An Empire State of Mind (Pt. 1)

2011: Happy Year of the Rabbit!

Outside the Shanghai train station.

The depressed mascot/migrant worker (most likely) was shuffling outside the department store entrance with its head down the entire time, and people would squeal and take photos with it. (Analogy: Would you take your picture with a mangy dog?) Then it'd continue to shuffle, shuffle, shuffle, pause... turn around, shuffle shuffle... hope you caught a break this year, buddy.

My Winter Break adventures were officially a total bust. I arrived back in Nanjing last night. Today I came to HNC to run a few errands and bumped into a couple of classmates who managed to go to some amazing places -- Yunnan, Rajasthan, (one of my friends is even in Cameroon)... oh I just wish I went somewhere I've never been before!!!! But no, my entire break was spent in Shanghai, Hong Kong, New York, and Taipei. Still a fair amount of travel and I actually thought that it was time well-spent in SHA/HK/NYC/TPE, but I was really itching to go somewhere new. :( Whine, whine. I guess the crappiest part of the whole deal was that I was fully prepared to go backpacking, so all I had with me were one suit, one pair of work pumps (Asia Career Trek, see below), my most unflattering hiking clothes, and one pair of worn-ass Timberlands. That's it. Now I understand how people survive with only one week's worth of clothes for their entire lives. Timbz in tha club! Timbz during teatime! Timbz at expensive restaurants! It works... because you HAVE to make it work, biatches!

Anyway, my travel plans were dashed this break because: 1) I had to go back to New York for just one week to take care of family, and 2) the darned summer job search. For both these reasons, we stayed anchored to Hong Kong for way longer than intended. On the flip side, the last 5 weeks have been extraordinarily enlightening in other ways... and I feel like I've gained a considerable amount of clarity for the future.

I spent my first week of break on SAIS's Asia Career Trek, which was a 5 ULTRA PACKED roadshow-like ordeal, where we met with over 30 employers in Shanghai and Hong Kong. I wasn't really sure what to expect coming in to the trek, particularly because I had some work experience under my belt already (and that makes you somewhat jaded, picky, and a bit snobby). However, I have to say that I learned something valuable from each different destination (city, employer, industry group). The Asia Career Trek was seriously kick-ass and extremely well-executed and I recommend all SAISers to apply next year! I also recommend women to be prepared to wear your heels for a week straight for over 12 hours a day. If your feet aren't bound, they sure will feel like it at the end of the trek (when in China?).

My personal takeaways were:

• Even though everyone scares you about needing a native Chinese fluency level to work in the mainland, the reality is that it's really not that bad. Most high-level jobs use English and Chinese mixed together, even in jobs located in Shanghai (not Hong Kong). Speaking is also exponentially more important than reading/writing, and if you've passed 4th level college Chinese then you've probably got the goods. If you've gone to ICLP, then you're golden. If you've gone to HNC, then you are the coming of the second messiah.
• Although Shanghai is quickly catching up to Hong Kong in terms of sophistication and importance, there is still a considerable disparity in terms of opportunity especially in the finance sector, whether or not you can speak Chinese fluently. This is because of the many restrictions the Chinese goverment places on the financial sector (making their products pretty vanilla, lacking complexity), thus Hong Kong is still a much better place to start out for finance.
• Getting a job the official route, i.e. HR and resume drops, are pretty darn ineffective. Networking is definitely the way of the wise. I was very lucky to receive an offer through a SAIS alum.
• There's all this talk about incoming local talent in the media. Yes, there's a ton of highly intelligent mainland Chinese graduates every year, but each employer still emphasized that there's still a LACK OF TALENT in China. The hard truth is there's still a gap in soft and hard skills that employers are looking for, so we (Westerners looking for a break in China) are still in tha money, babyyyy~~~!
• Sorry friends, I do dearly miss you all but I definitely want to stay in Asia. Not sure where still, but I just can't go back yet.

Next: my trip back home to New York...