China

I was even more disappointed by the choice of host city that year. I had been a coach for two years, and the World Finals had sent me once to the United States and once to China. Why? As a travel destination, I would personally take Beijing over Rapid City by an enormous margin, but I had already visited Beijing more times than I could count. I had never even studied there, yet I felt as though I had ridden at least ten complete circuits of Subway Line 2.

I wanted to see somewhere else in the world.

Still, the university was paying. I could treat it as a free trip home.

The team had three members that year, all American. For convenience, I will call them American One, American Two, and American Three. Their qualification campaign had been remarkably smooth: American One had delivered an exceptional performance and carried much of the regional contest. For the full story, see the regional-contest collection.

American Two had attended my algorithms class consistently since the previous year and worked extremely hard. I had taught him everything I knew. That was not an infinite supply of knowledge, but in terms of algorithmic breadth, it covered the kinds of problems one might encounter around the World Finals silver-medal level. How much of it he had absorbed was now up to him.

American Three’s distinct role in this particular lineup was, well, rather limited. American One was much faster at implementation, so there was little chance that he would take the keyboard. American Two had a broader range of algorithmic knowledge. Between those two strengths, most of what American Three might otherwise have contributed was already covered.

The hotel provided by the organizers was extremely luxurious. Our room was on the thirty-fifth floor—if I remember correctly, the highest floor accessible to guests—and the view was excellent.

The organizers arranged an excursion to the Great Wall. I did not go. Guess why.

A small group from our university then organized its own visit to the Forbidden City. I did not join that either.

In truth, I probably should have gone with them, but I had plans that day, so I let them venture out on their own. I decided to trust in the English-language competence Beijing had accumulated since the era of “Beijing Welcomes You.” Before they left, I asked the assistant coach, “Do you have any money?” He said no. “Do you have WeChat?” He did, but he had not yet worked out whether the payment function would actually work. “And you’re still willing to leave the hotel?” I asked.

I gave them all the cash I had, a little over 500 yuan. That seemed as though it should cover a day out. At the very least, it ought to pay for the tickets. Beyond that, they were on their own.

Apart from those larger excursions, I took them to the food streets near Peking University. That was when the limitations of my English as a non-native speaker became painfully clear. The assistant coach wanted milk tea. I looked at an entirely Chinese storefront and its endless list of optional ingredients and realized I had no idea how to translate any of it. All I could offer was: “They’re sweet. Just pick one.”

On contest day, I was still quite relaxed.

Compared with the previous year, however, I was slightly more nervous. In 2017 I had essentially been there for the experience. This time I had modest expectations for the team, especially given American One’s extraordinary implementation speed and American Two’s solid command of algorithms.

The result justified some of that optimism. They solved four problems and were officially listed in a tie for 56th place. More than forty teams finished on four problems, but our team was near the front of that very large group. If all the four-problem teams had been separated by the usual ICPC penalty ordering, they would have been around 60th overall. That was better than my own result in my first World Finals.

Unfortunately, Peking University did not win the championship. As the host team, they were clearly very strong and had given it everything they had.

One final episode occurred as I was preparing to leave Beijing. I was standing in a subway station with my suitcase, waiting for someone, when a salesperson from an English-language training company approached and asked whether I wanted to study English. I looked remarkably young then—young enough to be a student. In fact, I still was one.

“I don’t want to study English,” I said. “Are you hiring teachers?”

He replied that their standards for teachers were extremely strict, then launched into a long explanation to which I paid little attention.

At the end, for reasons I never understood—perhaps simple politeness, perhaps one final attempt to salvage the sale—he asked where I lived.

“San Francisco,” I said.

He went silent. After roughly three seconds, he said, “Are you messing with me?” Then he walked away.

You were the one who came over and started the conversation.

Today I visited Miyou Miaomiaowu in Shanghai’s Putuo District for my first cosplay experience. It does not appear to be an official HoYoverse store, but its selection of HoYoverse costumes was extensive. It also carried plenty of popular characters from other companies.

I had booked online several weeks earlier, choosing both the studio set and the costume in advance. Today’s character was Zhongli from Genshin Impact.

The first step after I arrived was makeup. The makeup artist tucked all my hair into a wig cap and went to work. An hour and a half later, she was finally done. Full makeup really does take time.

Then I looked in the mirror—and the result was almost impossible to look at. I could vaguely see what she was working toward, but it clearly needed the costume to make any sense. On its own, the makeup looked profoundly strange: my face was ghostly pale, the eyeliner was dramatic, and there was even a touch of blush and lipstick. With all my hair hidden under the cap and none visible around my face, I looked like a screen portrayal of Li Lianying, the well-known Qing-dynasty court eunuch.

No photograph, no proof. It looked too awful to share.

Next came the colored contact lenses. My prescription is very strong, so I was surprised that they had lenses close to it in the right color. The shop was impressively well prepared.

Then it was time for the costume. I strongly recommend choosing a slightly larger size. Following the shop’s size chart, I had selected an outfit that came only in M and XL. My waist was exactly at the upper limit for M. Once I got there, however, the trousers decisively refused to fit. More precisely, I could just about squeeze into them with considerable effort. The problem was that any sudden movement—or simply sitting down—seemed likely to split the seam. At that point, who would be paying for the damaged costume?

So I left the trousers unbuttoned, which improved matters considerably. The top covered the waistband, so no one could tell.

Then came the photography. The photographer was equally professional. If I had no idea how to pose, he showed me exactly what to do and how to make it look suitably dramatic. I spent less time worrying about looking dramatic than about whether each dramatic pose might finally tear the trousers.

After the shoot, I had half an hour to explore on my own. Any unoccupied studio set was available for photographs, and the selection was quite varied.

Once the session ended, I could simply change and leave. I had no desire to go outside wearing the full Li Lianying look, however, so I removed the makeup there. The shop supplied makeup remover and every tool I might need. The trouble was that I had no idea how to use any of them. I simply scrubbed away, with enough determination that it felt as though I might take off a layer of skin.

Eventually my complexion seemed to have returned to normal, so I left. That evening at the hotel, I washed my face and discovered that the eyeliner along my waterline was still completely intact. I had not noticed it, but one wipe with a towel produced a black streak. Another painstaking round of washing followed.

Then came the photo editing. The shop’s packages included different numbers of professionally retouched images, but they all had one thing in common: a wait of at least two weeks.

The official service also did not create the special effects I wanted. I therefore looked online for someone else to edit the photographs, only to find that the paid retouchers I contacted did not make those effects either. In the end, I had to create them myself with AI. Fortunately, by then AI image editing was capable enough to produce fairly good results; otherwise, the effects would probably never have happened.

At the time, AI seemed very good at special effects but much less convincing at portrait retouching. I asked it to smooth my skin, slim my body, and lengthen my legs. It appeared to understand none of this: the edited result looked exactly like the original. So I hired a person to retouch the portrait instead. Once special effects were no longer part of the request, finding someone was easy.

That is how this first set emerged: AI effects followed by human portrait retouching. I thought the results were rather good.

I was still being naïve. Eventually the shop’s own retouched photographs arrived. One look was enough: these were formidable. The degree of retouching went far beyond what I had received from the freelancer I found online. The freelancer had done the paid job, met the basic requirements, and stopped there. The shop’s retoucher seemed to be working with genuine devotion to the cause.

Here are the results.

The retouching was so aggressive that my own mother might not have recognized me. At that intensity, cosplaying a female character next time would present no difficulty at all: beautification filters during the shoot, then more editing afterward.

To borrow—and thoroughly butcher—an old Chinese verse:

One photo polished, one photo refined; Side by side, can you tell which gender is mine?