Little Mia’s real name is Wu Yingying,
but she really likes the English name Mia and its corresponding Chinese version, Miya.
However when registering a WeChat public account,
“Little Mia” was already taken,
so after struggling for quite a while,
she chose “One Little Mia”, a name that sounds quite elven.

The reason I got to know Little Mia was because we worked at the same company.
She was the HR,
and everyone knew the HR.

My impression of Little Mia was someone wearing dark-colored clothes,
with an aloof aura,
high-information-density speech,
giving off a kind of cultivator-from-the-demonic-path vibe.

The company was selecting MCs for the annual gala.
The convention is to grab two full-time employees and two interns.
Little Mia, still an intern at the time, and I both got drafted.

Since we had to rehearse the lines together,
and find ways to liven up the atmosphere,
I had a perfect excuse to drop a bunch of electric-wave-style cold jokes.
After listening, Little Mia asked:
Where’s the punchline?
……

Later I discovered that Little Mia and I took the same way home from work.
It took me two hours of subway to get back to Jiao Da,
and it took her one hour of subway to get back to East China University of Science and Technology.
So after that, every day after work,
there was always a me standing at the HR office door…

Sometimes Little Mia would bring a very heavy bag home from work.
(Very straight-man-style) I thought women are all weak chickens,
and tried to grab the bag to carry it for her.
Little Mia very politely declined every time,
and even taught me a principle in passing:
a girl’s bag is often a decoration matched to the overall outfit,
you can’t snatch the bag away due to chauvinism.

Little Mia’s idol is Terry Lin,
and Little Mia really does chase her star.
But in Little Mia’s heart,
Terry Lin, as an artist of the older generation,
her star-chasing mindset is more one of admiration and respect.
As one of Aragaki Yui’s husbands, I feel inferior.

The only time in Little Mia’s life she handed in an exam early,
was to catch a train,
to go listen to a Terry Lin concert.
After the concert, Little Mia and a few fans rushed to Terry Lin’s hotel.
In the group photo session,
the slender Little Mia forced her way into the front row,
linking her arm with Terry Lin’s,
leaving behind the most intimate photo between Little Mia and her idol.

Little Mia proudly showed me the photo,
and I was stunned looking at her bright red hair in it:
“How were you so smartie (smatter/punk style) back then?”
“Oh, I wanted to dye my hair in college so I just went and did it.”

Little Mia is sometimes very spontaneous in what she does.
I really like that.
Last week we were eating at home,
and talking about how doing dishes is a real pain.
Suddenly inspiration struck:
“The iron trays they use in the cafeteria are easy to wash!”
“Walmart sells those!”
So we decided to eat from cafeteria iron trays.
Maybe later when showing off cooking on WeChat Moments,
it’ll look a bit weird.

Back to smartie style.
After Little Mia dyed her hair red, she went to pick up her sister from junior high after school.
Her sister’s classmates were all stunned.
But her sister was very chill:
“My sister is so cool!”
Later when Little Mia had interview prospects,
to play it safe, she dyed her hair back.

I often beg Little Mia:
“When are you going to dye your hair again… just looking at the photo I think it’s so cool…”
Little Mia:
“Not dyeing, scram”

Little Mia studied German in college.
She told me about going to Germany for an exchange in college,
then going around on weekends,
how Cologne Cathedral is truly magnificent and so on.
I said: Cologne Cathedral! I want to climb it too in the future!
Little Mia: ???

Little Mia knows I really like playing games.
I’ve told her many stories about Assassin’s Creed / Dota / Civilization / game studios.
In exchange,
Little Mia also told me many stories about The Big Bang Theory / Harry Potter / Sherlock / Detective Conan.

But although Little Mia watches Conan,
she’s not nijigen (anime/manga fan, but this is debatable, I can’t think of a word that’s both appropriate and balanced).
I originally wanted to recommend South Park/Rick and Morty/Fate anime to her,
but Little Mia doesn’t take recommendations.
In the end the only anime Little Mia watched from start to finish was “Kimi ni Todoke”.

Little Mia is in her first relationship.
I guess she found in “Kimi ni Todoke” the same rose-colored world as in “Hyouka”.

But the slightly annoying thing here is that sometimes she pesters me
to tell her stories about my past relationships.
I can’t refuse to talk,
so every time I can only tell stories in the textbook way:
from background, to development, to the conflict point, then summarizing lessons learned.

After ‘15, Little Mia and I both got full-time jobs.
She became an HR and had to look at lots of resumes.
So every time I told her what “formally educated in CS” means,
what software engineering is,
the relationship between Java and JavaScript,
what concept a database is.

Later when I went for an interview,
an interviewer asked me a question:
“Suppose I don’t really understand tech,
can you explain in everyday language,
what software engineering is?”

After I finished, the interviewer curiously asked:
“I think you explained it really well.
Do you usually think about these kinds of questions?”
And so I bragged about my girlfriend to the interviewer.

At work Little Mia often had to recruit for foreigners.
Once a foreigner needed to hire a junior Linux ops guy.
This foreigner told Little Mia he’d been very busy lately,
no time for interviews, asked Little Mia to do phone interviews for him.
So during that period I was asked ten thousand questions by Little Mia…
Later they successfully hired someone,
and the foreigner happily sent a thank-you letter to all China HRs.
(Even though I say that, we’re a small company, only four people total)

As HR,
Little Mia also had access to lots of sensitive information,
mainly salaries.
But Little Mia has very strong professional ethics,
she never reveals any sensitive info to me,
even later when Little Mia and I were at different companies.

Of course, I also have strong professional ethics.
I also wouldn’t show company code to Little Mia.

Little Mia’s current company is a foreign one,
with a particularly wolf culture.
The kind of company where if you do well, you’re awesome,
and if you don’t, you’re out.

Little Mia and I both don’t really like this very aggressive culture.
But Little Mia hadn’t even been there half a year,
and it looks like she’s about to become a supervisor……

Usually Little Mia and I are both very busy.
Little Mia gets up at 7, leaves at 8.
I get up at 9, leave at 9.
At night Little Mia gets home at 8, and still has to cook.
I get home at 10, have to wash the dishes she doesn’t want to wash…
(Though recently Little Mia has been particularly diligent,
and washes them herself)

Living together,
Little Mia doesn’t like washing dishes,
I don’t like washing/drying/putting away clothes,
clear division of labor.
But we both like playing music out loud while doing chores,
so sometimes the house plays Terry Lin’s songs,
and sometimes plays “Electronic King”……

Little Mia and I rented a two-bedroom apartment.
Even though we’re a couple,
we usually sleep separately.
She sprawls across the bed in a “big” character with peace of mind,
and I peacefully listen to music and code into the night.

The first gift Little Mia received was a really cute,
shiba-inu-feeling, shiba-inu-looking pink little bear stuffed toy.
Little Mia and I both really love this toy,
so we decided to give it a name.
After much discussion,
this little pink bear came to be called “Wu Jianguo” (Wu Build-the-Nation).

One of Little Mia’s ideals is to travel around the world.
She does extremely detailed planning before traveling.
Just like @canguanpai said:
when two people travel, usually one person is responsible for booking the round-trip tickets, hotels, B&Bs, attraction tickets, planning the destination route, journey connections, overall budget, checking the weather, posts, strategies, online reviews, thinking about how to see, play, eat, and the other one is responsible for being the idiot.

I am that happy idiot…

That said,
Little Mia seems to be about to wake up.
Let me end Little Mia’s story here this time,
see you next time~