Taking the lunch break to release some pent-up feelings.
In what was a casual conversation with a director 2 days ago about seconding me to another firm turns out to be rather serious matter.
Already two key partners have endorsed the move and the management will soon begin the process of sending me to a financial advisory firm to do...real financial advisory work. I welcome the move as this allows me to work in a field I am very passionate about but at the same time I feel the pressure to perform and excel in both firms.
It also means more workload, juggling back and forth between the two firms which in turns require me to up a notch on my time management and productivity tracking.
It is always easy to dream of doing something you want to do but when the real thing hits you its another story altogether. I reckon I need to chill out and instead of thinking of the looming pressure I will try to take it as a looming constructive challenge.
Being long on the stock market any upswings will certainly bring me a smile. Markets around the world have been rather resilent since 2009 trading started, shrugging off a slew of negative economic data and news...so I am still erring on the side of caution because I suspect behaviourial tweeking is at play more than 'fundamentals' or ... could it be that the markets have already priced in the risks and lower profit guidance?
I didn't make any concrete resolutions for this year because most of the time I forget about them so naturally. So I just let it be and see how it goes for this year but gave myself a general parameter on what I should improve.
Mostly to do with time management and prioritising tasks as there are more than enough jobs on my plate that I could possibly chew. Apart from doing taxation and auditing work I am also loaded with projects on IT business strategies, corporate strategic foresight and business advisory all of which requires considerable amount of brainwork - lateral thinking, analysis, critical reflection and the sorts.
The only problem is time. A partner popped into my workstation this morning with a stack of technology magazines and want me to digest the highlights and information and then possibly develop new or improve current IT business strategies for the firm and clients. On top of that is a backlog of books on loan to me by the same partner who wants me to pick up on strategic foresight.
The only problem is time. The projects excite me because the work process is dynamic with a lot of thinking and analyses involved but I've yet to produce solid results of revenue-generating ideas as I didn't put much priority into them. Ideas are in my head but it takes time to put into black and white formally. Meetings are coming up soon in which I've to present my ideas to the partners and clients. Racing against time to produce quality work and ideas.
The only problem is time...and also put on more thinking caps....
“So how’s the dating going on?” I asked while chewing a beef jerky and holding a nice cold beer.
Kuan sipped his beer and reluctantly answered, “Aiya...don’t talk about it lah...”
“Why? What’s wrong? Come on man...tell me....”
A long time friend, Kuan, came to Melbourne recently for a holiday and we met up one night to have our buddy beer session and he poured out his latest dating experience in which he’d hit the wrong type of girl described as a entirely different class altogether.
Six months ago Kuan got a job as an office assistant after quitting his previous job as a DVD salesman. He thought he would head no where if he stayed in his previous job and decided to upgrade himself for a better future and society standing. He fell for Melissa, a marketing executive in the company, who was friendly and nice to him. Kuan believed that she genuinely treated him as a friend.
“I thought I had a chance loh”, Kuan explained, “She was very nice to me and we even went out for a few times for lunch and dinner. Not only nice but pretty too. The whole package is very different from my previous girl friends. She’s like an angel!”
“Sure or not?”
“101% guaranteed!”
“Why extra 1%”, I asked in jest but with a deadpan face, “Anyway...and then what happened?” Another beer bottle I sat and listened to his story attentively.
“So I tried kaoing (courting) her loh but got rejected saying that I am not her cup of tea. Actually I know why wan...because I am like an Ah Beng (Bogan) mah....” he sighed and drank up his half bottle of beer.
I could empathise with Kuan’s story as it wasn’t just a failed love story but more of a class distinction that is getting increasingly prevalent in the urban centres of Malaysia, especially among the Chinese population. Five years ago I wrote an article on the phenomenon of a segment of Malaysian society which I called it the “The Rise of Anglo-Malaysians”, a group of Malaysians who adopt the English Language as their lingua franca instead of their native tongues. It is not difficult to find Malaysians of Chinese, Indian and to a limited extent, Malay heritage who speak English primarily in their daily lives.
Very much like in Singapore the Chinese Malaysian population is generally divided into two groups – Chinese speaking and English speaking of which the latter is more prevalent in the larger cities and the former in the smaller towns and rural areas. In the cities, the Chinese speaking group is still the majority but the younger generation, who are increasingly becoming English speaking due to higher education and the internet, are fast catching up in numbers.
Kuan and Melissa is a classic story of the distinctions of the two different groups of Chinese Malaysians. The heart of the differentiation lies with the perceptions of each group has for each other. The Chinese speaking group views their English speaking brothers and sisters as being snobbish and bananas (Caucasian wannabe). This group hold great pride in their Chinese language ability and take themselves as champion of Chinese culture.
Uncultured, rude, loud and unsophisticated are some of the impressions hold by the English speaking Chinese for the Chinese speaking counterparts. There are some like Jed Yoong who go at great lengths to give cause to close down Chinese schools entirely. While reading her blog I suddenly discovered that I am an inner city ghetto member just because I came from Bukit Bintang which many associate it as a Chinese speaking heartland littered with Chinese hawkers stalls, triads, pirated DVDs and prostitution.
The above, I must emphasis, are just some of the very general examples of the contrasts but are nonetheless valid starting points for comparisons.
Whether Melissa and Kuan failed or managed to work it out because of their different backgrounds should not be the main cause for such prospective relationship. A relationship, I believe, should be the domain of matching compatibility and personality. But the pressures from society are increasingly influencing younger Chinese Malaysian girls to look for English speaking Chinese Malaysian boys as their partners, which they believe are better in terms of ability to provide material comfort, status and have more mutual respect for ladies.
It would be nice if people could remove general stereotyping but that is the reality in which perception is king. It doesn’t matter if you a very nice Chinese speaking person but the initial impressions the person is likely to conjure are loud, uncultured and unsophisticated and among others not because they really are but the general stereotype imposed by society.
Sometimes I wonder whether such gaps exist because of inferiority complex. For instance the Chinese speaking group being viewed as loud and crude because Chinese dialects are colloquially spoken as such, but there are many English speaking peers who do not view and in fact even embrace the Korean language which is also sound very loud and crude. Is this because Korean entertainment is cool and hip? Could be as we can see how American media and entertainment influenced youths around the world. Madonna was Goddess, Micheal Jackson was King, McDonalds preferred over Char Siu Bao and etc.
I remember in the Singaporean movie, ‘I Not Stupid’, Fiona Xie played a snobbish teenager who openly declared in her essay that she wants to be a Caucasian and despise being a Chinese. I was once in the shoes of that teenager. I loved GunsNRoses, hated learning Chinese and spoke with an American accent as a very young boy. It wasn’t until I was 13 that started to embrace my Chinese heritage and even picked up the Hakka dialect to communicate with my grandparents. Today I still can’t read and write Chinese but could speak fluently.
For many years I was being called as an Ah Beng or Chinaman (Hokkien-Chinese term for a Bogan) just because of the area I came from. “What? You do not know how to read Chinese? Come on! You were from Bukit Bintang!” are some of the remarks I get occasionally and I got this remark because I do not know how to sing Chinese songs during a Karaoke session recently. They even thought that I was acting and trying to be ‘English speaking’. Once perceptions deeply ingrained are hard to remove from one’s head.
With already half a dozen of beers downed, I advised Kuan “Look at you. Look at your style and honestly you are not super lengchai. The way you speak and the stuff you like. So Ah Beng! If you want girls like Melissa you have to do something about yourself, brother. Girls like her will get turned off, you know?”
“Then how?” he asked.
“Put your leg down from the chair and eat your peanuts nicely. We are out of the DVD days on the street. Unless you find someone who is on your level”
“But I am very nice to her leh and not like other guys who play play outside”
“So what face the reality man...” and I downed the last bottle of beer.
The city was rather silent for an early Saturday morning. The air was unseasonally cold as I stood on the balcony observing the night skyline. Quiet and peaceful and third day into 2009.
With Monday approaching I will be joining millions of people around the world in yet another round of rat race. A race to earn a salaried living. Some might dread the Monday while others might welcome it with much enthusiam. A new beginning or the same ol' again?
A pick up in wind chill heightened the question lingering in me for the past few days - A new beginning, an improved year or the same ol' again? This in turn raise the question whether I will be the same ol' or an improved rat in this rat race. A race that is getting increasingly cut throat and 'dangerous' in the current economic climate.
Can the answers be in the form of being in the right place, in the right time and among the right people in order to be at the top of the game? Maybe, but this raise another question - How? Luck?
I wonder. But such questions wouldn't exist if my aspiration of what I want to be and what I want to achieve are lower. Then perhaps I would lead a much simpler and contended life enjoying the basic necessities and eventually be just another ordinary person in the future with a stable job, a house with mortgage, a loving wife, have kids, annual holiday planned and budgeted for over a year, retire with my superannuation and play golf weekly.
Rather simple, straightforward and that could be the story of my rat life. But no, this is not what I want.
Can I have another story instead? Or is it that a life story is only written by circumstances? More questions.
I looked up to the clear night sky and wondered whether is this how a journey of life should be? Dictated chiefly by circumstances and self-effort only plays a supporting role?
I then imagined myself high up in the sky looking down the cityscape and beyond. It was beautiful. I saw the laneways, roads, boulevards and freeways criss-crossing and meandering over the land. Those roads were built by men and they managed to built them with the help of a map which is just an image from the above. Clear and precise where the roads can be built to expand, to reach and to connect.
What if I have a map of my life? Can I do likewise what those urban planners do?
Why not?
I went back to my room, spread across a piece of paper and drew a stickman in the middle representing myself right now and another one at the top of what I want to be. The two stickmen are connected by a straight line representing the road in which the journey I want to embark must be travelled on.
So I drew a very basic map of my intended life but this wasn't enough. I needed to compose stories to complement the map. Three stories came up with its own distinct plots.
Story 1: I achieved my goals and became a cat. Story 2: I am just another another rat. Story 3: How I became a dirty and hungry rat.
So my life moving forward could be any one of the three stories. I can clearly see the possibilities of how each story can become reality provided if I do certain things and of course the influence of circumstances.
Each story has a basic premise of the following:
I am a tax accountant, I run a small investment fund and have ambitions for great wealth, power and to be a who's and who's in the corporate and perhaps, political scene. I hold a post-graduate degree. I am aware of current affairs and an innate understanding of financial markets. I am a silent observer of details.
Then from the basic premise I compose plots based on:
1) Became a cat - how? by exploiting my what I am, what I have, my eccentricity, embrace change and pounce on opportunities. 2) Just another rat - how? by taking things easy, happy with what I am and what I have. 3) A dirty and hungry rat - how? by being complacent, joining the wrong crowd, resist reform and losing hope.
The above are just the skinnies as each plot has to take into account of the catalyst, facts and circumstances, and what-if scenarios, or in a more technical fashion borrowed from Peter Schwartz, the factors of Driving Force, Predetermined Elements, and Critical Uncertainties. Let's not forget the power of imagination which is one of the most critical building block of a good story.
Now I am aware of the possibilities of what and how my life could turn out in the future. I am now more aware of certain signs, actions, reactions and non-actions that could possibly lead me to one of the three stories. It is almost a case of the best way of knowing the future is to create your own future.
I've composed three possible stories of my life which act as my roadmap to what I want to become, A Cat.
At the very least I have started to write my own stories. Wars and battles aren't won just by sheer brute force and luck but by having stories composed - Strategies.
I want to be cat and not a rat and I can't just sit and wait or merely dream to become one.
You are what you think you are but you are not what you think you are unless you do it.
I have embraced 2009 by taking charge of my life story and try not to lose my wanted plot.
Benkaiser is a Tax & Superfund Accountant in seek of Sun, Solace and Salvation.
His interests are in economics, finance, history and politics with a niche in observing Australia and East Asia.
