龙门　　：：　Dragon Gate

2006-07-26T08:32:00.000+08:00

Somehow, spam posts appeared here last night. That's really worrying. How did it happen? Password changed, and we'll see what happens.

2006-07-25T11:12:00.000+08:00

Things never turn out as we expect. Mice and men, and all that. So, the company in Beijing didn't work out. I'm back in Singapore. And today... I graduate. The final conclusion of all the effort.

2006-01-06T22:21:00.000+08:00

Tomorrow I'm flying back to Singapore for a week. I have a lot to do, but I already know that I won't accomplish everything I originally hoped to do. Still, it will be an important trip: I'll be trying to get my company started, and will be making a pitch to my first prospective client.

It's also going to be an emotional trip. When I first started this blog, as I started thinking about applying for an MBA, I never expected that a year and a half later I would be an entrepreneur in Beijing - it was always my plan to stay in Singapore and look for opportunities there! So much has happened that I never expected. While I'm still following the same principles in life as I always have, I know now that I have been changed so much by the MBA experience. I've learned so much, and see so many things in different ways. I've met so many interesting people, and learned so much from interacting with them. I hope some of them will continue to be friends, and will continue to teach me new things. It hasn't all been positive: MBA life has unleashed some strong, negative emotions, and has set me back in important ways. Being so tired for so long has diminished my enthusiasm for things that are important to me. I'll hav eto work hard in some areas just to get back to where I was a year and a half ago. When I look back at the day in June 2004 that I first arrived in a taxi at the graduate hall, I really have to wonder - how did that person become me? It's been a long road... This trip really will mark the end of it all as a formal, academic experience, though.

I wonder what will happen next? It will be exciting, I'm sure.

2006-01-02T15:22:00.000+08:00

I'm glad to see that according to BusinessWeek, the market for MBAs is very healthy. Can't say I feel that way myself, at the moment, but I do make things difficult for myself.

So, let's take stock. I have one part-time job sorted out, with another startup. This one is more sales and marketing in its orientation, and I'm still working out the options. I have an application in for a staff post at a Chinese university, which wouldn't pay well but would be good in other ways. I think I have a good chance of getting this, and should hear in the next couple of days. I'm also trying to start my own company, which will take time to get going, but the others would keep me afloat financially until I know whether my company is going to work or not. I should also be able to work a lot on my Chinese (especially if I get the university job). This is how I am making things difficult for myself - by perversely deciding that the only place where I can happily live is in Beijing, where I don't speak the language, and have very few employment options...

Back to Singapore next week; I suppose I'll be back for the graduation ceremony in July, if I'm not bankrupt by then, but other than that, I wonder how often I'll be going back...

2005-12-22T22:02:00.000+08:00

Well..... is this it? I've just submitted my very, very last ever MBA project report. There's nothing more to do that contributes to my grades; only housekeeping stuff that doesn't matter much. So can I call myself... an MBA?

The report I've just sent in was for OB, and the result will come out in early January. I didn't engage as much with the course in the end as much as I had hoped, or would like to have done, but there's no way I can fail it (unless something has gone horribly wrong - I hope not, touch wood!). I already have the grades for the other three courses I took this semester at Tsinghua, and they're all As. So, barring a completely unexpected OB disaster, I have fulfilled the requirements to graduate.

.....

So much has happened since that first 'Hello World' post in 2003... I've blogged before about how I have noticed the effects the MBA experience has had on my personality and my outlook, and without doubt I have changed a lot. Saying that, I notice that as the end has been approaching, and I've been sleeping more and destressing, a lot of my positive attributes have been resurfacing. It will take some time to internalise what it all means...

So much has happened.... Knowledge gained and reinterpreted... Relationships begun, and finished... Fresh options opened, and others unexpectedly closed.... So much money gone!

In the great tradition of MBA blogs, I'll be leaving this one soon. Don't know if I will leave it available as a ghost blog, or shut it down. I'll be posting for a little while longer, to wrap up, look back, and sum it all up.

2005-12-17T20:16:00.000+08:00

Well, the good news is that I have another job offer for after I finish, my plans for my own business are coming along well, and I have found someone trustworthy willing to be a non-executive director in Singapore, which will save me a lot of money. I have a date with a cute girl next week, as well as several dinners with people who might be useful business contacts. I might be going to the Shaolin Temple for christmas. I have time now to really work hard on my Chinese, and my Bagua, which have been neglected for too long. I have an interview next week for a February CELTA course (teaching English to adults) which will hopefully let me get in to the high-paying corporate English training sector here in Beijing. So, that's all good.

On the down side, the transformer for my iBook burned out, and may not be replaceable, while the screen of my old Powerbook is showing signs that it may finally die anytime son ((Oh, but I DID manage finally to remove the DVD that had jammed inside, and I am able to play movies again). I twisted my knee yesterday, I got knocked of my bike today, and I've torn my gloves. It's a week before Christmas and I have an OB take-home exam to do overnight. Oh well.

I need to start planning to go back to Singapore for 10 days or so in January. Should buy the ticket Monday, I guess...

2005-12-12T10:28:00.000+08:00

Almost a month since my last update - bad blogger, Carp... In truth, I'm so busy these days I hardly have time to think, let alone compose blog posts. I've also started blogging elsewhere, which is taking most of my creative activity. MBA-wise, I'm down to one class. Final projects are due this week, and the exams are next weekend. And that will be it - MBA over. That's a scary thought. I'm pushing ahead with my plan to work for myself. At times I think I have a good business model. At other times, I wonder hat on earth I am doing, and how can I possibly think this will work... Got to keep my self-confidence up...

2005-11-15T20:06:00.000+08:00

Well, back from Xi'an - had a great few days there, and I would love to go back some time. I've started decompressing: last week I finally left the company where I've been interning, and I'm starting to relish the unfamiliar experience of having free time again...

Today I made it to a Mandarin class, and to a Taji class. Mandarin was great - good to be working on it again - and the teacher's really cute ;-) Taiji was also very rewarding - the teacher really knows his stuff and pays attention to detail. Now I realize that the teacher I had for individual lessons in Singapore was ripping me off, because I learned more this afternoon than in the whole semester at NTU.

Never mind. Since I no longer have a job waiting for me at the end of the MBA, I'm getting started on finding a replacement. I would ideally like to work for myself. So, how to raise the capital? Got to start on my business plan... Where to set up? Singapore would be cheaper and easier, but I actually want to live in Beijing... Hmm. Well, I still have time.

2005-11-01T22:38:00.000+08:00

So, the halfway point of the semester is here; I can't believe time has passed so quickly. Everything has been a blur. Between the coursework and the internship, recently I've been so tired that I'm been in a waking dream state, where everything has seemed far away and not quite real. Unfortunately, I've had to give a couple of impromptu presentations in that time. I have no idea how they went, but I think they were real stream-of-consciousness performances! The professor in question didn't seem too upset afterwards, though, unless he was just stunned, of course.

It's only a few week, really, until the MBA is over. I've come a long way since I started those GMAT prep courses in the summer of 2003. Most of my cohort have already finished. Some have jobs, some are still looking, and I have to make some tough decisions about that real soon. I have to decide how little money I can live on, how much security I need, what I really, truly want my post-MBA life to be about. I can't find the exact post, but i remember willy nilly posting about post-Insead life, and reflecting that her new job was just more of the same stuff that she'd done the MBA to escape. That isn't going to be for me. I did the MBA to open up my options, and I'm not going to just go back to the same old shit as before.

Not so long ago I got a few emails on the NBS mailing list, about the annual party to see off the outgoing cohort (ie mine). A year ago, I went to the party to see off my seniors; I was in full-on class-A MBA mode, all about doing it for myself,and I blogged about the MBA not being about network-building. Since then, naturally, I've come around, and seen the light, and I've been pretty active on online business networking communities. How ironic that so many of my cohort, who were so gung-ho about networks, have joined these communities and never use them...

2005-10-12T09:34:00.000+08:00

This is really weird. It seems I can now access any blogspot.com address (which have been blocked for at least 2 years AFAIK), but I can't access anything under the tsinghua.edu.cn domain! What's going on?

2005-10-11T23:01:00.000+08:00

WTF? I've just connected directly to my blog, when I accidentally hit the title in Bloglines... Has blogspot.com been unblocked? Or is this just temporary..?

2005-10-11T22:04:00.000+08:00

Back in the cold north, after a brief trip to warmer parts. Very little has been happening recently, as I've just been too busy.

A recent highlight is that I'm making good progress in the Bagua; the form I've been working on has made the transition from being a sequence of staccato, poorly understood movements, to being something that flows and has a purpose. I still have a long way to go but it's making sense now. These days we're practising in the open in Ritan Park (the siheyuan where we normally go is still under renovation), and it's getting cold at night - especially when the sweat is pouring after a good workout! I still need to work hard on my basics, though: the sliding "mud step" is still something I can't do well, even though it's one of the basics. OTOH, recently I've found myself slipping into the "flow" while I'm practising, which is a great feeling.

I've had my first bad experiences with fellow-students at Tsinghua, oddly all in the same class,and all with Chinese students. In one project group, some of the Chinese students simply aren't bothering to turn up to meetings, which isn't very polite to say the least. There seem to be a few Chinese students who have a chip on their shoulder about foreigners. One said quite openly in class that opening up China to the West was corrupting Chinese culture. Another... well, it was very strange. He gave a hand-written questionnaire to one of the exchange students; it was 4 sheets of questions like "Explain what innovations you have introduced to a past company, and how it contributed to the company's performance", and things like that. When we asked what it was for, he said it was on behalf of the "Tsinghua Students' Association", and that they wanted to evaluate the quality of the exchange students - whether we were any good, or whether we were just there for a holiday! I can't make up my mind what was happenening there.One possibility is that he was telling the truth - in which case, he had made no effort to type the questions, expected a large effort on our part to complete the questions without offering any benefit to us, AND was quite unconcerned that he was being really insulting. The second possibility is that he has applied for a job, been qiven these questions as part of the application, and was trying to get an English-speaking foreigner to supply answers that he could pass off as his own. I can't think of any other explanation, although I suppose there good be something. Anyway, it doesn't reflect well on Tsinghua. Luckily, most of the students seem great; it's inevitable that there will be a few bad apples, I guess.

2005-09-30T23:03:00.000+08:00

Bah. Earlier this week, one of the hinges on my Powerbook's screen broke. I've gradually been transferring my data across to my portable hard drive, and to my 2001-vintage iBook, but the Powerbook has still been usable. This evening, although it's the weekend before China's national day, I'm too tired to do anything special. Quite a few of my classmates have gone out on a pub crawl, after which they'll spend the night in Tiananmen Square to watch the flag being raised. Me, I planned to grab a DVD, get an early night, and sleep in tomorrow. I was happy to find a copy of Twighlight Samurai in my local DVD shop; Ihaven't seen it there before. I originally caught the film in Singapore, and I found it really heartwarming. Sadly, it jammed in the disk drive, and when I picked up the laptop to try to get it out, the second screen hinge broke. So, my faithful old Powerbook has a detached screen and a DVD jammed in its drive, meaning that it's basically junk. This computer was my pride and joy when I bought it after arriving iin Singapore for the first time in late 2002, and it has served me well. The iBook will do for a while, but it was only intended to act as a lecture note-taker, andit really isn't powerful enough to use for real work. So.... much as I would like to buy another Mac, I simply can't afford it at this point.. This means buying a Windows machine, which I swore I would never do again. Ah well, too bad. Tsinghua actually produce a line of laptops under their own name, so probably I will get one of those. I've spoken to the guy my company usually buys IT stuff from, and he's confirmed he can supply one partitioned with Windows XP and Linux installed for dual boot. All I need to do then is load FreeBSD to replace Linux and I can at least be reasonably happy and productive. It's an expense I could really do without but, well, there's nothing else to do.

2005-09-29T19:30:00.000+08:00

I see that my cohort in Singapore are coming to the end of their studies - some have already had their last exams, and the rest only have a couple of weeks left. How time has flown! It seems only a short while ago that we had our induction, building spider webs outof rope next to Nanyang Lake, while trying hard to remember all these names I had never heard before... singing my national anthem solo in front of so many strangers... watching as tired people with big suitcases turned up at the graduate hall from Changi airport... and before the intensity of the MBA really hit us.

I suddenly feel very homesick for Singapore...

2005-09-28T18:59:00.000+08:00

Things have settled down at the office and we have reached an accomodation. I won't be blogging much more about this. In fact, I may not be blogging much more, full stop. I have so little time at the moment, and limited internet access.

The MBA continues; I'm still enjoying it and my fellow-students are great. Lots going on, and I'm starting to work on my Chinese again, as well.

After a short break due to injury, I'm back practising bagua and taiji; for a while I lost my rhythm with the bagua - just couldn't get into the flow of it - but I think it's coming back. As always, it needs constant practice.

OK, that's it. Back when I've got more to say.

2005-09-20T23:31:00.000+08:00

Did I say the honeymoon was over? Definitely. The job is less and less what I wanted it to be, and more and more stuff I don't know and don't want to do. I'm writing this as I face the prospect of a night of coding to turn out something that wouldn't be worth the effort. After doing an MBA to stop being a code monkey, do I really want to to find myself doing this again? For a company that's only offering me promises, not cash, and is demanding so much of my time that I can't study? I don't think so.

2005-09-18T12:13:00.000+08:00

First week down. Pretty impressed with the Tsinghua experience so far. Organizational Behaviour is the only class I'm in that has a majority of Chinese nationals, and it's very interesting to see the difference in attitudes between them and the foreigners. Also, the classroom culture is very different, with applause for comments and contributions, and generally a far stronger group culture than I've experienced before.

At Dashanzi with TOMA yesterday, just wandering around and taking pictures. I picked up a book of photo studies of monks of the Shaolin Temple. Then on to the Silk market to buy jeans for the autumn.

Today is the mid-autumn festival; for the last week I've eating mooncakes, which are delicious but very unhealthy. Yum!

2005-09-15T20:29:00.000+08:00

Posting tonight from "Sculpting in Time", the hip, student/arty cafe facing Wudaokou station. I was in Lush earlier, and would have posted from there, but their wifi was on the blink and I couldn't get an IP address. What I did get was one of their "五: reprazent" t-shirts that I've wanted for a while, but which have constantly been out of stock. Yay!

Life has been incredibly busy recently, hence the long silence. The workload at the internship has increased to slightly beyond my capacity to handle it: too many things that are new to me. It's certainly been instructive: I've been confronted with the (obvious) fact that doing something in real life is rather different from doing it in class, or as an assignment. The MBA 'mystique' has worked against me rather, in the sense of "but you're meant to know this!" Well, I do... in theory. Practice can be different. The honeymoon period with the job is definitely over. One thing that's bubbling away is that although my agreement with the company is that I would work full-time during the summer break, and part-time during the term, the amount of work they want me to do over the coming weeks is simply impossible to reconcile with the needs of the course. I would hate to have to decide between the job and the MBA, but it may come to that - and of course, the job will come second. I hope we can find a better solution, though. It isn't just the coursework; I've already missed a lot of social events because I was working late, and that can't carry on - I would like to get to know my fellow students while I'm here. Else, why bother to come?

This has been the first week of classes, so inevitably they've been full of the usual introductory waffle. To the extent that I've got to know my classmates, the exchange students have really impressed me; they're generally of a very high calibre. I haven't interacted so much with any Chinese students yet, so I'll reserve judgement.

I have managed to find some time for R&R, though. Last weekend,I went with a few friends to Dashanzi for a performance of Korean and Brazilian drumming. Getting there was a real adventure - the taxi was badly held up by rush-hour traffic, and then we discovered the driver was on his first day and had no idea where to go! Even when we got to the factory complex, we had to wander around unlit alleyways before eventually finding the venue. We got there an hour late, but the shown had only just started anyway, so it was OK - and the show was great!

2005-09-02T20:15:00.000+08:00

Summer is definitely coming to an end. Schools have reopened, and in the mornings I walk to work past long crocodiles of green-capped kiddies. The air has an edge to it as I practise my taiji and bagua, and I get a sense of what lies ahead when I try to practice in the Beijinng winter. The last week has been windy, and today the air has been clear; from my apartment windows the hills away to the north were clearer and sharper than I've ever seen them.

The last few days have been intense at work; I have a cool new job title, new responsibilities, and a very clear idea of how my career should progress over the next few years. Apart from this being very exciting - the job remains perfect, absolutely my ideal position - I may try to register for an PhD, or at least an MPhil, next year! That's just an idea for the moment, though - although it would fit with the career trajectory that's taking shape, which is all about knowledge management and thought leadership. I'm very, very excited at the prospect of the next year.

I've met some of my fellow exchange students for the first time. On Wednesday night eight of us met up at Lush, and had a great evening. They're mostly from the States, and I can see already that the trimester at Tsinghua is going to be a very different experience from my time in Singapore; these students are more experienced, vocal and pushy than the more reticent types who are the majority at NTU.

2005-08-30T22:51:00.000+08:00

On Sunday, after the morning's language tutorial, I decided to do a bit of sightseeing, and went to the Lama Temple (Yonghe Lamasery). I haven't been there since March last year, when the sky was blue, the sun was bright, and the air was clear and cold. On Sunday none of those things were true! It was hot, humid, and the air was very hazy - quite apart from the smoke from all the incense! Still, I spent most of the afternoon there, leaving when it closed at 5pm. Then, feeling very tranquil, I went on to Yandai Xijie, near Houhai, where revised my new vocabulary over a couple of beers. It was a very laid-back feeling - I got talking to a guy selling faux antiques and trinkets, who asked me a ridiculously high price for a PLA lapel badge - and then gave it to me for free when I said I didn't want it! While we were chatting, I was approached by a beggar with a placard covered in newspaper cuttings hanging around his neck. Apparently he has been dubbed "the scholar beggar", and various articles have been written about him. He even has his own website where he publishes his work. I can't say that it means much to me, and nor do I quite understand how he manages to run a website if he has to beg for a living, but he was polite, spoke good if idiosyncratic English, and was interesting to talk to, so I'm glad to have met him. My good mood wasn't even marred by my iPod apparently dying - it froze halfway through a track, and got really hot until the battery died. I haven't tried recharging it yet...

At work, I'm revising all the work I did in Services Marketing and Managerial Accounting as I try to develop a pricing strategy for various services.

There's an interesting article in the Times about internet censorship in China. Oddly enough, as soon as I loaded the page, I lost my internet connection for ten minutes!

2005-08-27T13:27:00.000+08:00

CCTV9 is the English-language channel of the state-owned national TV broadcasts here in China. I was ironing my shirt this morning before coming in to work, and watching a travel program about Tibet. A monk said something that struck a chord: "As Buddhists, we seek to reach enlightenment by eliminating hate, ignorance, and greed".

Most religions will include the bits about hate and greed but for me, one of the great attractions of Buddhism is its emphasis on learning and critical knowledge - every individual should question, and learn, rather than accept assertions uncritically. It's said of the Buddha that he wasn't omniscient, but that when he turned his attention to a subject he understood it completely. Knowledge and understanding of a broad range of fields has always been my aspiration, and it's one reason why I took an MBA as opposed to other graduate degrees that were attractive (and much cheaper!). An MBA covers a lot of areas that are really fundamental to understanding our daily lives, and to see clearly the influences that shape world events - macroeconomics, microeconomics, how the financial markets work and what that means for both ordinary consumers and the highest realms of international affairs. Having an MBA means I understand much, much more about how the world works, for good and for ill.

So, the meeting today was about the company's sales forecasting, CRM, valuations - all topics that once would have struck me as dull and obscure, and for which I could have made no contribution. I'm still going to have to to keep my textbooks on my desk, especially when I get to dealing with the accounting aspects (fortunately for the company, I don't have the main responsibility for this!). I am going to have a lot of work to do on valuations and sales projections, though: and now I find that I'm interested, and I can really make a contribution. Just one year ago that wouldn't have been possible.

2005-08-24T17:07:00.000+08:00

Uproar today amongst a number of my MBA cohort. NTU have decided to revise their grading system for graduate students, and are moving to a GPA system. This was announced a little while ago, but the implications slipped under most peoples' radar. Instead of just using A, B, C etc on our official transcripts, they will use a more detailed system: A+, A, A-, B+, and so on. Not so important, perhaps, but it means that for my cohort, and for us only, our final trimesters' marks will use the new system, while the trimesters we've completed will use the old system - on our final transcripts, the ones that may of us will have to show to employers. A number of people feel that this will be confusing, and will undermine the credibility of of our older marks. After protests, it seems that NTU (this is the university's decision BTW, not the business school) have said that the policy is fixed and will not be reversed, but our transcripts will have a postscript to explain the change in policy.

For me it isn't really a big issue, I think: I've already got my post-MBA job, and any jobs after that should be more influenced by my performance here than by my transcript. However, I am annoyed by the way this has been done: it's been announced at short notice, and there's no possibility of change. It's for the university's convenience, and any students who are adversely affected will have to lump it. Why is it that universities around the world are realizing that students are customers and need to be treated as such, and yet Singaporean universities appear to think this doesn't apply to them?

This seems a good place to mention an interesting site that I found via tomorrow.sg: Imagine Singapore in 2025. It's worth a read and, who knows, may benefit from contributions from foreign students. Also, from Asia Times, Singapore tries to be naughty, which also comments on Singaporean education.

Other links:

China's bumpy drive toward tech progress
In Asia's Chinese diaspora, are loyalties divided? - A question: if a) the article I link to is correct, b) Singapore wants to overcome its population crisis by attracting new citizens from abroad and c) Singapore wants to maintain the current racial proportions, with ethnic Chinese as the majority - how can these a, b and c be reconciled?
China: middle kingdom, world centre
Learn the lingo and we'll be in business: a Scottish Member of Parliament on why British children need to be learning Mandarin
China: The New Silk Road - Morgan Stanley's Andy Xie goes to western China. Starts with economic analysis, ends as travel brochure...

2005-08-22T21:15:00.000+08:00

I've been going to the office a little earlier than usual, recently. It's a side effect of being too sick to do my morning wushu exercise, and I've noticed that there's a room next to the lift where a dozen or so grannies congregate every morning to have a sing-song. I have no idea whether they're singing old folk tunes or Maoist revolutionary ballads, but it sounds nice. Speaking of singing, I was walking through the embassy area at dusk on Saturday; as you would expect there are a lot of guards on the street; mostly soldiers from remote provinces. I was touched that on stood at the entry to one side-street, blocking access to vehicles, and singing to himself in the gathering darkness.

I was going to Ritan Park, to meet TOMA. We had a long talk, cleared the air a bit, and agreed to start over, to try to get over the various misunderstandings, cultural issues, and language problems that had got between us, and to try get to know each other again.

Exciting times at work as we start writing a new business plan. Just the other day, I said that I was forgetting much that I'd studied - well, now I'm having to refresh my memory, quickly. Thank goodness I posted my textbooks to myself from Singapore - if I'd sold them, I would be in big trouble now. It looks like i'm going to get quite a bit of responsibility, and fun travel, once I finish the MBA and go full-time - but I can't give any details yet!

2005-08-18T21:30:00.000+08:00

Since the weather changed and became cooler, the mornings have been delightful. Leaving my apartment to go to work, there's a freshness in the air that makes me breathe deeply and smile. In the late afternoon and early evening, the sunlight is really warm and mellow. For once the air seems clear, and the mountains to the north and west of Beijing seem close and clear. I think one reason I've got sick this week - and yes, I'm still ill - is that subconsciously I've accepted that I can slow down: that I've got a place, I've got security, and I can be future-focused rather than ohmygodI'vegotthree assignmentsdue-focused.

It's astonishing how quickly the MBA has receded from my awareness. I really have to keep reminding myself that it's not over yet. Today I went to the local Kodak studio for more passport photos, so that I can pop up to Tsinghua sometime over the next few days to register.

Right now, I'm typing this in Lush, facing 五道口 station. They're playing good, laid-back music, and there's a nice mix of arty foreigners and Chinese students chilling out; it won't really start warming up for an hour or so yet, though I won;t be here then. Before I came out, I meditated for an hour; I haven't done that for a while - too long, in fact. One of the things about meditation is that the more you do it, the better your memory comes. The same is true of Taiji, which I have been doing a lot of lately and I feel that I'm reclaiming of my idealism. I think a few of my MBA classmates would say that I'm an idealist, but that's only in comparison - and to be fair, it has to be said that the idealism quotient in an MBA classroom is pretty low! I used to be much more of an activist, though, particularly about the environment. Hugh Macleod has a sketch that sums up what happened to me a few years ago:

Now, though, I've kind of got over a few hurdles in my life, and I'm starting to get worried about it again. Here are a few things I've bookmarked lately:

Depressed yet? What to do about it, though, that's the question. China, like Singapore, won't tolerate foreigners meddling in its internal affairs. I guess I can join Greenpeace online, or something, but it feels somehow inadequate.

Ouch - the music's just gone up to painful levels, and even though it's good reggae, it's time to post and leave...

2005-08-17T21:03:00.000+08:00

As this blog's header should tell you straight away, I rate martial arts as being one of the most important things in my life, and I put my study wushu as highly as my MBA studies. Maybe even more, because the MBA knowledge will get stale even if I remember it - and I find I'm forgetting lot of it as soon as the exams are over. The martial arts work, though, I'm likely to keep on practising, and benefitting from, for life.

I mentioned before that one reason I love being back in Beijing is that this is the heart of Chinese martial arts. Sure, you can talk about the Shaolin temple and Wudang shan being the homes of the external and internal styles respectively, and they are. But, the best practitioners came to Beijing and a lot of the schools they founded, or the post- Cultural Revolution remnants of them, are still here.

I'm not training at one of these, I hasten to to add. I'm at a very new school, catering for Westerners and teaching in English. Like most of the other students, I found it through an advertisement in one of the expat magazines. That doesn't make it any less 'authentic' though; the head of the school is a martial arts instructor with the Beijing police. I was passing through London for a few days some years back, and I picked up a copy of one of the British martial arts magazines - I forget which one - because the cover was about just that: the combat training of the Chinese police.I remember that it pointed out how widespread martial arts training was in China, meaning that the gangsters can be very tough characters even if they haven't got guns, so the police have to train hard. My instructor is one of the guys who trains them, meaning he takes it very seriously!

Like most traditional schools, I don't get trained too much by him personally; mostly I work with the senior student. He's an Englishman, who's been here for nine years, speaks excellent Chinese, and trains hard - every day. He really has the traditional relationship with the master, and has pretty much become part of the family. I expected there to be more of a community amongst the students than there is, though. There's very little cameraderie, or conversation with people who weren't already friends. I'm surprised at this; most martial arts schools I've trained with before have been really social, and I'm not sure what the reason is. One of the little projects I had at the back of my mind when I came to Beijing was to do some kind of study of the foreign martial arts students in Beijing; I guess I'll have to stay here longer and get in deeper (and, note to self, improve my Chinese) before that's going to happen!

So what am I studying? The school teaches the three internal martial arts (Taijiquan, Xing-Yi,and Ba Gua Zhang), plus Shaolin Quan and San Da. All of them include various bare-hand forms, plus weapons, plus applications. I'm focussing on Ba Gua Zhang, which is based on circular motion and is both a kickass martial art and a serious meditative practise. Obviously, some level of expertise is needed for that statement to be true, and I'm not there yet! I've learned one full sequence of unarmed moves, and now I'm working on a second, plus the basic set of moves for the Ba Gua Jian, which is a double-handed sword about 4 feet long. We start each lesson with a workout and intensive stretching exercises, followed by the 8 Brocade Silk Qi Qong set. It's a lot to fit in to two hours, and I wish the lessons lasted 3 hours, as with my school in Singapore. Ah well.

Classes are twice a week, and in between I try to practice in the mornings. This is outside my apartment block, and I'm still trying to get over the embarrassment! I'm always watched by many of the block's contingent of retirees, who probably all get up at about 5am, and have finished their own exercises an hour before I begin mine! I know for sure that there are a lot of good martial arts people in the block; there's one family in particular where the mother teaches the kids Northern Long Fist - bare hand, sword and spear. In addition, there are at least some younger people who are studying for martial arts degrees at the Physical Education University nearby. So all in all, it takes some courage to get up out there, and practice.

In addition to the Ba Gua, I also practice the Taiji Fist (24 moves, a variant of the standard Beijing 24 Yang Tai ji), and Taiji sabre (88 moves). Lately,I've also started trying to revise the Chen Man Chinq 37-move form, which I practised for many years before I went to Singapore, but which I've now forgotten a lot of.

It's a lot to work on, but each one contributes its own benefits. If I'm persistent, though, I'll eventually master them all. Persistence isn't easy; I've not practised for a while due to, on various days, fatigue, illness or bad weather. But I'll keep on trying!

2005-08-16T21:16:00.000+08:00

The hot and humid weather has broken, thank goodness, and now it's cooler with sporadically heavy rain. Apparently it changed yesterday, but I didn't notice; I was bedridden with a bug that left me woozy and sleeping all day. I'd noticed a cold starting on Saturday, but I think the way I overheated on the way to the gallery pushed it deeper in to my chest than it would otherwise have gone. Bah. That's the first time I've taken a day sick off work for years. Even now, I feel tired all the time, so it's off to bed in a moment.

My language tutor only just left. I'm not sure how much good this is doing me. I hired a private tutor because I thought 1-1 tuition would speed up the learning, but we haven't really established a rapport, and I'm not sure that joining a class wouldn't be better (or at least, cheaper). OTOH, it could just be that I'm not revising enough between classes. Actually, yeah, it's probably that. Damn. Maybe I won't go to bed just yet.

2005-08-14T18:24:00.000+08:00

Supposing I'd run [British-style democracy] here, Malays would vote for Muslims, Indians would vote for Indians, Chinese would vote for Chinese. I would have a constant clash in my Parliament which cannot be resolved because the Chinese majority would always overrule them. So I found a formula that changes that...

Der Spiegel interviews Lee Kwan Yew. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Lee Kwan Yew is incredible. His vision, insight, and will are pretty much unmatched.

The interview is mostly about the rise of China, though.On the same topic, this article is about how China's current leadership are reconsidering Confucianism as a guide to governance.

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Yesterday, I popped over to visit the Red Gate Gallery, in the Dongbianmen Watchtower, at the southeast corner of old Beijing. It's an amazing location; the watchtower overlooks Beijing railway Station on one side but on the other is next to a restored section of the old city walls, and a quiet area with lots of trees and flowers - a small zone of tranquillity, where lovers gather, old men fly their kites, and friends gather to chat under the trees. Sadly, I was in no mood to appreciate it fully - I got off the subway at the Railway Station, and walked about ten minutes to the gallery - and it was SO hot and humid that by the time I got there I was drenched in perspiration, and feeling a bit woozy.... Anyway, I recovered enough to enjoy the exhibition, and take some photos; I'll try to post some here. The watchtower is an interestingn place: it was where a number of rebels and Imperial troops held out against Western forces during the Boxer Rebellion, and the walls still show the effects of the firepower that was brought to bear on them.

Links for today:

The Times has a short profile of Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba.
High oil prices boost US trade deficit.
Paul Graham on what business can learn from the open source approach.
Inc magazine on the future of advertising.
Editing your hosts file to block adservers.
In Singapore, Indian and Malay jobseekers complain of discrimination.
Daniel Drezner on Singapore and the relationship between economic success, corruption, and freedom.

Just to comment further on that point about discrimination, I have been told this myself by Singaporean Indian Muslims, and Sikhs, that I know. It's certainly true that lots of the jobs advertised in the Straits Times will note 'Must speak Mandarin', even if no other skills are highlighted. If I were to look at the other side of it, I suppose you could say that many SMEs in Singapore are family run, and by Chinese who may not speak good English themselves, in which case Chinese language skille would be necessary to get the job done. So, I'll remain on the fence about this one.

2005-08-12T09:06:00.000+08:00

There's an interesting article by David Brooks in today's IHT: he contemplates the trend - enabled by technology and mobility - for "birds of a feather to flock together", forming subcultures with like minded people. He notes that as this happens, the "mass culture" identifiers fade away, do that the subgroups have less and less in common, and less interaction, with one another. Globally, the traits of different cultures mean that some prosper, and others don't. French asks why this is so, and what it is that means some cultures endure, and succeed more than others. He ends up by saying that this is field ripe for investigation, and that a brainy 18-year old would do well to enter this field of study.

Of course, he's well behind the curve: Neal Stephenson wrote about this exact subject in The Diamond Age. Sadly, I had to leave my copy behind in Singapore, but I'll buy a new one as soon as I can. It's a fantastic discussion of culture, media, China, nanotech, educational principles, and ethics, all wrapped up in a great story. I highly recommend it!

2005-08-11T23:12:00.000+08:00

The humidity in Beijing today has been terrible; it's been impossible to move without sweating. It's worse than Singapore, without doubt. On top of that, it's caused really bad smog, so visibility is low, and the air quality is terrible ;-(

Whether that's the reason or not, the attendance at Ba Gua class tonight was really low. This means I got a lot of personal tuition from our master, rather than the senior student - and that's good because he makes me work hard. Combine that with the humidity, and it's been one heck of a workout!

By chance, I found this article on the Singaporean economy today. Its main point, that in modern Singapore the rich-poor divide is growing bigger and bigger. The figures it gives for what people earn, and the hours they work, fits with what people were telling me in conversation. It's no wonder that people want to leave, or - if they stay - don't want children. The consequences of this in the medium term can't be good.

2005-08-10T18:31:00.000+08:00

I've started putting on weight since I came to Beijing - haven't been doing enough bagua practice in the mornings. Last year, in the four months that I was here, I lost a lot of kilos. I've decided to stop going to to restaurants for lunch (paid for by the company), and to just eat light food from the supermarket deli - much less oil and salt! However, it's also been awkward, because up to now everyone from the office has gone to lunch together, soy trying to eat healthier, I'm isolating myself a little from the group (and, as the only non-Chinese in the office, it's not as if I wasn't already isolates to some extent). Ah well, think I need to look after my health; the bonding will come over time. Anyway, since I live on the 13th floor of my apartment block, I've started to use the stairs, which will do me some good, at least.

2005-08-10T14:06:00.000+08:00

I try to read Morgan Stanley's Global Economic Forum every day, and I find it a very useful resource. Every so often, though, I read something so mindbogglingly dumb, that I doubt my own sanity - these are, after all, highly influential and well-paid analysts, after all, so if I think it's nonsense, it must be me who's dumb, right? Well, usually, I guess, but not always, and one recent article by Daniel Lian is a case in point.

The article is Singapore: Structural Re-Rating of Singapore? Part 2, which is mostly unsurprising, and saying nice things about the Singaporean economy. I have no problems with this, and agree that the government is handling the economy pretty well. His section on "A Few Challenges and Suggestions" interests me the most. I don't think he gives enough weight to these points; I think the lack of creativity and vibrancy is going to become a very serious problem in the future. As the author points out, manufacturing in Singapore is currently performing well, but I don't feel that the future trends can be good - especially as even Singaporean firms are relocating manufacturing to the Indonesian island of Batam, a process described in a slightly older GEF article.

The real jaw-dropper, though was his suggestion that "Singapore ... should quickly and formally adopt a “massive” immigration policy to make it substantially larger (at least 6 to 8 million domestic residents and citizens)". This is crazy. Singapore already has a lot of social tension bubbling away, related to the economy as much as anything else. The article mentions that the over-40s are having trouble coping with structural adjustment, but doesn't mention the numbers of people under that age who are very keen to emigrate. I can only talk about this anecdotally, based on conversations with people in taxis, food courts, blogs etc - but there do seem to me to be a lot of Singaporeans who are going elsewhere, or would if they could. How to bring in such a large number of people - who would have no attachment to Singapore other than "What's in it for me?" - without leading to further social tensions?

This is one big issue for Singapore right now. The old national aim of becoming an economically advanced nation has been successful - but what now? I think too much has been reduced to economic factors; what else is there to Singapore? As a foreign MBA student, and someone who previously worked in Singapore, it's clear that Singapore explicitly treats foreigners as economic assets: if you can't contribute to the economy, you have to get out. The trouble is, that cuts both ways. You can't build an economy on imported talent if you treat people that way - because they'll leave if they see a better deal somewhere else (as many Singaporean citizens are alreasy doing), and where will the economy be then? If people are to be kept despite better offers elesewhere, there has to be an appeal above and beyond the money. So what could that be>?

2005-08-10T13:58:00.000+08:00

Yes, I've taken another online personality test:

INTP - "Architect". Greatest precision in thought and language. Can readily discern contradictions and inconsistencies. The world exists primarily to be understood. 3.3% of total population.

Take Free Jung Personality Test
personality tests by similarminds.com

Main type	Variant

Take Free Enneagram Personality Test
personality tests by similarminds.com

Enneagram Test Results

Type 1	Perfectionism	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	50%
Type 2	Helpfulness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	46%
Type 3	Image Awareness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	36%
Type 4	Sensitivity	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	36%
Type 5	Detachment	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	66%
Type 6	Anxiety	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	56%
Type 7	Adventurousness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	66%
Type 8	Aggressiveness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	60%
Type 9	Calmness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	56%

Your main type is 7
Your variant is sexual

Take Free Enneagram Personality Test
personality tests by similarminds.com

2005-08-07T00:14:00.000+08:00

So, today I met up with TOMA. We went for a walk in Ritan Park, and then to a Sichuan restaurant. What I can I say? Against all my better judgement, I love her. This is going to take some working out...

2005-08-05T09:11:00.000+08:00

Aha, I found the article I was looking for a couple of days ago: here on ATOL. This was inevitable, and is a good thing. I blogged over a year ago about the 'onion layer' theory of the Chinese economy, and here it is in practice. As the article mentions, even the second-rank cities are facing stiff competition from India, Indonesia and other developing nations, so there will be pressure to move ever-further inland. I say this is good because it will bring greater prosperity to the poorer areas of China, and hopefully stem some of the human tide moving from these areas to the coast. Both will help to shore up social stability in rural China, which is vital for China in the long run if it is to be a peaceful member of the international community...

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Today my alertness finally failed me, and I was hit while I was trying to cross the road. Luckily, it was only a bike, and travelling fairly slowly, but it came from behind me and I totally didn't see it coming. It's a fair reminder that in New China you can't let your guard down for a minute.

I was on my way to lunch with the guy who used to live next door to me in the graduate hall in Singapore; it turns out he's interning with Microsoft in their Asia Research Lab here in Beijing. He's from the south of China and speaks Mandarin with a definite Cantonese twang. According to him, he feels intimidated, because the local students who are also interns (ie those from Chinese universities, who haven't studied abroad) are really, really good, and he doesn't feel up to their standard. He's a PhD candidate at NTU, and I can attest that he works long, long hours himself.

Tonight I aranged to meet another Welsh guy, who works in Shanghai. It rained heavily this afternoon, so I spent over an hour in a taxi, trying to get from Haidian to near Jianguomen. It was worth it in the end, as we spent the night talking over drinks, and what was intended to be a business meeting may well turn out to be a friendship...

I'm not impressed with Server Logistics. I opened an account with them because they run on Macs, and I'm sentimental, but I'm finding them to be very, very slow, and their support isn't over-impressive. I'll keep them for personal use (this blog will migrate to them in the near future) but I need to find a host for my company's online activities, and they won't do; probably I'll go back to John Companies who I've used in the past and have always been very reliable. It'll mean more overhead in terms of my time for sysadminning, but it's worth it to get the results.

2005-08-03T11:48:00.000+08:00

One of my colleagues is an ethnic Manchu, not Han (the Han being the majority in China). Her great-grandmother was the aunt of the last Emperor, so she belongs to the Aisin Gioro, one of the Manchu Banner Clans.

There's so much to learn about this country.

2005-08-03T10:51:00.000+08:00

Wow... China may be the new high-tech destination, but lots of things are still done the quick 'n' dirty way... Our office has just had a new lock fitted, moving from an old-fashioned key with the lock at the bottom of the door, to a new swipe-card model. This needed quite a bit of modification to the door and the frame, which are both metal. This was done by a workman balanced precariously on one of our roller-cupboards, using a grinder and sending a stream of sparks and dust flying into the office and corridor. Naturally, he wasn't using anything to protect his eyes from the sparks or ears from the noise... Just amazing...

2005-08-02T21:12:00.000+08:00

My language tutor has just left; we only speak Mandarin, so it's a real struggle for me. Today I'm so tired that I couldn't concentrate, and I'm absorbing new vocabulary for about 10 seconds before forgetting it. Message to self: get to bed earlier, and on a regular basis.

Last night's Ba Gua lesson was great, which is one reason why I'm so tired. The senior student, who normally teaches me was away, so my group was run by the chief instructor. He works us much harder, and though it's physically more gruelling, it's easier to get into 'the flow'. One of the other students commented that my sword form is much better than my empty palm performance, whereas it's normally the other way round. I don't know, I just find it easier to work with swords - it's the same with Tai Ji, where I'm better with the sabre than with the fist. Speaking of swords, mine are picking up a fine layer of rust. This didn't happen in Singapore, even though it's much more humid there. I've tried buying oil in the shops nearby, but nobody seems to have anything I recognise, like WD40, and I don't have the vocabulary to explain what I want.

At work, I'm getting stuck into building a company Knowledge Management system. Technically, it's going well but the problem is becoming obvious - persuading the staff to participate. Luckily, the CEO is pretty gung-ho about it, and will start leaning on people as soon as he gets back from his current travels. On the software side, I'm using Drupal, as I've mentioned before. It works really well, does everything I really want, and some of the other things that are nice, plus it's standards-based, open source, and free. One of my colleagues, who also is involved in the KM project, is pushing for Jotspot. I've set up a test account, and it's nice; lots of useful features, a user-friendly WYSIWYG interface, blah, blah... But... there are a few things I'm not keen on: I would want it to be under our own domain name, and I haven't seen if that's possible. I don't see how I could export all of our data if we were there for a while and then decided to move. We're only a small company at the moment, but a lot of the features I would want are under the 'mega-corporation' billing structure... On the whole, I think I'll stick with running Drupal.

Oh, and I should say that I've been offered a permanent job with the company after I complete my MBA next January, which gives me some peace of mind. The package hasn't been finalized, but it's pretty good for China and since I plan to be in Beijing for several years now if at all possible, that will do. I was chatting with some of my fellow students on MSN today, and it seems that I'm still one of the first of my MBA cohort to receive a full-time offer. This has to be because there's much more opportunity here in China than there is in Singapore. Oh - and here's a rant - I checked my university mail account today, to read this:

To all fulltime graduate students, please see the posting below for your information.

Graduate Studies Office

-----Original Message-----
From: [name removed]
Posted At: Monday, 25 July, 2005 9:26 AM
Posted To: Notice Board (Students)
Conversation: AMENITIES FEE
Subject: AMENITIES FEE

Dear students,

With effect from the first semester of AY 05/06, an annual Amenities Fee of $12 each (subject to GST) will be collected from full-time undergraduates and full-time postgraduate students.

The University continually embarks on improvement works on our buildings and other infrastructure to enhance your experience on campus. The recent improvement works include the refurbishment of Canteens A and B, as well as the establishment of the Student Activities Center next to the NTU Quad. We have also converted Canteen 6 into a multipurpose hall. In addition, we have introduced the unlimited fare-free rides on the internal shuttle buses.

The Amenities Fee of $12 per year will aid in kick-starting more improvement works that will go towards developing a pleasant campus environment.

Thank you.

STUDENT AFFAIRS OFFICE

Now excuse me, but why are students being billed for this? I've never heard anything like it... Did they forget to budget for their infrastructure? And if they want us to pay for improvements, I would respectfully suggest that they consult us first to see what we want. $12 is neither here nor there (not that I intend to pay it, seeing as I'm in China and will never use these 'new facilities'), but the manner in which this has been arbitrarily imposed speaks volumes about the attitude of the authorities towards the students (ie We are in charge, we know best, you will do as you are told). It's an attitude that is sadly a little bit too prevalent in Singapore society, and one that will be detrimental to Singapore's future development if it's not changed. In my humble opinion, but what do I know?

Anyhow, a couple of things about China have caught my eye lately. I know that when I first came to China last year, my expectations were shaped by reading writers like Paul Theroux (Riding the Iron Rooster) and Mark Salzman(Iron and Silk). Of course, these books were written in the eighties, so China has changed a lot. Still, people are still arriving who expect China to be dour and dull - so they should read this IHT article on how young Chinese are flocking to stage schools, so that they can perform in Broadway-style musicals! Also, on a more BSchool level, this Economist article on how China is becoming more influential than the US when it comes to driving the global economy. An interesting point that I haven't seen brought out much before is that China has and advantage over India because so much of the value chain for different industries are located within China itself. I read another related piece somewhere, on how China's eastern seaboard, and the southern manufacturing regions, are bcoming so expensive that manufacturers are moving inland to second-rank cities like Nanjing. It was really interesting; I wish I could find it again!

Also relating to globalisation, via Adam Trachtenberg I found this great article from the Times of India about a US programmer who has outsourced his own job, and plans to do it again... and again... Read it and laugh!

2005-07-23T19:55:00.000+08:00

Sitting here in "Lush", just opposite the Wudaokou train station... I'm soaked; it's been pouring with rain all day, and the road outside Tsinghua University is knee-deep in water - not because Bejingers are unaccustomed to rain, I think, but more because the shiny new buildings skimped on the drainage... According to the bar staff, there's a party at the Great Wall tonight - I hope everyone packed umbrellas! Lush is definitely a better place for eavesdropping on conversations than my normal hangout in Speakeasy. The music's better, too; I could be spending more time here.

Things are very busy in the office, to the extent that no-one has much time to tell me what's going on, and I'm feeling very much out of the loop... Once again, it reminds me that I really need to become fluent in Mandarin. Well, first meeting with my tutor is a week tomorrow.

My date last night went pretty well. We met in a Starbucks near Renmin University, talked for a few hours, then moved on to Houhai, which was pretty in the rain, and a little bit less crowded than usual. I was hungry, so we went to Hutong Pizza, where we ate and sank a few beers. We spoke a lot of French, which was nice; we are both at the same level, which helped both us feel more confident. Sadly, it turns out that she has a boyfriend, but apparently it's a long-distance relationship with no likelihood that they will both wind up in the same country... Well, we'll definitely be meeting again to explore Beijing together (she's from Xi'an), and to practice our French...

2005-07-19T19:55:00.000+08:00

Back in Beijing, exhausted. The one-week course was fantastic, and I learned a lot. In between the course, the assignments and reading, taking things to friends, and sorting out which possessions to keep and which too throw away, I didn't get to much time to sleep, and I'm really feeling it.

Apart from the academic side of things, the course gave me an opportunity to say goodbye to my fellow-students, most of whom I probably won't see again. I also said my personal farewell to Singapore, after two and a half years of living there. It will have been obvious from my blog entries over the last year that I haven't enjoyed living on campus at NTU; I've found it incredibly boring, and frustratingly far from anything, and in many ways it soured my feelings about Singapore. Luckily, I decided to spend my last two nights in Chinatown (at The Inn at Temple Street). Chinatown was where I first decided that I really liked Singapore, and those two nights reaffirmed me in loving Singapore's diversity and unique character. I was sorry to say goodbye to people who've become friends over the last couple of years. I hope that fortune will take me back to Singapore in the future - but not to live on NTU campus!

So, now I'm based in Beijing for the indefinite future. My last trimester doesn't begin until September, and I won't finish the MBA until the end of January, which feels a long way away but will probably arrive quickly! Until term begins, I just need to work really hard in my internship to make sure that the company want to keep me once I finish the MBA. I'm not neglecting the other sides of life, though. I'm throwing myself back into the Ba Gua, which I find incredibly satisfying. Today I met with a language tutor; I'm going to sign up for twice-weekly private lessons, to make sure that I speak good Mandarin as soon as possible. And, I have a date on Friday night...

2005-07-14T20:59:00.000+08:00

I didn't realise it was this Saturday; I might call in.

The course is going well; pretty tough in places. I'm so busy trying to juggle the course, packing my belongings, and getting stuff done for the job that I'm desperate for sleep... can't see it happening, though.

I'm using my clamshell iBook this week; the Powerbook is in Beijing. The iBook's transformer died on Tuesday, so that evening I had to make a dash to Funan IT mall to buy a replacement - not the original yo-yo, of course, you can't get those any more :-( Anyway, I took the opportunity to get an Airport card fitted as well. It was expensive, but I as I mentioned when I bought it, I want this to be my classroom machine in Tsinghua, with the Poewrbook acting as a base station only.

OK,back to clearing my room - got to vacate tomorrow night, inspection at lunchtime...

2005-07-11T22:20:00.000+08:00

I forgot to mention that Tsinghua finally sent out the details today of the results of the course auction. I have placesonall three courses that I wanted, so everything is full speed ahead there.

I've just got back from leaving those things with my friend; she's being really kind, particularly as I don't really know at this point when I will be back in Singapore to collect them...

On another melancholy note, my cohort's resume book came out today; we each get a complimentary copy. My resume looks really sad compared to most of my classmates' - on the other hand, I didn't put much effort intoit as I didn't expect have much faith in the book's ability to attract job offers... and anyway, I already seem to be well placed to carry on with the company in Beijing, so perhaps my instinct was right (touch wood).

2005-07-10T22:55:00.000+08:00

Back in Singapore for the intensive, 1-week module. My flight from Beijing was delayed by a few hours, so I spent the early hours of Sunday morning in the departure lounge of Beijing Capital Airport, which isn't exactly sparkling... Now I appreciate 24-hour Changi even more! All of the duty-free shops and so on in Beijing airport had posters with the English slogan "Miss your trace from the forms of fairyism". I can not begin to imagine what the original Chinese meaning was!

Getting up early today reminded me ofsome of the good things of life on campus: the birdsong, the early morning sunlight orange on the trees... It also reminded me that my room is airless, hot, and unpleasant to be in. I felt a real wave of affection getting to the class and seeing all my classmates; this week is the last time I'll see them all together - except graduation, I suppose, but that's a year away. They're all good people, and I'll miss them.

The course iteself, Innovation for Profit, is interesting; our visiting Professor, Schlomo Maitel, is a great speaker. I hope to learn a lot this week. On Friday, I move out of the Graduate Hall; I'll spend the last two nights in a hotel. So, I spent a lot of time yesterday sorting and packing my remaining possessions... I'm typing this as I try to contact a friend who will be looking after a case for me; supposed to be taking that over tonight.

I decided I would open a hosting account; I went for a personal solution with Server Logistics. I've got a basic installation of Drupal installed, so I'll keep popsting on how that goes...

2005-07-06T22:30:00.000+08:00

Well, I got Drupal sorted out, and gosh - it's really cool. I should point out that I'm just tinkering with a prototype installation on my Powerbook, but Drupal is just what I've been looking for to bea personal knowledge base, soooo I think I might splash out on an account with a hosted server account somewhere and get it running online. If I do, I'll probably move this blog there, because I'm fed up with not actually being able to read it myself.

Flying back to Singapore on Friday night, for my last course there. It'll be bittersweet. I'll be sorry to leave; I've had a few good years there, but I am going to be glad to come back to Beijing.

Tsinghua were supposed to send out the final confirmation of our course selections today, but nothing has arrived... I hope there's no problem....

I've just been reading some of the Business Week MBA journals. I haven't read them for a long time, so it felt kind of strange. When I was applying for B-schools, I read the journals assiduously; I couldn't believe that I might actually make it in to one of those fabulous institutions... Now, of course, the mystery is gone :-) It isn't time for a final round-up yet - still one semester to go! - but already, it feels great to be back in the world of work. If only I was being paid...

I met one of my classmates for dinner last night. A Beijinger with Singaporean PR status, he's one of the people I like the most from my classmates, a really down-to-earth, funny guy. We had a lot of Cantonese food, talked about school, work, love lives, life in Beijing... he's planning to move back to Beijing, and was encouraging me to stay here - as if I needed encouraging! It was a good night - the only downside that the food was richer than I'm used to, and gave me bad dreams, in which I forgot to go to MBA classes, and to hand in assignments, so I failed my MBA! I hope this isn't an omen ;-)

2005-07-05T00:05:00.000+08:00

Just a few things as they occur to me... I can't get access controls at the node level working in Drupal, and I can't figure out why... I've started learning the 双手剑，the large, double-edged straight sword used in Ba Gua. Since I'm still practising with the curved, single-edged sabre,　刀, I've amended the blog's subtitle slightly! The mysterious bruise that appeared on my arm after I came back from Thailand is almost gone. I still have no idea what caused it. The finger that was hurting ever since I fell must have been slightly dislocated; I followed the masseur's advice on stretching techniques, and the joint suddenly popped back into place one day... TOMA's virtues turned out to be equally balanced by her flaws, which after one thing and another means I'm single again, and somewhat relieved to be.

2005-06-29T22:59:00.000+08:00

One and a half weeks into my time in Beijing, and I am ridiculously happy here - as I mentioned before, the company I am interning with are basically my ideal company, and I'm really enjoying my time with them. It's looking increasingly likely that I'll be staying with them after my MBA finishes.

I heard today that my course choices for my exchannge at Tsinghua have been been approved. The semester has 16 teaching weeks, and two of my three courses are half-courses of 8 weeks. Both are in the first half of the semester, so somewhere in October, I'll go from 3 to 1 course, and will have lots of time to train up with the company...

I've joined up with my old martial arts school; they've expanded a lot and have many more students. Mostly they're studying San Da or Tai Ji Quan, though. There are still only a couple of us doing Ba Gua. The forms I learned last year are coming back to me, and I've also started learning the sword form. My ankle is still a problem, but I'm having an ongoing course of treatment with some medical masseurs based in my apartment complex, and that's helping a lot.

I'm using a lot of my MBA skills in the internship, but in particular the Knowledge Management course that I enjoyed so much in trimester 1 is really paying off. It's a fantastic experience.

Last night, I met up with B., my American friend from the language school last year, who was in town for a job interview. She's been living in Nanjing with her boyfriend, who's also a good friend and a fellow Ba Gua student. With any luck, they'll both be back in Beijing in a few months' time; we may even try to rent a siheyuan courtyard house together! We agree that Beijing is the only place to be right now; it attracts so many interesting people, and is about to take off in a dramatic way. There isn;t anywhere I would rather be.

I must highlight this post by Evelyn Rodriguez, which draws out so many themes that I'm trying to realize in my own life. I realized in a particularly difficult period in my own life a couple of years ago that I needed to reduce my reliance on external attachments, and to return to my natural self - or, if you like, to cultivate my Buddha nature. Meditation, qi gong, and Ba Gua Zhang are what work for me; and these are the things that have led me to this time and this place, where everything seems to be working out so well...

2005-06-22T18:07:00.000+08:00

Time seems to be flying. The work, the office, and my colleagues are great; I've really fallen on my feet. My colleagues think my accent is hilarious. We went out as a company on Monday night to Houhai lake, and had dinner on one of the boats. Fantastic. My boss recommended a medical masseur, and I went there to get some work done on my ankles; one session made a big difference, and discovered damaged areas where I'd only been feeling twinges. He also managed to make a big improvement to my injured finger as well, which is now much less painful. I've signed up for a 12-session course of treatment.

Started up with the Ba Gua and Taiji again, and feel much better for it. I'm blocked with the sword form of Taiji - I get to a certain point and can't remember what's next. I didn't try today; hopefully my subconscious will be working on it! Tomorrow night I'll try to go back to my old Ba Gua school, and start classes again.

Tonight I'll be sending in my course registration to Tsinghua. I it a glitch on Monday, when it looked like I wouldn't be able to get a place on the one-week intensive course in July at NTU, which would really have caused me problems - I wouldn't have been able to get enough credits to graduate! Anyway, I heard today that I have a place, so that's OK. In Tsinghua, I'll be signing up for Organizational Behaviour, Managing Global Innovation, and Human Resource Development. Unlike NTU, which operates on a first-come, first-served basis, Tsinghua operates a points auction. Luckily, OB is a required course and requires no points, so I can allocate a lot to the other two. The only thing left now is to enrol in a Mandarin course. I'll do that when I get back from Singapore...

2005-06-19T10:08:00.000+08:00

Oh, the joys of a guilt-free lie-in :-) It's months since I've been able to just stay in bed in the morning without anything particular to do!

Yesterday was quite busy. I lost track of the number of times I almost got hit by traffic; I've lost my edge, the skill of looking in all directions at once that you need to cross the road in Beijing. I've also lost my haggling skills! I paid more than I should in the Silk market, where I bought some clothes. I'd forgotten how outrageously high the prices they ask at first are. Still, I think I only paid twice what I should have; next time, I'll do better.

After a chat over lunch with the CEO of the company I'm with for the summer, I wsent out and about on my shopping trip. He's directed me to a massage place in the complex where I'm living; my ankle is still painful. I'm also concerned that when I fell, I may have damaged the cartilage in some of my finger joints, as they've been painful for some weeks now.

Anyway, I made the rounds of some of my old haunts, and ended the night at Lotus Lane, near Houhai Lake. It's even busier than last year, meaning that there is much free entertainment to be had by standing on the bridge over the narrow strip of water between Houhai and Qianhai lakes, and watching all the little paddle boats getting jammed together as they try to pass through. I love that whole area, and it's fantastic to sit on a rooftop bar with the bulk of the Drum Tower looming nearby. There are signs of something big being developed on the lakeside; I hope it won't diminish the presence of the old watchtower.

2005-06-18T10:51:00.000+08:00

Hooray, I'm in China! It feels like coming home - I'm only a few blocks from where I lived last year; people in various places I used to hang out in remember me and are friendly... and the sheer energy of China makes me smile and feel as if I'm waking up from a tropical torpor... My new home is an apartment, nothing to write home about but with living space, a nice flatmate, and AIRCON! Yes, at last! Blogspot.com is still blocked, so I can;t read this blog myself, but at least I can still post. Going out shopping for clothes today...

2005-06-16T11:28:00.000+08:00

Couldn't sleep last night, which reminds me that probably my abiding memory of the time I've spent on the MBA in Singapore will be of the chronic insomnia I had in T2, which affected my whole experience here. Ah well, it's water under the bridge now.

Yesterday evening, I met up with my Japanese ex-flatmate, who's back in Singapore for a few days on business. We had a nice catch-up session over a couple of beers. She's back in Tokyo, happy enough in her new job - she moved from a Japanese bank to Reuters - but still mulling over future possibilities: including an MBA! I gave her some views on that - particularly that before doing an MBA she needs to be clear on why she's doing it, and what exactly it is that she wants to get out of it.

After a couple of hours, she had to go to another appointment; I was just about to leave when one of my MBA colleagues, a part-timer I don't know very well, entered the bar, and so I stayed for another coupke of hours chatting and sharing opinions about the course. Very interesting.

So tonight I fly off to Beijing. My room is pretty much tidied, though tehre will still be work left to do. I think I am very slightly over my baggage allowance, but I don't trust my scales so there could be a shock at the airport! I've suspended my phone line as of a few minutes ago, and I don't think there's much left to do... need to get a haircut, pop out to Jurong Point for some last minute shopping... then off to the Middle Kingdom... Looking forward to it!

Last year, blogspot addresses were blocked by the Great Firewall of China, but I could still access blogger to make posts; don't know what the situation is like now, so I may not be able to blog from China. If so, I'll make my farewells when I'm back in Singapore for a week in July. For now, zaijian!

2005-06-14T21:46:00.000+08:00

WTF? A big, big bruise has suddenly appeared on my arm - I don't recall knocking it on anything...it's big, red and painful, over a big bump... How weird...

Anyway, went to shut down my bank account today, to the great amusement of the security guard who was reading the screen over the cashier's shoulder. I think he was amused that there was only S$25 left in my account - as if I would have shut it down when there were thousands of dollars in it!

Also went to shut down my hand phone connection. I've passed the end of my mandatory contract, so it should have been pretty straightforward - but my phone company, M1, kept me waiting... and waiting... and waiting... The screens to keep customers distracted were showing trailers for movies "opening in March"... and when I finally got served, they said I could disconnect the line but keep the number to reconnect at any time within a year, for only S$5/month... and they would give me a 50% rebate on that as well as waive the reconnection fee of S$200. Guess competition is stiff!

2005-06-14T00:52:00.000+08:00

Back in Singapore - that is, back to my airless sweatbox of a room that I will be VERY happy to leave. Got in to Changi just to late for the MRT, so had to take a taxi right across the island. Still worked out pretty cheap, though. Getting back to the room was a relief in one way - I was for some reason convinced that I had left perishable food here, and that by the time I got back the room would be full of ants and other scuttling things. But - no. No food, nothing scuttling. Hooray!

While I was away, Tsinghua released the Fall course details - and they've been changed! Two of the three courses that I wanted to do are not being offered any more :-( It shouldn't be too critical: the only vital course, Organizational Behaviour, is still being run, so the other two can be replaced with other electives... not much choice, though...

2005-06-13T14:05:00.000+08:00

Blogging this from a Bangkok cybercafe, having arrived from the metditation centre yesterday. What can I say? Wow....

This course was tougher than the first one last year. I took a lot of frustration and anger that had built up during the MBA, and it took me fully five days to clear that away. I was also incredibly tired after the exms, and the 4am starts didn't really allow me the chance to recover, so maintaining concentration was pretty tough - especially in the sfternoon sessions when the heat of the Thai summer built up! Despite that, I made some real breakthroughs in my meditation technique, and I feel totally refreshed and invigorated - and more determined to maintain meditatition in my daily routine. All week, I had intense bad dreams, meaning that deep-rooted sankaras were rising up; many other people on the course had the same experience, I discovered later.

It was also great on the last day of the course to talk to my fellow meditators. Some were really incredible people, with fascinating life stories, and it was a pleasure to meet them.

Anyway, tonight it's back to Singapore, and on with things. I have so much to do before I fly to Beijing on Thursday night... I checked my exam results online last night, and they were OK: mostly As. As expected. I just scraped through MBO, but a pass is a pass, so I'm happy. I did better than I expected in MA, so that was a pleasant surprise! The quantitative subjects are all out of the way now, which is a relief; the courses I'll be taking in Beijing are all qulitative, so I don't have any big worries.

2005-05-30T23:38:00.000+08:00

So. It's almost midnight. I've sent more boxes of books to Beijing. I've bought my ticket for my second flight to Beijing in July. I've sorted out my second fitting with my tailor. I've notified the International Student Centre of the date that i'll be vacating my room, and paid my rent up to then. I've said my goodbyes to TOMA; next time we meet will be in Beijing, and the ground rules of our relationship will change completely. I've made arrangements for some friends to look after a few things for me, and the rest is now looking manageable; between the two flights I'll be making to Beijing, I should be able to take everything I want to...

So this is pretty much it. The last time that I was getting ready to go to this meditation centre, in January 2004, I'd just left a pretty stressful job, and was about to go for a few months of studying Mandarin in Beijing before coming back to start the MBA. I had no idea what lay in wait for me... I just can't believe how quickly it's gone, or how much I've experienced... Now it's kind of full circle. Once again, as soon as I come back from Thailand I'll be off to Beijing, this time to a job. OK I still have one semester of studies, but they're all the qualitative type of subjects that I do well at. I wonder what lies in wait over the next 18 months..?

At some point, maybe when I get back from Thailand, I'll try to write up my impressions of the MBA so far. 10 days of meditation will probably help me put things in perspective... OK. So, tomorrow morning, up at 5am, taxi at 0550, checkin 0630, fly 0830. See you in two weeks.

2005-05-29T13:01:00.000+08:00

Oh, forgot to add: I went back to my tailor's. I don;t know what's gone wrong - the shirts I ordered don't fit, and he can't make the jacket I wanted because he hasn't got enough of the material... and he didn't call me to let me know. So unless I can find something off the shelf tomorrow, I'll have to try buying a new wardrobe in Beijing over the weekend that I arrive. I guess I should find stuff suitable for work in the department stores at Xizhimen, so that won't be too bad.

I took my Powerbook to the Apple Service centre - I was hoping that they could repair the screen, and a few other problems - but no luck. It's too old, the parts are perpetually out of stock, and getting them in would be so expensive, I'd be better off buying a new one. Well, it's still working perfectly well, so I'll put up with the annoyances for as long as I can. When I start getting paid, I can think about a new computer, not before!

I also finally completed the household survey. Given that the online forms completely failed to work, I gave up and just called them for a telephone interterview. It was a bit odd. They asked (IIRC):

My surname and FIN number
What do I do?
Why do I have a FIN number in an employment pass format when I say I'm a student? (Answer - because I got the number when I came here to work, and it didn't change when i became a student)
Am I a full-time or part-time student?
How do I get to classes? By bus or other transport?
How long have I lived at my current address?
Have I travelled overseas in the past year?

To be honest, it came across to me more like an immigration control questionnaire than any meaningful household survey. The guy asking the questions didn't sound like a native English speaker, and the line was a bit poor, so communication was a bit tricky. He sounded totally unsurprised to hear that the Internet submission hadn't worked, so maybe lots of other people have had trouble as well. Very odd.

2005-05-29T12:23:00.000+08:00

Back after a hiatus caused by the exams. I had three exams this trimester: Managing Business Operations,Managerial Accounting, and Managing International Trade and Investment. I was really worried; as I've blogged before, MBO had been problematic for me all trimester. On the other hand, we had a clear idea of which topics would come up in the exam. MA is a big field. I'm also weak in that, and we weren't given many clues. In the end, I put a lot of work into revising MA - about a week, which in the end didn't leave quite as much time as I wanted to go over MBO...

In the event, the MBO was tough; the topcs I had hoped for didn't come up, and I struggled through it. I have to hope that there will be some lenient marking - although, the Prof indicated in class that he wouldn't be too generous with marks... I don't have too much backup, either - a lot of marks for the final grade will come from class assignments, weekly quizzes, and so on, and a lot of those weren't too good for me.

The MA exam was very strange - under the time constraints, I know that I got quite a lot of the figures wrong, but for every question, I did know what it was about, and which equations etc were needed, and I was able to put in a lot of 'key words and phrases' to show that. So, I came out feeling that it wasn't too bad - so I was really surprised to hear most other people complaining how difficult it was... Either the time I put in really paid off, or I missed something important :-( In this cse, the exam contributes 40% of the overall grade; the rst is from class participation (not much!), presentations (OK), and a group project (good: we got these back after the exam, and my group got an A, with some nice comments).

MITI was a case exam, on the Florida Orange industry, which we were given a week in advance. I wrote a lot, but I don;t feel I was particularly insightful, and in retrospect, I can see that I misinterpreted a couple of points. Don't know how that will go, but on the other hand I think I've got a lot of marks for class participation for that course: it was 50:50 between class participation and the exam.

After the last exam, I was just so tired I was disoriented. It's taken me a while to come to terms with the fact that I am now finished at Nanyang Business School - I still have one trimester left of my MBA, but I'll be in Beijing for that... So for the last few days, I've been triaging all of my possessions: some definitely to come to Beijing, some definitely to be disposed of, some I'm working out what to do... There have been a few end-of-term parties; right now I'm feeling very hungover from last night...

TOMA has just been here; she's off for a couple of days' break in Malacca before going back to Beijing next week. I have a lot to do before going to the meditation retreat in Thailand on Tuesday.... Tomorrow I have to close my bank account, cancel my phone contract, send more boxes of books to myself in Beijing....

2005-05-15T02:22:00.000+08:00

I went in to my tailor today to get measured for my new work clothes. Looks like he might not have enough of one particular fabric to make a jacket for me ; grrr. I noticed he had a picture of him and David Beckham on the wall; apparently Beckham had half a dozen suits made ther, and was "very quiet". Even a cynic like me finds it easy to get caught up in celebrity mania... Anyway, then went on to Little India to buy luggage, and steyed there for a while to watch the crowds go by. Next, on to Chinatown, to my favourite bar. The heavens opened while I was there; real, heavy tropical rain. It wass cool to sit there under the awnings, with the deluge a few inches away, just missing my boots...

2005-05-14T01:10:00.000+08:00

Mmmmm. Roquefort.... popped into Carrefour for the first time in over a year tonight and picked up some fresh bread, a slice of Roquefort, and a bottle of red.... yum!

Talked to my tailor on Orchard Road tonight about getting some clothes run up ready to start work on arrival in Beijing. It will be quite expensive, but I'll just get the minimum done, and then find a tailor in Beijing to make more clothes as they're required. My brief from the company is 'elegant casual', and I'm taking The Avengers as my inspiration. (No leather catsuits or kinky boots, though!)

This morning, I tried to follow up the Singapore survey thing. From my Powerbook, Firefox was 'not supported'. Safari was 'not supported'. IE 5.1 was 'not supported'. So, the message is clear: according to the Singapore government, Macs are 'not supported'. -- Edited -- . So anyway, down to NBS to use the Windows machines there. Managed to get to the first page to log in. Had to enter my FIN (Foreigner Identification Number), and its date of issue. Entered details as recorded on my student pass. I "have entered an invalid number"!!!! As advised, if date of issue is not valid 'due to delays in database update' (shouldn't they have done this BEFORE sending out legal requirements to fill in this survey?) enter DOB. So, enter DOB. Not recognised. Give up. The only thing I can think of this is that my student pass has the same FIN as my work permit, from when I was working in Singapore before the MBA - so, maybe I should be entering the date that my original work permit was issued.... Unfortunately, the only date I have for this is in my passport, which is currently at the Chinese embassy, undergoing visa processing. It should have recognised my DOB, though... that hasn't changed, AFAIK. -- Edited -- .

|Updated:: Took out a few opinions about what I think of the quality of the Survey's internet services. Don't want to get sued, lah!

2005-05-11T23:57:00.000+08:00

The survey's web site is even more pathetic than I thought. My normal browser is Firefox but "that browser is not supported". NOT SUPPORTED? All you have to do is follow normal HTTP standards, you pathetic excuses for programmers! I've noted this before; by and large, Singaporean web sites require you to use IE - even when they aren't requiring you to use Windows as well; I can't use my bank's online services because they demand IE6, which is of course impossible for Mac users. With a few noble exceptions, Singapore appears to have damn few capable Internet service designers. I've ranted about this in an essay for Corporate and Business Strategy: with four official languages, Singapore should be a world leader in multilingual internet service design and development. But they're not. Anyway, trying the survey site in Safari gets me "Message from the ISAPI plugin: No backend server available for connection: timed out after 20 seconds." End of term report: "Must try harder".

2005-05-11T23:25:00.000+08:00

I've spent most of the day at Jurong Point today. I had a late start due to not sleeping well again, and then read up on a case study for MBO. Anyhow, so I went to JP to check out the prices for the various flights I'll be making soon. It turned out that the travel agent there could offer good prices, so I spent a while booking everything. The best part was, they could arrange my Chinese visa for me, which means I don't have to go to the Embassy in person (which I was planning to do tomorrow). Thanks to the new budget airlines, I've got a cheap flight to Bangkok to go to the meditation course. The bad news is that I have to check in at Changi at an ungodly hour in the morning. The good news (apart from the price) is that I'll get in to central Bangkok mid-morning, so there should be a good chance of getting reasonable accommodation. My flight to Beijing, back to Singapore (for the 1-week summer course) and back to Beijing are also confirmed, though I don't have to pay until my passport and visa get back to the travel agent next week. Because I hadn't expected to get the visa application done today, I had to get a passport photo taken in one of the shops at JP and I say without doubt that it is the worst photo that has been taken of me in many years! Still, despite my concern about the weight I've put on over the last year, I still look thinner than I did a few years ago!

I've been informed that I've been selected to participate in the 'Singaporean mid-decade national survey'. Participation is compulsory, of course. This being Singapore, I immediately wonder how random this is... I'm invited to fill in a form online, which has been happily timing out for the last hour or so. I though Singapore was meant to be a super-advanced, highly internet-ready nation? Their statistics section obviously got passed by and have their server running on a crappy old 486, judging by its performance. Oh well, got a few days left before the deadline. Have to submit to a phone interview too, sometime... Eeek!

2005-05-10T12:13:00.000+08:00

Most of my assignments, group and individual, are out of the way now... just one to go. Then a pause, to revise before the exams hit. It's going to be mad: apart from the revision,I have to get organised to go to Thailand and Beijing. Sort out my visas, buy tickets, decide what to do with my things. I couldn't sleep again last night, so I started to organise my room. A lot of things have been thrown out; some more are earmarked to be given away. My printer decided to stop working, conveniently saving me the trouble of trying to sell it. A friend has offered to let me leave things with her, which is great. Unlike last year, when I left a lot of things with friends while I was in Beijing, I don't know when I will be back in Singapore next - certainly not until February next year - so I only want to leave the minimum. So, I'm going to have to be ultra-ruthless with my things! I'll be back in Singapore for 10 days over the summer, so I can take more back to Beijing then. Some things can be posted, though that's expensive.

Going through my things last night reminded me of something else - Singapore is dusty. It isn't just me - other people complain of how dusty the rooms get in the Graduate Hall - and it isn't just the Hall, as whenever people buy an apartment in Singapore they try to get into one of the higher floors, both to get the breezes and to avoid the worst of the dust. Here, it just accumulates; it's really hard to keep the rooms clean :-( My room faces out over the area where the rubbish from the hall is collected, and a lot of dust and bits and pieces are blown up by the wind. The windows have meshes over them, which keeps out the bigger pieces, but as I'm on a low floor, there's a lot of crud that gets through. Just typing this reminds me of how glad I will be to get out of this room!

The BBC is running a new series on radio and on its web site called Work in Progress, which looks interesting:
Work in Progress is the title of this new exploration of the big trends upheaving the world of work as we steam further into the twenty-first century; and it is a work in progress, influenced and defined by my encounters as I report on trends in business and organisations all over the world.

2005-05-07T02:14:00.000+08:00

The end draws nearer... For most of this semester, I've been having "speak English" sessions with some of the Chinese students. I may have mentioned before that the Chinese in particular tend to stick together, and don't mix so much with the other students. The main reason for this isn't lack of ability to speak English - their English is pretty good - but a lack of confidence in speaking it. So, every Friday, and we get together and just chat. It's a 'safe place' for some of them to converse without feeling under any pressure; I guess they know I'm sympathetic, and won't laugh at them or put them under any pressure. In return, they help me with my Mandarin. Anyway, the exams are close, we all have project deadlines next week, so we decided that today would be the last meeting. To my surprise, they had bought me a present - nothing much, but traditional Chinese knotwork for good luck, and good fortune. For once, I really appreciate the sentiment of "it's the thought that counts". They are all such nice, genuine, people; I'm simply not used to people being so open and friendly. I'm really, genuinely touched, and I'm glad to have had the pleasure of knowing them. Fortunately, many of them will be in Beijing over the summer, so we'll meet there, and I hope we'll stay in touch.

Because of the language issue, I think that there is definitely a division within the MBA cohort. The Chinese are one big group; the Indians are the other, and both groups tend to hang out with their countrymen. Those of us who aren't from either country tend, on the whole, to associate with the Indians - again, because of the language, and maybe also because of cultural reasons (the Indians are more 'Western' than the Chinese, so there is more cultural affinity. I'm an exception to this; I know the Chinese cohort best, which is natural given that I've spent time in China, and that TOMA is Chinese. I do regret not getting to know the Indians better; we all get along well, but I haven't got to know and understand Indian culture as well as I might have liked.

Anyway, on to other issues. GM and Ford reduced to junk bond status!!!! IBM cutting thousands of jobs in Europe!!!! One reason I applied for the Nanyang MBA was to get established in the Asian economy, and when I hear news like this, I am very glad I did, when I did.

Also, without going into detail, let's just say that I followed certain results of the UK general election with particular interest, and I now know that some decisions I took with much heartache three years ago were the right ones, then and now.

2005-05-05T21:36:00.000+08:00

Wah! Our International Trade and Investment Class continues to amaze me. This week, we were studying Unocal, and the issues regarding their involvement in Myanmar's natural gas resources. There are a lot of complexities in this case, but one issue is clearcut for me - that Unocal knew, unequivocally, that their investment depended on railways and other works being developed by the army, using forced labour. Which is immoral and wrong, any way you look at it, right? And Unocal should - even if they don't divest - ensure that their entire supply chain is humanely treated, at least according to the norms of international law, right? Well, there are a group of guys in the class, mostly from finance backgrounds, who argue that the business of business is business, and there's 'no reason to get involved in politics'. Shit. Slavery is OK if the numbers work?? I never cease to be amazed. And they're such charming guys. There's a lesson to be drawn from that.

2005-05-05T11:25:00.000+08:00

I was talking to one of my classmates last night about H., my Indonesian friend. I met H. in Beijing last year; she had given up a good job to follow her passion (modern dance) and was in Beijing to research it. As I've mentined before, I realy admire H. not just because she's smart and effortlessly cool, but because she was willing to leave her comfort zone, and put up with being constantly broke and penniless in order to pursue her dreams.

It's just as well to be reminded of this, as being broke is increasingly on my mind. I've overspent my planned budget a bit at this point in the MBA, but the move to Beijing is going to involve quite a few more expenses than I originally anticipated (given the internship, I'm going to buy a few more suits and professional outfits). Maybe H. gets doubts about what she's doing, and certainly am. I think that if I had really followed my passions, I would have stayed in Beijing last year, and studied Mandarin and martial arts full-time. I have to keep reminding myself that I had a lot of good reasons for taking the MBA, and more of those reasons have worked out as planned than haven't. These days, I'm finding it hard to stay positive; I keep thinking about the downsides - the subjects I hate doing, the 'what ifs' over bad choices I made early in the course. I guess this is just all down to the fact that I'm almost three-quarters of the way through; that was it, my big chance, and it's mostly over. The positive side is that the MBA has already done what I wanted it to. It's equipped me with an understanding of lots of fields that I really want to know about (finance, operations and so on - all the subjects I can't stand but I'm glad to have studied. It's got me out of my 'programmer' pigeonhole, and into a more people-oriented field - with a job already lined up. OK, so there are plenty of reasons to be cheerful after all :-)

I mentioned in an earlier post that I've bought a new camera in preparation for my move to Beijing (no wonder I'm worried about being broke!). I've always enjoyed photography, and like to think that I can take a god picture occasionally. I'd like to work at it more, and get better; Beijing is full of interesting locations and people, so that will be a good place to work on it. So, I was really interested to see the 21 ways to improve your photography (PDF) article in Lenswork magazine, found via Evelyn Rodriguez

2005-05-04T02:39:00.000+08:00

OK, now I really can calm down a bit. Assignment finished, but very dodgy in places. Don't care too much, so long as I have something to hand in. I managed to find most of what I needed, but some of the symbols are undefined in the notes, so I've had to make guesses... I think Cogito actually enjoyed this class. I cannot imagine why :-(

2005-05-04T00:58:00.000+08:00

AAAAARRRRGGGGGHHH. Our Ops Management prof is a really nice guy, but his class handouts are, heh, unclear. I'm trying to get an assignment done and getting nowhere; I can't find the definitions of half the terms I'm meant to be using. The textbook isn't any help either; it's using a totally different notation.

Calm down, Carp. I've just heard that I have a place on a meditation retreat in June: 10 days of calm. Then it'll be a rush to get to Beijing but it'll be worth it. The retreat I went on last year was fantastic; it changed my outlook on life completely, and kept me calm for many months. I definitely need to go on one again!

2005-05-01T01:17:00.000+08:00

Oh yes, - today's links, surely only meaningful to me:

Looking into "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" from Perspective of Chi, Tao, Chan & Compassion
Legio VIIII Hispana. (Why is this written VIIII and not IX? I vaguely attribute this to a change from classical to mediaeval Latin, but I'm not certain...)
Battle of the Teutoburg Forest
Chinese dragon - including The Legend of the Carp, heh heh heh
Gododdin

2005-05-01T00:50:00.000+08:00

I hate having class on the weekend! Nevertheless, this morning brought a make-up class at Orchard Road for Corporate and Business Strategy. Today's topic was 'Singapore as a Logistics Hub', and although the group in charge of this made a thoroughly competent presentation, I still came away feeling that I hadn't heard much that I didn't know already. It's a pity, because Singapore really is struggling to estrablish a future role for itself. Our professor - who's pretty well connected - keeps trying to provoke us into coming up with ideas. I strongly suspect that some of our essays are read by people who subsequently write articles in the Straits Times. On at least three occasions so far, something that I wrote about in an essay (not necessarily for this course) has appeared, about two weeks later, in an article in the ST. Given the choice between a) believing that I am incredibly prescient and in touch with the thinking of the Singaporean elite, and b) that in the very small world of 'Singaporeans who matter', MBA essays are circulated, I think I'll go for the latter as more credible.

Anyway, after class, I popped into HMV and picked up a CD I've been eyeing for a while: the soundrack to the first three "Once Upon a Time in China" films. What a disappointment! Most of the music was there, true - but I particularly wanted the 'White Lotus' song that the little girl sings at the beginning of the second film, and that always makes my flesh creep... and it wasn't included!!! Aaargh!

It was interesting to discover, via his Wikipedia entry, that Jet Li was caught up in last year's tsunami; I hadn't heard that before.

Once again, I took the day off from the MBA; increasingly, I can't cope with it anymore. I really need to make an effort, just to get through the last few weeks (and exams!!) of this trimester. I had a nice time, though: I went to the Singapore Art Museum, the second-hand bookshop, and Boat Quay, before coming back and getting stuck into a report I have to write for Operations Management. It's dull, but I think I understand it now, which I didn't when I looked at it last weekend.

Waiting for me when I got back was an email from the Beijing company. They'd sent me a contract, which is great - it was a standard one, sent to all new employees - except that, in my case, it had an extra section about their corporate dress code :-) Remember I said that when I got the call for the meeting on Wednesday, I'd been on my way to class and was dressed pretty casually? I guess it didn;t go unnoticed! Well, hell - what do you expect? If you call someone in at really short notice, you've got to expect that they won't have time to prepare! It really isn't an issue for me; I was planning to throw away pretty much all of my clothes at the end of the MBA, because they're all getting pretty old now. The only thing is that I was planning to buy replacements in Beijing in order to reduce my luggage weight on the flight; now I'm thinking that I'll have to buy new clothes in Singapore, so that I look suitably presentable from day one...

2005-04-28T12:48:00.000+08:00

Before I do get on with the day, the IHT once again has some interesting articles. One of them discusses the future of the Sari. Personally, I really do hope that Indian women carry on wearing the sari. Here in Singapore, we see many women wearing saris in day-to-day life, and even at work; it looks really attractive, and is a very obvious and bold statement of pride in Indian culture. Alos relating to India is an article on improving India's image with tourists. One of my classmates went travelling in India in the last holidays, and came back stunned at how he had - he felt - been ripped off, overcharged, and cheated at every turn, unable to do anything without someone demanding money for it. As he put it, at the end he took care just to walk down the middle of the pavement, because he was faiarly sure he could do that without having to pay for it. He's still going back at the first opportunity, though!

2005-04-28T12:25:00.000+08:00

I was trying to post in the early hours of the morning, and I was rather pleased to see:

HTTP Status 500 - type Exception report message description The server encountered an internal error () that prevented it from fulfilling this request. exception javax.servlet.ServletException: Servlet execution threw an exception at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:269) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:193)
and so on...

Obviously, I was annoyed that I couldn't post, but that's par for the course with Blogger these days. I was peased, because in my last job, I initially tried to set up an online learning service using Cocoon, but I eventually gave up because it was so flaky. So, I pleased to see that Blogger, with all their resources and clever people, can't get it to work reliably either :-)

So why was I posting in the early hours? On the way to last night's MBO class at Orchard Road, I got a call from the company I hoped to intern with: could the meeting that was due at 12 today (Thursday) be berought forward to Wednesday night? Well, what could I say but yes? So, at 10pm and very casually dressed, I met the CEO at his hotel. As last time, we got on well, and were talking for two hours... the result of which is, not only is the summer internship agreed, I have a job after I graduate!!! Yes, a real, honest to goodness job, in the field I wanted to get into - the sort of job that I couldn't have got if I'd remained a techie, so persuading me to do an MBA. I'll be based in Beijing, with travel around Asia-Pacific and maybe Europe and the US. The exact details aren't agreed yet, but the compensation package is pretty acceptable for me. I will have to brush up on my now-rusty internet development skills, though, as that will be a partof my duties.

So, I've treated myself to a long lie-in. Now, I'd better get on with the day: still got assignments due, and the exams aren't far away!

2005-04-27T12:40:00.000+08:00

Wow - I'd planned to do a lot today, but I didn't wake up until late morning. I've been really tired lately, and have nodded off in class a few times (though by and large I think I've got away with it!). It's getting harder to stay motivated now - the real world is in sight again as I go through the job application process. To be honest, I just want the MBA to be over at this point - I want to be working again, with an income and a life... A lot of my fellow-students are feeling the same way, I think!

2005-04-27T01:10:00.000+08:00

I'm just about keeping up with my assignments, though it's not easy. Just finished working (for the moment) on questions about quality management at Jurong Shipyard.

. In this morning's International Trade and Investment seminar, we had an stimulating discussion on AIDS and corporate responsibility for the workforce. This was followed by an interesting presentation by a representative from the South African High Commission. She was a bit nervous at first - she was under the impression that we would be pretty aggressive in our questioning - but once she realized that we're really quite nice, she soon hit her stride! The issue of corporate responsibility, and the obligations a company has to society, above and beyond the strict demands of the law, is something we really only started getting into last week. Somewhat to my surprise, the vocal members of the group tend to be dominated by the number-crunchers who will only use financial grounds for approving 'socially responsible' policies. These are even people from developing countries who, for some reason, I expected to be a bit more sensitive about sweatshops, child labour, and so on. Others are more nuanced in their attitude - child labor is 'bad' if the children would otherwise be going to school, but maybe the best option if otherwise they will be begging or forced into prostitution. I find it very frustrating that a large number of the class tend to sit quietly without voicing an opinion. For me, I don't see how - in a global market - MBA students can expect to rise to a senior level if they don't give any thought to the broader role and responsibilities of a company beyond the bottom line and shareholder value. Companies don't exist in a vacuum: they are part of society, and have responsibilities to society.

I have another meeting on Thursday with the company I hope will be giving me an internship - and hopefully a job after graduating. We've been communicating a lot by email, and it's looking reasonably promising. One thing that's bothering me is that the salary discussions are in US dollars, but I would be living mostly in Beijing, and maybe Singapore. I don't really want to agree anything just yet, when I'm seeing more and more signals that China is considering floating or revaluing the RMB - which would immediately cut my effective salary, of course. I'm not sure what the best way is to negotiate a way of protecting myself against currency risk; I asked the NBS careers office, but they weren't very helpful. Bah.

2005-04-24T21:02:00.000+08:00

A few years ago, I lived in a town by the sea, in a house that was a stone's throw from the surf. Every now and again, I would drive north for several hours, passing through several seaside holiday resorts. Eventually, I would reach a certain small village and turn right, taking a road that led into the mountains which ran parallel to the sea there. Once at the foot of the mountains, I would turn left onto a smaller road, just wide enough for one vehicle, that quickly rose in altitude until it reached a 'Y' junction, marked by a signpost that stood out against the sky and the bare hillside (because the only trees there were windblown dwarfs). Taking the left-hand route led on to a narrow track that led in to a deep valley with only the occasional farmhouse to be seen. The road led through the farmyards, so this section needed to be taken carefully in order to avoid chickens. Eventually the road came to the very last farmhouse, solidly-built, with a great tree outside, nestling at the very head of that deep valley . Five hundred years ago, a man was born in that house who grew up to sign a king's death warrant. Parking the car there, I would start to walk up to the valley head, following a path that popular legend attributed to an empire that some thousands of years ago had gained a foothold on those hills; archaeologists, though, had shown it to be many millenia old when that empire was first dreamed of. Climbing that path led to a pass, where the path began now to descend. At that point, I would turn right, cross the stream, and set off up the mountain side by means of a barely-visible track that led through thick vegetation. After a long, steep climb, I would come eventually to a hidden lake, that nestled in a bowl, with mountain peaks on three sides. After resting for a while, I climb a scree slope up to the saddle between two peaks, and ascend to the right. Here, I would be on a ridge top, with bare heath dropping away on either side. From here, it was an easy walk to the nearest peak. On one side, a great ocean stretched away to the horizon. On the other side, the mountain plunged down to a broad, wild, plain, with another range of mountains on the other side - and another range beyond that, and then another, as far as the eye could see. Reaching this point, I could feel that I had physically walked back through the layers of history, and sat there surrounded by vast extents of time and space, that made all problems so insignificant that they dropped entirely from the mind. That mountain is thousands of miles away from Singapore, but I'm glad I can retrace the journey in my mind's eye; it still helps me to put things in perspective.

2005-04-23T01:22:00.000+08:00

Hmmm... according to The Political Compass, I am Economic Left/Right: -2.13, Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.31. That is, on a graph where the x axis is left wing to right wing, I am slightly left wing. On the y axis, where -ve is libertarian and +ve is authoritarian, I am rather definitely on the libertarian side. That sounds about right to me.

By the way, I should say... the insomnia is back.

2005-04-23T00:09:00.000+08:00

Hmmm, if I have S$35 available to spend on a book, should I spend it on Neal Stephenson's The System of the World, or Chuck Palahniuk's Stranger Than Fiction? A third, cheaper option is Kerouac: either Dharma Bums or Satori in Paris...

2005-04-22T23:05:00.000+08:00

(Post removed for revision!)

2005-04-18T22:53:00.000+08:00

A couple of weeks ago, I fell victim to a Singaporean architect's aesthetic sense... Many areas of Singapore have areas that are floored with smooth tiles, and they look very nice indeed! They also become very slippery when wet... and in the tropics, it rains a lot! So anyway, I slipped, and sustained a minor, but painful, injury. The Western doctor I saw wasn't very helpful, so I wound up getting my first experiences of acupuncture, and Tui Na over the weekend - and just one session has made a big difference. I was discussing this with friends tonight, and one commented "Western doctors are no good unless you've broken a bone; otherwise, better go to a Chinese doctor", and my limited experience of Chinese doctors so far would bear this out!

I referred the other day to the new RFID-enabled US passports; I see today, via Smart Mobs, that Singapore is introducing biometric passports as well, though they are using a different technology.

2005-04-18T00:09:00.000+08:00

TOMA and I have had a lovely day today; lunch in Raffles Hotel (after which we worked for a few hours in the teashop there), followed by a few hours on the Esplanade, watching the boats come and go, then dinner and a couple of beers in Chinatown. Great - especially as we've both been very busy recently, and haven't been able to spend much time together. I took a lot of photos and video with my new camera, which I'm slowly learning to use!

This is absolutely fascinating: satellite technology is being used to read ancient papyrus texts, recovered from an ancient rubbish dump in Oxyrhynchus, Egypt, including texts from Greek Antiquity and early versions of the Christian Gospels. I find it astonishing that the words of such ancient people are being brought back to life, so that we can understand their thoughts, hopes and daily lives - in other words, to understand them as living, breathing people for all their failings and cultural differences from us. I hope that in future something similar might be done in Asia, so that our distant relatives in India, China and South-east Asia can speak to as clearly as the se Hellenised Egyptians are now doing.

龙门 ：： Dragon Gate

龙门　　：：　Dragon Gate