傻冒儿 Stupid Hat aka ShaMao'er

Literacy

Every time I get caught up in my thought's of America's exclusivity, I read something like this that brings me back down to earth: 

Bible is America's favorite book

Somehow we manage to prosper despite...

The first thing that comes to mind is that I would wager 90% of the idiots who responded "the Bible" never read the thing.  Honestly, its antiquated writing style and abundance of parables and the like does not exactly cater to the kind of folks who rated Dan Brown novels as the #2.  As an aside, I just could not believe how bad the writing was in The DaVinci Code.  I was given a copy by a friend when I was in China and it was so bad I thought I had a pirated version that had somehow been typed wrong.  Then I checked a version in the US and it was the same. 

 

Faded stars

Given that the Oscars was last night, I thought this might be a fitting moment to comment on the transitory nature of fame.  My mother sells old books.  Yesterday I was helping her pack up at the end of a book fair and came across a photo book of the the leading film stars in 1930.  I flipped through the book and realized that I only recognized a single name out of about 35 actors and actresses in total, Gary Cooper.

Now I'm no classic film buff so there is no real surprise that I don't know more of them.  I'm sure that folks knowledgeable in such things would know a lot more.  The thing that intrigued me was that these stars were most certainly household names in 1930 whose lives and antics were followed in newspapers and magazines.  Now their names mean nothing to the uninitiated. 

As with so many of my posts... I'm not sure exactly what my point is other than it intrigued me.   I've never understood many people's interest in the lives of these stars and looking through that book somehow seemed to validate that indifference I guess.

It's like...

I was sitting in a local cafe this morning reading the paper and having a coffee.  This cafe is located on the main street abutting an Ivy League university.  The customers in the cafe were about 75% students, 20% professors, and 5% others. 

Now I'm sure that all of my American readers are well familiar with this but still I was struck by the use of the word "like".  I was sitting in a veritable faux simile storm.  All around me the only sound I could hear was "like".  "Then he said, like, ..."; "and I was so, like,..."; "and then, like, I, like, did..."; "I couldn't, like, believe it, like, you know?".   These are a few I jotted down in literally a less than 30 second period.

These are Ivy League students.  It really made them sound pretty ignorant.  I can't think of a word that was overused to that extent when I was their age (not soooo long ago).   Not sure what my point is... it was really annoying so I guess I just want to vent.

ShaMao for sale

ShaMao'er is looking for a new job.  For those of you who read my "Should you work in China" post (my most read post ever), you probably can tell that I have been a bit disillusioned since my return to the US.  Although I have a job, I am looking for something that would better leverage my 14 years of China related business experience. 

The primary takeaway from my 3 month job search is that online job boards, even those that claim to cater to "executive" jobs, appear to be entirely useless.   I have applied through such boards to probably 100 positions or so and have received in total 3 calls from recruiters.  Two of them were talking about positions that had no relation whatsoever to my experience and one of them fled when I told him my current salary.

In the past couple weeks I have, however, obtained 3 solid job prospects which I am currently at the 2nd interview phase on.  All of these came about through references from former or current colleagues.  I have always been told that once you reach a certain level in your career the only way to advance further is via the relationships you have built and the colleagues you have impressed.   It is clear to me that this is the absolute truth and underscores the point I made in my previous post.

Hot Air?

This week has been climate change week for me.  I live within a 10 minute walk of an Ivy league university and often attend public lectures they hold quite regularly.  This week I attended two panels on climate change, one on corporate responsibility and one on emerging economies.  Coincidently, while researching one of the panel speakers who particularly impressed me, I came across this video produced by the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC). 

CBC - Global Warming Doomsday

The video made me think so much that I had to research some of the "experts" within and came across this:

Climate Change - The Deniers

I read each of the 27 short articles therein. 

Now I have been somewhat torn on climate change for some time now.  On the one hand is my natural skeptic nature and the slightly nauseous feeling I get whenever I am asked to jump on a bandwagon whose roots I either don't understand or seem nonsensical (i.e. Y2K, 90's tech boom, China economy, etc.).  On the other hand, there is "An Inconvenient Truth", constant media attention, and even presidential candidates talking about man-made climate change. 

About a year ago, I decided that man-made climate change is in fact real and a present threat.  I did not, at the time, do much research other than watching the movie and reading the mass media reports.  I believe I also downloaded and read the executive summary of the 2007 IPCC Climate Change Report as well. 

Now after reading and watching the above and attending the panel discussions, I just don't know what to think.  My skeptic nature has again reared its head.  These scientists are not peripheral figures.   In many cases they work at top institutions (i.e. Harvard, MIT, CERN) and in several cases were actually involved in the initial IPCC processes.  None are denying that the climate is probably warming. They are however uncertain as to the cause(s).  The panel discussions I attended at the University were also an eye opener in two ways.  First, while the professors did not come right out and say it, they were definitely very conservative in their opinions and outlook.  I don't think they would dare to say they were actual skeptics in a crowd that was 90% college students.  Which brings me to the second point.   The students attending reminded me an awful lot of evangelicals, or nazis, or red guards (pick your metaphor).  Based on their questions they were so sure of man's (and particularly corporations) evil agendas and rabidly eager to burn them at the stake (well, maybe not "burn" given the carbon that would emit).  They were clearly not so pleased with the reticence of their professors.  I can quite easily imagine these students graduating and joining the political side at the IPCC as alleged in one of the articles linked above.

So now I am again in my uncertain state.  Right now I guess my position is that green technology is a good thing whether or not mankind is causing climate change.  After living in China I think that I am more sensitive to air quality than most Americans. It is definitely better to live in clean air and with clean water than not to.   It is definitely better to not rely on foreign oil and natural gas if possible.  As a result I would still encourage governments to incentivize R&D, increase efficiency, and the like.  I would, however, not agree with radical policy changes that might have significant adverse economic effect on a wide range of people until the science is a lot clearer than it appears to be today.

Endgame!

Last night I watched a little more than half of a "documentary" on the web called Endgame, Blueprint for Global Slavery.   The whole thing is over 2 hours long but I am not quite masochistic enough to endure it all.  The film is about some supposed conspiracy by a bunch of the world's wealthiest bankers, senior politicians, other big-business leaders, and the Queen of Belgium (!) to do something which is apparently evil.  After over an hour of watching the thing I'm still not clear exactly what it is that they are conspiring to do.  Something about creating a world government that will kill 80% of the world's population and then enslave the rest.  Why they would want to do such a thing is never brought up.  But then again why would it be? (sarcasm)

I have met quite a few conspiracy theorists in my life including a member of my own family.  The one thing that all of these people had in common was uneducated intelligence. Without exception each was above average IQ but due to various life and/or personality issues had never been educated at a decent university and had never reached what they would consider their full potential.  There is something wonderful about a university education that somehow, almost inadvertently teaches critical thinking skills.  I honestly would be amazed to find very many if any well educated people amongst the ranks of conspiracy theorists.  I would be equally surprised to find many dumb people.  The best way to eliminate these conspiracy nuts would be prevent their appearance in the first place by ensuring that every intelligent child is identified at an early age and compelled if necessary down the correct path that will lead toa good education and eventually, hopefully, a productive life. 

Back to the movie, what a piece of absolute drivel.  Literally a minute did not go by where some inane point wasn't made that could not be refuted with a 30 second Google search worth of research. 
But thats the point.  Without critical thinking skills someone would never think to make that search.
Oh, by the way, it was at I think #5 on most viewed on Google video.

Nietzsche on prozac

I watched a documentary on the life and thinking of Nietzsche the other day.  In general it was quite interesting.  The thing that struck me however was that the various experts and biographers interviewed went on and on about his struggles with the giant questions of good and evil and the future of a world
where god is dead but never once mention that he was clearly suffering from manic depression and perhaps other mental ailments as well. 

Now mental illnesses are of course of a physiological nature having to do with synopses and transmission of protein between neurons and whatnot.  As a result, had Nietzsche lived today it is likely he would be
diagnosed and put on some drugs to try restore "normalcy" to his brain functions.  I wonder what he would have written about then?  Would his writing have been as poignent and influential?  I'm not sure.  But I thought it was interesting to speculate on the likely fateof philosophers in the light of current and future medicine. 

Oh, my other thought was the whole God is dead thing. That was great and extremely relevent
for the 19th century.  My reinterpretation for the 21st century: God is resurrected as Man.

Should you work in China?

Going to break my rule about not posting about my personal life because I think this is important.

Recently my firm had a national meeting via internet talking about various success stories and initiatives.  One of the messages from leadership was to encourage employees to take advantage of the firm's overseas secondment opportunities, particularly in China and India.  Based on my own experience, I don't think they could be offering worse advice.

I hope my tale will be taken into consideration by any Americans who are thinking about going to China to work and also any working there now. 

I had first lived and worked in China back in 1993-95.  Upon my return to the US I got my first entry level job in the US.  I progressed very quickly over the next several years.  My job was never very China related over this time though the fact that I spoke good Chinese was useful simply because my bosses assumed I must be smart.  I was always interested in going back to China for a time and when the opportunity arose to work in Shanghai founding a new department I jumped at the chance.  I worked in China for 4 years, returning to the US last June.

My experience since I have returned suggests that gaining work experience in China is not only not an enhancement to one's career but may even be seriously counterproductive.  In my case at least it is clear to me that my career would be in much healthier shape had I not gone back to China.  I think the main message is that if you go, you should be prepared to stay.  You should be prepared to accept that your career will be in China.  You may not easily be able to just work for a few years and then return home.  Here are a couple of the reasons:

1)  For the most part, you do not learn anything usefully transferable to the US  when working in China.  For instance, you do not typically learn anything about cutting edge or best practice management or process techniques.  You may learn a lot about how to do business in China, but this has little relevance to doing business in the US.

2) Despite the relative prominence of China in the media these days, China is just not thought of as terribly important by most companies in the US.  I know this is hard to imagine for those currently working in China.  However, I have now spoken to many high level professionals in many companies and it is just a fact.   Profits there are typically either non-existent or minimal when compared to other regions.   Even if they are manufacturing the majority of their goods there there is little need for someone who knows about this in the US.  The need for these people is in China.    Also, there is a perception that companies typically don't send their best people to China.

3) Once you reach a certain level in your career there is nothing more important than the personal connections you make.  Now I'm sure that some people are a lot better at maintaining contacts than I am but it is very easy to let former relationships (particularly medium-level type) atrophy.  The opportunity cost of my time in China has really become clear now.  Cultivating high level relationships in the US as I would have done over the past 4 years had I stayed would have been invaluable now. 

Now I'm sure the above does not apply to everyone.  It depends on the type of job you have and the level as well.  But I do hope that people factor these things in as a risk when considering overseas assignment.

In case your wondering, I am currently employed but doing work completely unrelated to China.  I will likely end up back in China if I want to do work relative to my experience now.

Why didn't I go to law school?

Found this little gem inside a contract I was reviewing the other day.  Man, I just love lawyers.

Section 6.10. Number and Gender.  Whenever required by the context, the singular number shall include the plural, the plural number shall include the singular, and the gender of any pronoun shall include all genders.

Its almost a poem. A real work of art.

Offshoring ethics

In my  job I often face an ethical quandry.  It happened often when I was in China and is also happening here.   One of the services we perform is to assist client companies with outsourcing of various functions.  In many cases, this outsourcing takes the form of offshoring .  The question that bothers me is if it is ethical to assist companies in this type of endeavor? 

I have pretty much reconciled myself to the offshoring of manufacturing.  The business drivers are too strong to deny and the manufacturing labor force in the US seems able to migrate to employment in the services industries.   What I am grappling with more now is the offshoring of more educated positions.  Companies are beginning to offshore their back-office functions such as purchasing, accounting, supply chain, and even legal functions.  US tax return preparation is being done in China as well as US patent applications.  What is going to happen to these professionals who lose their jobs?  Is it possible that they can all survive by opening Yoga studios or massage therapy clinics?  I am not sure.  I don't have enough understanding of the fundamental economics that involved in a transformation of this magnitude.  But it does bother me on a pretty much daily basis.

Would appreciate any thoughts on the matter.