You know how you always wondered how Confucius came up with all those pearls of wisdom...I now think I know how...Perhaps, this wisdom is ingrained in the everyday moral and work ethics of Chinese people...So, today, I dragged my chinese in-charge (baji) for dinner with me to the wonderful desi restaurant that I discovered last week...And my God, I never knew Chinese people can be so wise and sage...She literally showed me the way forward to build a career, gave me vision, motivated me, advised me and showed me all the possible paths to a future career...I had the impression that Chinese people were very hardworking, very industrious...Yet, now I can see why the 21st century will belong to China...They have vision...They know what they want and they make plans on how to get there plus they have these great qualities of being ruthlessly honest, not having any complexes (superiority or inferiority), any inflated or deflated egos and the desire to work their arses off...
She was like I know you being a Pakistani and me being a Chinese, we'll always feel different working in a western cooperation...Their might even be some racial undertones which might impact your ratings but the important thing is never to be bogged down by them...Remember you're here for a purpose i.e to gain international exposure and technical knowledge...So the exact words she used was that I should put my head down, work hard, don't care what others think, make a reputation for myself through the quality of my work and the effort I put in...If socials and department meetings don't seem worth the time, then only attend them thinking that it is part of the job and the upper management notice who's attending and who's not...and the golden principle, wait for it..........was: "Be like a sponge and absorb all the knowledge and experience that this big corporation has to offer through its huge knowledge base and diverse client portfolio"...And the thing I loved the most was when she said that politics are always there in an organization; people might talk behind your back, might shout at you and what not but don't get bogged down...never be disappointed and remember the perfect response to all this is to keep smiling...She said life is too short, visit new places and meet new people...
Lastly she gave me a possible career path which goes something like this: get qualified, move to london, do something in corporate finance or investment banking for 2-3 years, do an international secondment in hong kong or mainland china as that's where the majority of the big business is taking place these days as major corporations move there or invest in China and the far east...This according to her can equip me with the skills that can open two major markets of the world: India and China alongwith the West and the Middle East which I already have some understanding of...To top it off, she suggested that I should follow my dream of an ivy-league MBA, after 8 years of experience working...So here you go: thats what you call a 10 year plan...After that, according to her, the world will be my oyster and she suggested that I should aim to open up my own business by mid-30's, even if its a restaurant or a corner shop!!! :S
Ha! We plan and plan yet it's the Master Planner above who ultimately decides whether they'll materialize in the end...There was one flaw in the Chinese way of life: 90% of them are atheists...The communist ideology does not cater for the existence of a Supreme Being...I tried to understand her reason for not believing in a higher power, of not being able to hold yourself accountable for actions in this life by believing in accountability after death...She kept arguing about man-made laws, of them being strictly implemented, of educating people and instilling social and ethical values from an earlier age, of living life to the fullest and then ashes to ashes and dust to dust...I didn't try to impose or anything...I just told her why I believed in God and what it meant to me me and then when I told her about our Holy Book and of scriptures of other religions, she kinda sorta got interested, so I'll probably give her a link tomorrow to a nice Chinese/English translation of the Holy Quran...Who knows, she might actually at least start showing some inclination towards the concept of a Supreme Being...
I'm really lucky in this sence...I keep meeting really nice people and that too at the right time...First it was the kaali aunty, then the german baji, then another chinese baji, a singaporean aunty, a malaysian collegue, an indian bhai...All these people have made this journey and this experience invaluable to my future ambitions..After exam success one tends to get complacent and get drowned in the mundane routine of life...At least, the chinese baji stimulated some dreaming in me...And yea, I wanna visit Prague in the xmas break...There are some historical cities that must be visited in the winters and its been said Prague is one of them, plus its quite cheap to get there...So fingers crescented, lets see if I can celebrate new year in Prague :D
http://www.directline-citybreaks.co.uk/Prague%20City%20Breaks%20Search%20Offers?source=google&gclid=CJzitNiTyp0CFYIA4wodn1kHqQ
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