get a bad name), doing fancy-sounding activities like "legal research" and "due diligence" that may or may not actually add value to the legal services being provided. Many large corporations have their own legal department, plus hire outside attorneys in cases of large-scale litigation, so an army of lawyers can descend on a case, causing "doing legal work" to feel like a battle of attrition between armies of attorneys.

The pro bono clinc that I attend once a month or so, however, is much closer to the traditional image of legal work, individual people from the community come in with their own issues, and the volunteer attorneys do their best to answer their questions. It may be as easy as "what's the law? Did I break the contract or not?" or it could be more complex like "I'm involved in class action litigation, what jurisdiction should I bring the lawsuit to?" Whatever the case, though, it makes attorneys like myself feel more empowered, like those years of law school and studying for the bar actually paid off a little, and grants a sense of fulfillment, like I can provide a service of people that they normally wouldn't be able to get (well, until the internet and robots take all of the jobs, including legal work). That's really one of the two big factors anyone looks for in working jobs: 1.) the salary, but also 2.) the fulfillment of knowing one's work is actually meaningful and makes a difference for somebody out there. Sometimes when I work for large firms and large corporations, I start losing that ability, like it's just grinding work through a machine that who knows whether will be useful or not. I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels that about their jobs, which maybe also part of why the legal profession recommends 50 hours per year of pro bono. Not only does it help the community, but it helps the lawyer get more opportunities to use/show off their skills!

Fantasize on,

Robert Yan

商標 (Trademark)

Warning: A legal post!

Due to so many posts I make about slice of life and everyday mundane events that have nothing to do with law or the practice of law! I am, in fact, a lawyer certified to practice in the state of CA, and have been for the last 6 years. Wow, 6 years of being an attorney......I've been an attorney longer now than I was in both undergrad and law school combined. Pretty amazing and worth thinking about when a young student or someone switching careers, a career usually lasts much longer than just the years it takes to get a schooling, so get prepared.....I feel like when I decided to "be a lawyer" in college I focused more on the definitive 3 years of law school that it took to be a lawyer, but not necessarily the more undefined years of law practice that those years of schooling would lead to. It could be a long time.....make sure you know what you're getting yourself into or what the job actually entails.

I'm not certified to do IP law, but for the last few years I've worked on the side for my uncle in China who owns his own company selling a special type of knife. I helped my uncle's company apply for and obtain trademarks for various types of goods in the U.S. and was the attorney of record on the case signing off on trademarks (it's really more official-sounding than it is, I filled out an application through the USPTO website and signed it at the end, "Robert Yan, Esq." so really, not exactly rocket science. However, it does go to show the inherent power of having a bar license, more than the fact that human beings show respect to having a license and understanding that it took some sort of special training to obtain that license and that that license meant something, it also qualifies me to do certain work that others can't do simply virtue of that license. It's not like I got superpowers or anything with a bar license, but in the eyes of the law it allows me to do more.)

Anyway, my point is filing for a trademark isn't all that difficult if you go step-by-step, a lot of what lawyers do are procedural, going through contracts and just reading through the instructions and legalese and certain conditions that must be met. I also contacted a representative of the USPTO, who asked me questions about the trademark and what it covered. The whole process took about a few months to do and to make sure no other trademarks are already registered in the USPTO system that came before one's own trademark and would therefore bar later trademarks from being approved. After we sent the application and some modifications to the application required by the USPTO including certain good types that our company's product didn't qualify other, the application was approved and I received the USPTO certified trademark registration in the mail. With the official stamp! It's a good feeling to get that official stamp, as symbolic as it may be, still get a sense of fulfillment after getting it. I believe in lawyer-speak it's called "adding value to the client."

Trademark litigation, however, is a different issue and perhaps the new challenge. What happens if a company is infringing on your company's trademark? Well, as an attorney I had to research the issue and as it turns out, as with most things in law, it's better to attempt to resolve the issues first out of court, with the first step to notify the other party of the infringement. (Huge thing in law is to get things in writing, and get that writing to the other party and put them on notice). That's also why putting in email is important if you want to make things official, and don't put it in writing so that it can't be used against use later. Lawyers LOVE to use things that are in writing because there are no "accounts" or "versions" of what happened, the writing speaks for itself. Especially in today's digital world of the internet, you gotta watch what you write on the internet and email to people.

Once you notify the infringing company (it might be through a cease and desist letter), hopefully you get a response, and you can go from there to go through arbitration, discuss the parameters of the infringement, talk about resolution. Unfortunately the law is a combative process and can take time to go back and forth with other parties, and the ever-so-difficult "no response": not moving forward, not making any progress. Welcome to the bogged-down process of litigation, where things slow down depending on whether lawyers want to do for their client and want to do for themselves, charge more legal fees, etc. If there's no response, one can go to the companies listing the products on their websites, which are big online retailers like Amazon, Walmart, etc. and request that the products be de-listed and give them the reason why and refer to the USPTO registration for official confirmation that one's trademark claim precedes other parties'. That's the main part of trademark law, is preventing another company's product's mark to confuse customers as to the nature of the product and dilute the value of one's own brand if it gets mistakenly associated with the other company's trademark.

I haven't gone through trademark litigation yet and filing a lawsuit like in normal civil litigation suits, but it's an interesting area of the law and I look forward to finding out if the client decides to go through that step! That's the thing about practicing law, despite how much you get trained in law school and how much you pay in law school, a lot of the actual work lawyers do and procedural steps like filing paperwork is only just learned by oneself out of necessity. It's a very build-your-own-work and build-your-own-business sort of industry.

I hope you've enjoyed this "dumb-it-down-for-normal people" version of Bob Yan Law Blog!


Fantasize on,

Robert Yan

Living in Downtown LA

This post is another of a continuing series related to apartments and apartment hunting.

When I was growing up in suburban Chicago, living in the city as an adult was like a dream: most weekends I would go into the city of Chicago with my parents and see the beautiful lake shore and architecture and fantasize about getting away from my no-name suburb(sorry, Darien, IL!) and make it to the bright lights of the big city. This dream was reinforced during high school when my dad and I put bikes in a van and drove to one end of the lake shore and biked to the other end and back. One of the best experiences of my young life and a chance to experience the entire Chicago shoreline. In fact, I wish I could do that now.

Anyway, my childhood kind built me up to wanting to live in an urban environment. After moving around a bunch during college, I finally got to realize this dream by renting an apartment in downtown Los Angeles. Downtown Los Angeles, though, is not like downtown Chicago. There are no bridges, there are no rivers, there are no boats, ships, coastline. There aren't even that many buildings, although the new Intercontinental Hotel on top of the Korean Airlines building is plenty impressive. It's certainly a different kind of downtown for sure, but there's peculiar aspects to living in downtown L.A.


1.) Lots and lots of dog owners everywhere. In Chicago the business district has
2.) The Staples Center hosts an event almost every night, whether it's the Kings, the Lakers, the Clippers, the Sparks, etc., there's always something festive going on and fans wearing the team colors.
3.) I remember about 10 years ago when i first came to L.A. to attend law school, downtown wasn't in great shape. Lots of parking lots, a sparse amount of office buildings. Nowadays
4.) You can always watch "Heat" and see so many areas of downtown if you want to see what downtown L.A. used to look like (or still looks like now).
5.) You can run to a lot of different places! Believe it or not, there are some people as crazy as me who run around downtown LA! (Although, watch the traffic, there have been an increasing amount of pedestrian deaths!) Dodger Stadium, Little Tokyo, Korea Town, even USC is within reach if you just go a little further.
6.) The NUMBER ONE best thing about living in downtown LA is working in downtown LA and cutting the commute. Sure I still live a mile away from my primary workplace, but that's like a short bus ride away or subway if I'm lazy, or I can even choose to skip and hop to work like Joseph Gordon Levitt after his first night with Summer in "500 Days of Summer." (one of the best movies depicting Los Angeles!). The point is, not dealing with road rage, congestion, the act of driving itself, and having to wake up at certain times to beat traffic. It might have saved me
7.) MJ chimes in here: "There's a Whole Foods now in Los Angeles!!! Ahhhhhhh!!!!!!!!"
8.) There's not THAT many homeless people if you know where to go and which roads to take.
9.) Grand Hope Park- the starting line of Amazing Race 29. I go by there every day on my way to and home from work. Inspriational.
10.) Watch for dog poop and mice. We need to get some cats up in this city!

Slight rant: the stock market is rigged. Just when you think you have everything figured out about stocks (which I don't, but at least thought I had an idea) they throw in this element of "after-hours trading" that happens after the market closes. Yes, the market closes, but you can lose money during this time while you have to hopelessly watch your money disappear (and admittedly, yes, sometimes watch your money inflate significantly). This is why the market can close at a certain price level on Tuesday night but be SIGNIFICANTLY different the next morning when the market closes, without you even doing anything about it. That's what Jim Cramer and all the financial analysts don't tell the common investor, along with the fact that personal investors are just little pawns in the game for the institutional investors who control much larger amounts of money and insight about the market, what news might occur, basically get the cheat codes to the game and not share it with everyone. We, as the sheep personal investors, can only follow the rise and fall of the markets and try to get some of the scraps, like the lowly peasants of kingdoms whose leaders battle it out and enjoy all the fruits of war. It's a powerless feeling, and makes me feel less inclined to invest in stocks. Today, for example, the market did great, amassing large gains during the open session!.........and then gave those gains right back after the market closed, and then some, because President Trump tweeted out $100 billion tariffs on China. Massive selloff. Panic ensues. My portfolio takes a massive hit, I go to sleep tonight a little upset but just generally jaded at being such a weak bottomfeeder in the game that is life.

Fantasize on,

Robert Yan

找公寓 (Apartment Hunting)

公寓 is a Chinese-specific word for apartment that I didn't even know. Japanese and Koreans just go ahead and use the English, sounds like "apato." I was a nomad throughout my 20's and pretty much all of my adult life, living on people's couches, sharing a room with people, AirBnB, law school dormitory, hostels, my old room in my parents' house, you name it, I've tried it. Only on a few occasions have I actually settled down and had to get an apartment, which apparently isn't the easy thing in big cities nowadays like L.A. ( I heard it's even harder in foreign places like Tokyo, where they can reject any one for any reason!)

For the record, I'm not a fan of apartment hunting. I get that where one lives is a big deal in one's life and shouldn't be taken lightly, but it's become too commercialized, reminds me of purchasing a car. You schedule an appointment from the internet to go visit an apartment unit, you arrive at the "leasing office" where you're greeted by the friendly "leasing consultant" (apartment salesperson, kinda like a car salesperson) and have to fill in one's information and show ID before you test drive the car, er, I mean, get to see the apartment units. They ask you your price range first to narrow down the options, and then away you go on a test drive! While I do admit it's nice to look around a new building and get a sense of how one would live in the building, so is driving a new car! It's always going to feel nice at least for me to go through a shiny new building with new things, but that's just the exterior, and doesn't go through the rent, extra fees, etc., etc. that go along with living in a building like that. The swimming pool, the outdoor barbecue, the roof view, the 24/7 exercise room, all those are like nice add-on features on a car to make the prospective buyer feel right at home. There's a reason why apartments show you around first, to sell the product.

The sitting down after the tour is over, is really where the real negotiation comes in. The leasing consultant will offer the different rooms that he or she "has." Have I mentioned that I really dislike when places take ownership of their food like that particular waiter/seller is granting to you out of that nicety of their heart? No, it's not "your apartment" or "I have milk," it's the owner of the building, or the company, or the restaurant. Taking ownership of the product doesn't make me want to buy the product anymore, and is a turn-off really, just like when a cashier calls me "boss." I'm a "sir," thank you very much. Anyway, there are good times and bad times to rent an apartment apparently, and one's timing has to be correct. Seems like March and April are when apartments give out the good deals, cuz people don't typically move in during those times, those are like the "dead times" probably related to the school schedule or something, but I've had good experience getting good deals. There's a catchy new thing called a 24-hour "look and book" deal where the seller offers extra goodies in addition to the deals if the customer buys within 24 hours of seeing the place, basically as a way to capitalize on the glowing warm-and-fuzzy feeling after seeing the place and wanting to move in, with the benefit being they lock in the rate quickly without you gong to other places and shopping around for better deals. Great business strategy, actually, to put the onus on the customer and make them feel like a good deal is getting away (Time Sale!) and put an artificial deadline on their decision.

Personally, while I do like looking at new houses, new buildings, etc., I'm not really picky about where I live. (I understand those who are though, you have to spend like half your time in your home, even if you don't count sleeping!) As long as bed and other accessories are available, I'm all set. Sometimes, despite getting a bunch of tempting deals at other places and liking new areas and new amenities, home is where the heart is and staying at one's own home is the best.

Plus, finding a new place is easy compared to: MOVING. Moving is tough!

Fantasize on,

Robert Yan