Cultural Chameleon, even at 176 and blonde

Often I get asked, ‘how’s life in Shanghai?’ ‘Why Shanghai?’ ‘What are you (with the implied what the heck are you, a white girl) doing in China?’ Obviously I’m not here to find myself a petite, subservient Chinese wife. Nor am I an overseas Chinese returning to my homeland. So people are all the more intrigued by my presence, and are curious to know the answer, but as with almost any question in China, the answer is long and complicated and people rarely want to stick around long enough to hear the whole answer.My standard educational history/interview answer to the why China? question is: in college, I took courses in Chinese language and history, tutored Chinese students in English, and spent 7 months in Hong Kong, so I was already familiar with Chinese culture. Then as graduation neared, I evaluated my options and found nothing intriguing Stateside, so I thought I’d follow the big opportunity that is China and go there to see what’s possible and improve my Mandarin along the way.  As for the answer to the why Shanghai? question: 1) My friend Irene invited me study language at SH Jiaotong Univ, 2) I’d already spent significant time in HK and knew I didn’t want to be there, and 3) The best opportunities for business and employment with a foreign company are in SH.

These are all valid and honest and pretty good reasons (I believe), but there are also deeper issues here.  I have a certain need to be surrounded by a foreign culture.  I need to learn about other cultures.  I need to find out how other people live.  I want to learn what other societies and other governments do better, and this type of stuff can’t all be taught in an academic environment.  In some ways, I am a true wanderlust.  I need to be out and about, out of my familiar environment.  Traveling helps me clear my head, helps me see myself and my life with a refreshed view.  This concept of voluntarily leaving my own culture and familiar surroundings may sound absurd to the provincialite, but to those who know what I mean, its a common feeling.  The more removed from your own culture you choose to place yourself, the more profound your life experience will be.  From this perspective, China actually sounds like a reasonable choice: culturally very removed from the US, yet relatively easy to travel in, as well as already possessing some ability to communicate.

When you put the standard reasons and the deep emotional reasons together, what the heck is the white girl doing in Shanghai? makes sense.   I came for adventure, opportunity, life experience, and to become fluent in Chinese (so if anyone can recommend a good Mandarin teacher, please let me know).

As to the question, ‘how’s life in Shanghai?’ or ‘how you like SH?’  What am I going to say?  It sucks.  I hate Shanghai.  And I cry myself to sleep every night hoping that my mom will let me come home?  Heck NO.  Sure there are good days and bad days and SH is far from the perfect city, but that’s true for anyone, anywhere.  Some days I do think, what the heck am I, a white girl, clearly in the tiny minority, doing in a city of 17 MILLION PEOPLE, where I don’t really speak the language and don’t have any family?  What was I thinking when I decided to move to China?  I have no purpose, no business here.  What am I doing?  But other days… it seems completely natural to get up and take the bus to work and meet friends for dinner or attend a networking happy hour event.  I can do all the same things here I’d do in the US or any other country.  I’m just as much a part of the city as any recent Chinese immigrant from the countryside.  Of course I look different, and people notice and comment as I walk down the street, but that’s all part of the experience.  That’s part of the adventure I came for, of the life experience I came to get.

Sure, China’s not for everyone, but with the right attitude and a deep commitment to the language, culture, and people, China’s an exciting place to be during such a dynamic and fast-paced time.  Best of luck to my fellow half-pats and ex-pats!  I hope you enjoy your time here, I know I am!

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Well I got up very early this morning and so don’t feel like writing much tonight and think I’d only get myself in trouble if I made too many comments on the USC-Mayor of L.A. Breakfast Meeting I went to at the Portman Ritz-Carlton this morning. So on to other randomness…
Tonight I was reading some other blogs about China and came across an interesting situation. From fiLi’s blog on Lonely Planet:

tourists going to travel in China with the latest Lonely Planet book were asked to hand in their very expensive book at the border-crossing due to its ‘political nature’ showing maps of China which color Taiwan in a different color suggesting that Taiwan is not a part of China.

This report on the ban of the LP China books was further confirmed on Marc van der Chijs’s blog:

Ever tried to buy a Lonely Planet guide for China in China? Forget it…China it is not allowed to sell the Lonely Planet guides for China, Beijing and Tibet.

In my opinion, it’s rather annoying and extremely ridiculous, but not altogether surprising, especially considering some of the other things blocked/banned by the Chinese government. For example, WordPress.org (where I got this blogging software) is presumably blocked by the Chinese government, as is en.wikipedia.org, amnesty.org (this one’s certainly not surprising), and technorati.com (don’t understand this one). In addition, Shanghaiist discussed the AP article about blocking the Jay-Z concert:

China’s Culture Ministry has nixed a concert this month by rap artist Jay-Z at Shanghai’s Hongkou Stadium, citing a need to protect local hip-hop fans from nasty lyrics

I’m going to have to agree with Shanghaiist on this one, did the Culture Ministry approve the Black Eyed Peas concert? Did they attend the concert? Maybe so…maybe that’s why the Jay-Z concert was banned. I have to admit, both Irene and I were shocked with how racy the Black Eyed Peas concert was! So sad Jay-Z’s not coming. Oh well. Just don’t take my Lonely Planet!

From an Asian Wall Street Journal article about development and the economy in China:

If Shanghai were a country, it would be among the 40 largest economies in the world. Its economic output last year of $114B was bigger than the Philippines or the Czech Republic. Shenzhen, Southern China, has an economy much larger than Vietnam’s.

Of course, these comparisons are impressive when looked at out of context, but when you consider Shanghai has 17million people, compared to the Czech Republic’s 10million, you’d expect the economic output of Shanghai to be greater in order for the per capita output to be on par. The Philippines, on the other hand, is just disappointing. With 89million people and the densest city in the world, Manila (yes, I was surprised it beat HK, too), its no wonder Filipinos are becoming the world’s new service workers. Vietnam, too, is in a disappointing situation like the Philippines with its 84million people. Though I don’t know how many people are in Shenzhen, I’d guarantee far less than that. So it seems that those 2 countries can and should improve their per capita economic output. In this case, perhaps China can be the model. As my mom mentioned in her comment on my previous post, indeed, the Chinese government’s focus has been on economic development. And based on this information it seems the govt has been very successful at developing the economy and attracting foreign direct investment (FDI). (Of course, I could devote multiple blog posts to this topic alone). 84 and 89 million are both certainly less than 1.3 billion, but I’d still guess there’s a market in those countries if only companies would be willing to invest (Intel already does) and those govts would provide the right incentives and mechanisms to aid their own development. Again, perhaps both Vietnam and the Philippines can look to China as a guide.

As Ceci has proudly informed me multiple times (based on her chats w/ the jewelry makers at the Pearl City), 90% of all Freshwater Pearls are in China. I keep looking at this figure and trying to come up with a way to make money off of it, say, exporting either raw pearls or finished pieces of jewelry, but it seems, someone has already beaten me to the punch. Damn those enterprising Chinese…grrr.

Though I’m not sure if the statistic is correct, I believe the Mayor of Los Angeles said that 43% of all the US’s ocean-based cargo goes through the ports of Long Beach & Los Angeles. His goal is to increase this to 70%. I was extremely skeptical of this for many reasons, but at the most basic, because the logistics of it would never work! In my opinion, in order for that to work, the US would have to seriously reduce its ocean-based international trade, which with its increasing dependence on China, India, Vietnam and others for cheap imports is never going to happen. As we increase ocean-based int’l trade, logistically those 2 ports are never going to be able to handle it all, so increasingly ships will be diverted to Oregon and other places around the Pacific as well as the Gulf of Mexico (for ships coming from other places). Well, no more comments on this as I really didn’t want to comment on the mayor’s speech.

This fact is also a bit old, but I would guess it still holds true and perhaps is even more true now than when I first heard it:

More people are learning English in China than in Great Britain.

The mayor also commented on this issue today (though perhaps only because of my excellent question). He indicated that in his official visits around China, he went to middle schools where the children greeted him in not only their native tongue, but in 3 languages, namely Mandarin (a given), Cantonese, and ENGLISH! Let me just state the obvious: if a Chinese delegation went to any place in the US, they would not be greeted by school children in 3 languages! If they went to Alhambra/Monterey Park areas in CA, they would probably hear Mandarin & English. If they went to the old Chinatown in LA, they would likely hear Cantonese & English. If they went to a Mexican immigrant barrio in LA, San Diego, Phx, or any city in the southern US, they may hear Spanish & English. Well this situation plus the US students’ poor math and science skills reflect badly on our school system. If the US’s education system doesn’t improve dramatically, there may be a day very soon when the US plays second fiddle to China in nearly everything. Let’s just hope the US can hold onto its edge in R&D and innovation and let the Chinese continue to play copy-cat. (Yes, I know this goes counter to what I said in one of my longtime-ago Xanga posts, where I hoped the Chinese could improve in R&D to produce products and services that would make the world easier and more efficient and in doing so improve IPR protection in China. While I still believe this, at heart I am a true nationalist, ie patriotic American, and I wish the US peaceful success in the global community.)

Well, I hope I have provided you with enough random facts on China & Asia for now and so at the next cocktail party you can impress people with your useless knowledge. If you have any random facts regarding China, please add them to comments as I love to impress my friends at bars with the pointless things I know about China.

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Recently I returned from Singapore and Hong Kong, where I enjoyed site-seeing, shopping, dining, clubbing, etc with many friends.

Pictures wth friends mentioned below.

In Singapore, Brenda and I were able to spend time with our mutual friends: Stuart, Stanley, Melissa, and Quan. And she saw another friend from high school. I also saw Aana, as well as my very close friend from USC, Kacey. In Hong Kong, I reconnected with Teresa, Phoebe, Edmond, Raymond, Vivien, Leon, Hilton, Peter, Grace, and Joseph. It was great to see all of you again! I also enjoyed meeting other friends of Aana, Stuart, Kacey, and Joseph. Since most of us met either on out-going exchange, in-coming exchange, or through case competition of the USC Marshall School of Business, I think we all owe our thanks to Sean O’Connell for facilitating the international programs and therefore our meeting. I’m so glad to know you all and I hope the next time you will come to visit me and I can show you around. A special thanks to Brenda and Aana for letting me encroach on their personal space for far too long.

All of us studied business and as we chat about who we know across the globe, we come to find we are actually a fairly small global community of undergraduate business students who participated in exchange (or other international programs). This makes me wonder if in 3-7 years we’ll all be competing to get into the same MBA programs. Then we may find that those same people who were only our classmates for 1 semester in undergrad (say at USC) may become our classmates for 2 years of MBA say at INSEAD, or somewhere else completely remote from USC. Then in 15-35 years we may all find ourselves leading some of the world’s largest and most well-known firms. And we may again come to rely on each other, not as group mates for a group project, but as suppliers and customers, or consultants or financiers that help us make our next billion $$. I wish all of you the best of luck!

Its truly a wonderful thought to know that I have friends in multiple countries. When you think about it, knowing people in other countries really enhances your appreciation of those countries. Those far away and exotic places become more real, more tangible, more authentic, and more human. When we know people, and particularly have friends in other countries, we are more likely to have a favorable impression of those places and to feel they are trustworthy. In doing so, we won’t feel ill-will toward them, and also would have no reason to want to cause them harm. In its most basic form, the concept I’m referring to is Peace Through Tourism. When written like this, this seems like a very basic, straight-forward concept. But yet, in reality, it seems very difficult to put into practice. I wish that more people would have and would take the opportunity to make friends throughout the global community. In doing so each of us could individually contribute to peace on a global scale. As we create trans-border friendships, we strengthen our global bonds, interconnect our worlds, and create peace among us. I wish that everyone could have at least one good friend who is not of their birth country.

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As you may have guessed, I will be away from my computer for the next 10-12 days. But I promise great new pictures and stories when I return. I’m also brainstorming new topics. So keep reading and writing me emails or comments. I may not respond for the next few days, but I will read them all at some point.

In the meantime, a story…Last night my boss hosted a somewhat formal Chinese dinner with lots of food and lots of toasts and lots of rounds of gan bei. It was mostly foreigners but there were enough Chinese speakers there to necessitate speaking both languages. So I told a story in Chinese. It was funny. And people laughed! … I made a joke in Chinese! How fantastic is that! I think that means my Chinese is progressing.

中秋节快乐！

月饼节快乐！(yes, I know you can’t really say that in Chinese, but it sounds funny)

And Happy October National Day! (sorry don’t know how to type that in Chinese)

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Last night I went to a meeting of the Shanghai Entrepreneurs Group (SEG), so thought today I’d write my first post about Entrepreneurship. But first let me comment on that group. It is a rather eclectic group of both entrepreneurs and people interested in entrepreneurship. Although the majority of the fields were something related to the internet there were some diverse industries as well, from agriculture to coffin export. As I predicted, there were only 5 women there (out of ~35people), including myself. And one was there simply for ‘entertainment’ as she put it, so clearly not an entrepreneur. Which makes it less than 5 women attending for the actual entrepreneur group. Not surprising. Fairly good mix of locals and expats, though.

Anyway, on to today’s topic:

My Encounters with Entrepreneurship

Prior to college, I had never even thought of entrepreneurship, didn’t know what an entrepreneur was, wasn’t even aware of the concept. This is a bit strange, though, since my mom had co-founded a construction company when I was in high school and my newly acquired step-father is a serial entrepreneur. But I apparently didn’t put their efforts in beginning those companies together with the term ‘entrepreneur’ and had never really thought of that as an option for myself.

Freshman year at USC I dated a guy who had a concentration in entrepreneurship through the Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurship. During this relationship I started to understand the concept. As he struggled to write a business plan and come up with as accurate as possible financials, I thought this is not for me. (I wasn’t even a business major at this time.) I thought, I definitely won’t take that class, I’m meant to be in the corporate world, not starting my own business, let him have that and deal with the seemingly overwhelming task of writing projected financials.

Then freshman year was over, he graduated, and I moved on to my interests in promoting women’s advancement in business, conducting business in cross-cultural settings, etc. So sophomore passed and I never again thought about it. After my summer in Europe or sometime during my junior year, my mom contemplated retiring from the law firm and questioned whether to start another business. I gave her advice on the aspects of her proposed business that I was familiar with. And we kind of joked well after I graduate we can start a business together. But I still felt so removed from the actual concept of being an entrepreneur that I thought, yea funny, it’ll never happen.

After junior year and my internship in Hong Kong, I returned to USC for my last year. Partly because of my excitement in returning from my exchange program and due to my ever-lasting interest in cross-cultural interaction, I volunteered to be a host for exchange students. And I asked them why they chose to come to USC and many said for the entrepreneurship program. I was surprised. We have an entrepreneurship department? Is it any good? (Well, yes, actually it is. That was the main reason my boyfriend freshman year attended USC). Ok, whatever, still not interested. And they asked me, ‘can you recommend any entrepreneurs I can interview for my class?’ No, I thought, I don’t know any entrepreneurs.

Spring break of senior year I had the choice of 2 different business trips: one to Tokyo or one to Rio de Janeiro. It was a difficult decision, but I chose Rio and that seemingly fun decision could prove to be one of the most pivotal decisions of my life.

The unique thing about the trip to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil is that is was co-sponsored by the USC Entrepreneur Club. I never would have had any interest or any reason to join this club. But since they did much of the planning for the trip and had a professor of entrepreneurship as a chaperone, much of the trip was focused on entrepreneurship. We listened to social entrepreneurs and very successful heads of now some of the world’s largest corporations that started out as mere entrepreneurship ventures a few decades ago. And especially beneficial for me is that I learned about entrepreneurship in a cross-cultural setting. I also found out many of the students in the group had their own (successful) businesses and they were younger than I! Wow! Suddenly entrepreneurship didn’t seem so remote anymore. Finally, it was a concept I understood, and a name attached to a specific concept. And there were people my age doing it successfully. From that standpoint, it was truly an eye-opening experience.

After that trip, I started to look back over my family and my life and wonder why I hadn’t been exposed to this before. Well, actually I have. My uncle is an entrepreneur, my step-father is a serial entrepreneur, and now my mom is a two-time entrepreneur. Some how I just didn’t put their businesses together with the name and the concept and definitely never thought I’d be in their shoes.

About this time I also started exploring the option of moving to Shanghai after graduation, so I started talking to my friend Ian, who had recently moved to Beijing, asking him for advice and whatnot on moving to such a foreign country. And besides giving me great advice he told me he and a partner started their own business in Beijing. I was shocked! Here was another person my age that had started his own business, and in the country I was moving to! Amazing! Slowly, I started to put the pieces together. I could be an entrepreneur and start my own business in Shanghai.

When I look back now, I wonder why I never put all the pieces together. I apparently have a family history of it and therefore have been exposed to it for years. In fact, my mom has become my most important personal and business mentor. Despite all the signs, it was definitely Brazil trip that put it all together for me and made it all clear. So, now when USC business majors ask me for advice, I tell them to take an entrepreneurship class. You just never know how close you may actually be to becoming an entrepreneur and even if you don’t ever become one, you’ll still learn valuable business lessons in that class. Not taking such a class is now my biggest regret from college. I don’t have any formal training in entrepreneurship and I missed the opportunity to be taught by some of the best entrepreneurship professors in the country.

So my advice, look around you. My bet is that you know far more entrepreneurs than you ever imagined. Entrepreneurship is a global reality, without it the world would be a far less efficient place. You, too, just may be destined to be the next Steve Jobs or Bill Gates.

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中国的朋友们,大家好！ 欢迎光临！ 我来自美国，现居住在上海。2006年5月， 我毕 业于坐落在洛杉矶的南加州大学（University of Southern California） 国际 商务专业。 2006年7月我来到上海居住。 我在上海开办了自己的公司，成为了一名企业家。此外，我还教授英文。 我希望你们能够对我的网站发表评论，以帮助我了解你们的想法和观点。你们的任何意见对我来说都非常重要，因为我想要通过自己的blog向世界展现一个真实 的中国。 我希望你们会看英文，并每天关注我的blog.

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Well although this website was much easier to setup than my other one (www.ShopMyShanghai.com), it has been utterly time consuming, and obviously I still have some kinks to work out. Nonetheless, here we go…

When I first mentioned the idea of going independent and severing ties to xanga, my friend Luke told me, if you’re going to do that and have decent traffic, you need a theme. And no, your life is not interesting enough to be a theme–thanks Luke. Well, I’ve done my best to figure out a compromise between Luke’s sound advice and my and my readers’ interests. As such, I’ve come up with three overriding themes that will also be divided into subcategories. Therefore, if only one theme appeals to you, you may sort by that category and read only those posts. Anyway, they are:

1) Knowledge and experiences from living in a different city, ie Life in Shanghai, or whichever city I happen to be living in

2) Entrepreneurship and Business

3) Tourism: a) Learning through Foreign Cultural Immersion; b) Travelling; c) Peace through Tourism

I hope these topics will be suitable and I look forward to your readership and your comments.

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