Summer 2007: We went back to the US for Geni's 1 year anniversary, which coincided with Alan's birthday and our wedding anniversary. We stopped by Hawaii for 2 weddings: Margaret & Patrick, and Cyrus & Liane.
Spring 2007: Spring just sprung by with Alan starting up at Geni. Before he began, though, he went with JMX and Calvin to Yunnan. We said farewell to our long term tenant JMX. We hosted a Grameen dinner at Kathleen's 5. We celebrated ML's birthday.
Winter 2007: How can it be 2007 already? We were getting ready to leave Shanghai for Singapore for Alan's new role as PayPal APAC Strategy Director, but over Chinese New Year, a surprise offer came in from startup Geni.com for Alan to become their China GM.
Summer, Fall and Winter 2006: Time is passing too quickly for me to update this properly. We traveled a ton: Kauai, Bali, SJ and LA, Honolulu. We celebrated birthdays (Alan, Kyle, Lisa and Sylvia and Jimmy and Eugenia, Peggy and Eric), weddings (Janet and Troy, Candy and Oliver), baby showers (George and Tina), and holidays (Halloween, Thanksgiving). Alan's job at PayPal was pretty crazy, culminating with eBay China's JV with TOM Online. We also moved out of the Summit to our new duplex penthouse apartment - double the space for the same price!
Spring 2006: We made it thru Shanghai's cold and damp winter, and now Spring is coming! ML flew back to the US to be Ted and Christina's wedding coordinator. Susan visited. Over May Holidays, we went on the Yangtze River Cruise with Alan's mom.
Winter 2006: We return to Shanghai and really start enjoying our social life, partying like college kids again with our ayi watching Kyle on weekend evenings. For Chinese New Year (only 3 weeks after returning from Hawaii), we went to Hanoi and Hong Kong. In February, we visited Sanya. We also threw our next party - Couples Party.
Fall and Winter 2005: Now I'm updating every 1/2 year! Alan goes thru one of the most stressful periods of his life moving to Shanghai, switching roles from Group Product Manager in SJ to Country Product Manager in China, and launching PayPal China. ML packs up our house, rents it out, and moves into our new apartment in Shanghai in 6 weeks. We traveled a ton, taking advantage of our Shanghai base: Beijing, Hangzhou, Hong Kong, Penang.
We live next to our best friends Bennet and Eugenia, and make a lot of new friends. We throw lots of parties: 4 year old birthday party for Kyle, Shanghai 2030, and numerous house and tea parties. And we took professional pictures, one of which we used for our Christmas Card. We returned to SJ for Christmas, and then went to Hawaii to wind down an incredibly hectic year.
Summer 2005: I can't even keep up by quarter now. Alan's work picks up tremendously, traveling between SJ to Shanghai 10 times before, in June, he is offered the opportunity to relocate to Shanghai. With ML's blessing, he accepts. On one of his trips, he writes a letter to Kyle. We throw a big farewell party for ourselves.
Winter 2004: Alan took Mae-Ling and Kyle with him on his Shanghai business trips. We also stopped in Hawaii to hang out with grandma. Kyle is now talking quite a bit, capable of coming up with creative stories such as this. Alan learns about microfinance and documents his Atlas Smiled idea.
Summer and Fall 2004: We've now pretty much settled into our new house. We're busy as ever going to weddings, throwing parties (see Alan's 35th birthday party where Mae-Ling planned "The Alan" game, based on The Apprentice), and traveling (several times to Shanghai; ML on her own to LA, NYC and Toronto; together to Vegas). Kyle turns 3, is mostly past the tantrums, and is now potty-trained. At PayPal, Alan gets promoted to Group Product Manager and moves to the International Team.
2003 - Spring 2004: Wow, life is flying by. In college, Alan used to keep a daily journal. Then, in his late 20's, he moved to weekly. And now, he's barely covering a quarter, while this online blog is now at the year level! Susan and Bill finally get married. Mae-Ling transfers Keiki Place to Wonderland and then launches Keiki Events. But after producing 2 incredible events, she gets swamped with buying a new house in Los Gatos, packing up the old house in Sunnyvale, staging and selling it, and moving into the new home. Alan gets promoted to Senior Product Manager and launches PayPal APIs after a year of work. All the while, Kyle grows taller despite his allergies. In fact, his wheat allergy is actually improving. And his talking is improving greatly as well. We have so much fun playing with him, even though we have the normal challenges of parents of a 2 year old.
Winter, 2002 - 03: Mae-Ling is super busy with Keiki Place. Although it is very rewarding, running a business is extremely stressful. Kyle continues to grow and amaze us. We find out he is allergic to wheat, eggs, and milk! No wonder he wasn't gaining any weight. Now we shop at Whole Foods all the time. ML goes to Hawaii with Paula.
Fall, 2002: We open Keiki Place with a Grand Opening Luau on Kyle's 1 year birthday. eBay acquires PayPal so Alan ends up working where Susan just quit. Kyle is starting to walk, and is getting cuter by the day.
Summer, 2002: Alan quits his job at Jamcracker, searches for 6 weeks, and lands PayPal. Mae-Ling forges ahead with Keiki Place. We go to Hawaii for Kalika and Rodney's amazing wedding. We also drive down to LA for Emme's first birthday. We also celebrated Cynthia's bridal shower, and Keaton's first birthday.
Spring, 2002: Our lives revolve around Kyle. He is growing so quickly but luckily we've documented almost every day on this website! He crawls. He babbles. He cries. He's better than CATS. Mae-Ling focuses in on her business to be more of a child activity center versus preschool/daycare. We celebrate Kathee and Kelvin's wedding, Leilani and Al's wedding, Bob and Cyndi's wedding, Fiona and Peter's reception, and Cynthia and Taylor's engagement party.
Winter, 2001-2002: We grow every day learning how to be parents. Kyle amazes and humbles us daily. Alan continues to weather through the trials and tribulations of working at a startup as his company struggles to survive after the dot com bubble collapse. Mae-Ling is trying to start a preschool on her dad's property. We harass our good friends Bennet and Eugenia and Larry and Janey to play mah-jongg with us as often as possible. We flew to Hawaii in December for Andy and Doris' wedding at Ihilani. We've also taken Kyle down to LA to visit Felita and Chantal.
Fall, 2001: We welcome our baby boy Kyle Li-Shan Tien to our family on September 24, 2001.
Summer, 2001: ML surprises me with a birthday party in our patio. Our garden is blooming gorgeously. Jamcracker goes through tough times, like the rest of Silicon Valley. Alan survives the layoffs but is saddened by the departure of many of his friends. ML becomes an aqua-aerobics instructor at the YMCA.
Spring, 2001: We find out it's going to be a boy! ML suffers quite a bit of morning sickness in her first trimester, but she feels much better in her 2nd trimester so we go on a bunch of roadtrips - Napa, Yosemite, Half Moon Bay, and even Vegas - in our new car - Acura MDX.
Winter, 2001: We get our house in order and start throwing the house-warming parties. We visit Hawaii for Christmas and come back to end 2000 with a bang in SF's City Hall. Mae-Ling gets pregnant! Alan MC's at Ed & Tina's wedding.
Fall, 2000: We bid on and surprisingly WIN our Ferndale house. We rush to prep and sell our Poplar house. During these crazy times, work at Jamcracker heats up. We move into our brand new home, buy new appliances and furniture, are excited to get phone service after 3 weeks, get DSL (wow, Napster is cool), and start our big landscaping project. When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping - ML goes with Felita to LA and Hawaii.
Summer, 2000: Mae-Ling leaves GreatEntertaining. MSW closes shop with the final party, Finale. We celebrate Alan's 31st birthday party at Raging Waters. ML is the Survivor at Ying & Jimmy's awesome Survivor Party.
Spring, 2000: Alan and Mae-Ling celebrated ML's 30th birthday with a huge Prom party. Alan's company Worldprints.com got acquired by Excite@Home. Alan starts work at his new company Jamcracker. Susan, not to be outdone, joins Exodus, another company started by KB Chandrasekhar. Mae-Ling, Eugenia, and Christine host Felita's baby shower. Mae-Ling, Eugenia, and Felita host Tina's Bridal Shower. Alan, Stanley and Dore plan Ray's Bachelor Party.
February, 2000: Alan vacationed in Australia with his friend Dennis Yang. They visited Melbourne, Cairns (Great Barrier Reef, Daintree Rainforest), and Sydney in 2 weeks, coming back just in time for Valentines.
Millennium Celebrations: We stayed up in SF in Dave & Felita's suite at the Prescott Hotel. Bennet and Eugenia joined us for an expensive meal at Postrio's, and then we partied with all of our best friends at Lisa and Hansel's NYE party.
Winter, 1999: Here's our Holiday Letter for 1999.
October, 1999: Alan, Mae-Ling, Susan, Janet Tien, Lillian Wong, Dave & Felita Shen, Rosita Shaw, and Erita Wong all went on the awesome Mediterranean cruise from Venice to Barcelona for 12 days!
Summer, 1999: Alan quit WESTT after 4 loyal years and joined the internet startup company Worldprints. This is a time of change since Susan quit her stressful job at Wilson Sonsini after 3 years and joined NEC, Dad quit DCB after over 10 years to go independent, and Mae-Ling joined another internet startup GreatEntertaining.com!
June, 1999: Turned 30! Yikes. At least ML ushered in my 4th decade in style, with a party of course! Here's the link to Alan and Mae-Ling's Adventure.
April, 1999: Celebrated ML's 29th birthday with our Shanghai Express Murder Mystery dinner party at Ming's Villa. At the end of the month, flew out to Singapore to attend Beverly and Alistair's amazing wedding.
February, 1999: Finished up my project in LA. I flew down so much that I got Southwest's highest frequent flyer award, a Companion Pass for ML. Went to Tampa, Florida for training on Tradex, an e-commerce solution. If you go to Tampa, you should check out the St. Petersburg Salvador Dali museum - it's amazing! I also highly recommend the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral - makes you feel very patriotic! Too bad I couldn't see a rocket launch.
December, 1999: Threw several "house-warming" parties to show our friends our newly decorated house. Sent out a Christmas Card/Newsletter with our picture to let our more distant friends know what we were up to.
July - August, 1998: Continued our wedding world tour with receptions in California, China and Hong Kong.
June 22, 1998: Got married to Mae-Ling Wong, on my 29th birthday! Read the Wedding Story. Honeymooned in Kauai afterwards.
March, 1998: Flew to Taiwan for our pre-wedding pictures. Come on over and check them out!
August 15, 1997: Proposed to Mae-Ling Wong (read the Official Proposal Story)
August, 1997: Traveled in Europe: Paris, Budapest, and Vienna.
1996-present: Bought my townhouse in Sunnyvale just before prices shot through the roof.
1995-96: Lived in the carriage house (servants quarters) of a huge house in Palo Alto. Started wooing Mae-Ling.
1992-95: Lived in the huge, rockin' Yanez house in Redwood City hills with Don Chin, Ed Sun, Eric Pang, Jeff and Christine Morse, Mike Yuen, and Steve Pierce. Threw killer parties that the neighbors hated and the cops shut down. Quit Andersen and started work with WESTT. Started M Society West with Ed and Eric.
1991-92: Lived in Sunnyvale with Jerry Wu and started working with Andersen.
Summer, 1991: Love Boat in Taiwan!
1987-1991: 4 very fun, very hard years at Stanford studying Electrical Engineering. Lived in Gavilan (Flo Mo), Soto (Wilbur), "Joker's Den" (as part of Soto, located by the loading dock of Wilbur) with my best buddy Tom MacMitchell, and finally Murray (Governor's Corner). Learned volleyball from Tom - we were one of the first to start playing grass volleyball at the Oval. Lived through the 6.9 earthquake.
June 1987: Graduated Valedictorian from Waterford High School. After staying up all night at the school's first drug-free party organized by the parents, I won the grand prize, a used car (Monte Carlo with a T-top)!! A week later, my dad took my sister and me to Europe, a week in Paris and another week in Germany.
1982: 8 month stint in Honolulu, Hawaii. Went to Kamukai Intermediate and was not well liked for being a geeky "mainlander." Happily returned to CT to finish out my junior high school.
1976-1987: Lived and educated in Connecticut.
1971: Sister Susan was born.
June 22, 1969: Alan enters the world. Baby picture of Alan with his mom.
My dad's Junior High School pictures!
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Stanford University
BS Electrical Engineering, emphasis in Computer Science, 1987-91
Stanford Alumni Organization (I'm
not a member but they have a good site)
Summer computer program at Carnegie-Mellon, 1986
High School, 1983-87
Not a whole lot of great memories here. Just studied a lot getting ready for college. Hung out with my buddies David Auerbach and Tom Wandrack most of the time. My Junior and Senior year, I also started hanging out with another group of friends who lived further away, but I could now drive (usually the K-car station wagon but occasionally our white Camaro). Matt and Mary Jacob are 2 close friends with whom I still keep in touch.