Hong Kong sights

Hong Kong Local time Thursday 4:12pm

I wish to share a couple of things I have seen so far on my trip in Hong Kong and China.

Whenever I ride the subways, I always get a kick out of the automated announcement whenever a train approaches a station asking riders to “mind the gap.”

This was taken on Hong Kong Island when me and my parents were walking around looking for good deals. The Wall Street Journal had an article in August about Hong Kong’s industry of “tutor gods.” These are the Hong Kong equivalent to the Princeton Review and Stanley Kaplan, except that their brands revolve not around the company but the personality of the head tutor. "Ken Sir" at far left is an English tutor who was mentioned in the article.

“Hong Kong stands out, though, for instructors who boldly tout their success rate -- and their own images. They pay to have their faces plastered throughout the city on 40-foot-high billboards and the sides of double-decker buses. They're also known for buying ads that take up the entire front page of newspapers -- spacemore commonly filled by banks and property developers. One local television station is even preparing to launch a fictional drama series based on the lives of the tutor gods.”

I saw this earlier today in Tsim Sha Tsui. I was very surprised to see a billboard for the recent election in Australia. The only rationale that I can think of is since so many Hong Kongers have emigrated to Australia, this advertising may be targeted toward the ones who have since returned or are on vacation. Kevin Rudd won Saturday’s election and will take office on Monday as Australia’s 26th Prime Minister.

Evangelist Franklin Graham from North Carolina is having a in Hong Kong starting tonight.

I saved the best for last. This is a sticker on window of the tour bus we used over the weekend for our tour of Guangdong. I believe the translation is as follows:

“If you cannot see the scenery because your glasses are outdated, you may break window with hammer.”

Al Gore's been here

Hong Kong Local time Tuesday 11:00pm

That's the view I took from our hotel room last week. Last Tuesday I was at a convenient store paying for a soda when the clerk said she wasn’t going to give me a paper bag. I took it to mean that she must have ran out. Then she explained that her store was part of a chain of stores that agreed to not give out plastic bags on Tuesdays to help protect the environment. If I really wanted a plastic bag, I could get one in return for donating 20 cents (2.5 pennies USD) to an environmental fund.

After I returned to the hotel room, I saw on the news that one of the larger supermarket chains in Hong Kong announced it was going to stop giving out plastic bags altogether, unless the customer was willing to cough up the 2.5 pennies per bag. The announcement didn’t prove too popular with customers and the chain announced today that it would go back to giving customers plastic bags for free.

Giving thanks

Shenzhen local time Friday 11:52pm

 

Greetings from China. My parents and I spent the past three days in Hong Kong and today we met up with some of my mom’s friends for a three day tour of Shenzhen, China. Even though I am in a communist country halfway around the world, I have not forgotten that it is Thanksgiving time in the United States and, in accordance to this blog’s tradition, I am going to share with you some of the things I am grateful for as we get ready to close 2007.

 

The foremost thing that I am grateful for is how my religious faith has sustained me throughout this job search. If someone had told me prior to business school that I’d be without a job six months after graduation, I would have thought twice about going. The past six months have been disappointing. Yet I am surprisingly hopeful about this job search and I credit this to God having prepared me for this. Over the past two years, I would spend my prayer time not so much presenting to God a list of things I wanted. Instead I would ask Him to give me spiritual preparation for whatever plans He has for my life.

 

One of the things I have noticed since arriving in Hong Kong and China is that this is an extremely secular place. Christianity has a very underground presence here, especially in comparison to aspects of Buddhism which is everywhere. Yet Christianity is slowly winning the hearts and minds of the people here. When I was taking the underground train this morning (I purposely did not say subway because in Hong Kong a subway is an underground pedestrian tunnel you use to cross the street) I saw a sign advertising a Franklin Graham event in the next couple of weeks. I know a UNC alum who is a missionary in China working with Chinese students. He gave me two interesting pieces of factoids. The first is that in the last 50 years, the number of believers in China has increased from less than 20 to about 110 million. The second is that approximately one out of every four students who hears the gospel eventually becomes a believer. If this trend continues, I will live to see the day when there will be more Christians in China than in the United States.

 

In a little more than a week, Imus returns to morning radio – right in time for next year’s election. Now if only he could get a local station in North Carolina.

35,000 feet over the North Pole

Hong Kong Local time Tuesday 9:53pm

Greetings from Hong Kong. On Sunday me and my parents got onto Continental Flight CO99 at Newark and landed 15 hours later in this former British colony. The flight we took was an interesting one. I once heard a piece of trivia on the radio that CO99 was (this was around 2000) the longest daily scheduled flight in the world and when the Boeing 777 flies directly over the North Pole, the automatic pilot has to be disabled to avoid interference from the Pole’s magnetic core. While the flight may no longer be the current owner of this title, it is still one of the longest flights in the world.

Right after we took off at Newark, the plane took a northeastern course, flew over the Davis Strait, crossed over Greenland, and with the help of the 100 mph tailwind, crossed over the North Pole and plotted a southern course to cut through Russia and China. This flight sometimes takes a northwestern course to the North Pole, depending on the time of year and/or the prevailing wind conditions.

We have been in Hong Kong for a little more than 24 hours now. As usual, I have much more to write than I have time (or energy) to do so. I will do my best in the following couple of weeks to keep all of you informed on what I am seeing, hearing, and feeling in this part of the world.

11:10am update: OK this is not the great video I have ever posted but I filmed this out the plane window during the aproach last night to Hong Kong International. The plane was flying over Hong Kong island in the northeastern direction and you see Hong Kong island at the bottom of the video, Kowloon at the top, both portions separated by the bay. The tall buildings you see on Hong Kong island make up Hong Kong's Central district.

I am using free WiFi at a place where the AOL blog site is blocked, I am sending this via AIM and dunno if (or how) it will be posted. Will try again at another location 7-8 hours later. In the meantime, am going to have lunch in the nice warm (mid 70s F) weather.

Keeping my emotions in check

This past Tuesday was the six month anniversary of my MBA graduation. It has been more than six months since I received my MBA and I have still not managed to find a job. Tomorrow I am leaving for a trip with my parents and in all likelihood, I will not return to North Carolina until January.

 

This is certainly not the ideal situation to be in. About three weeks ago I had two interviews, one was a preliminary phone interview for a business intelligence position with a computer hardware company that I very much want to work for and the other was for a product manager position with a company many have never heard of. I sensed that the company that I did not want to work for as much was on a much quicker decision schedule than the one I had the phone interview with, which told me that it would require two weeks to decide which candidates to bring in for a company interview. Right after the two interviews, I remember thinking that both went well and worrying about getting the offer from the one I was not as interested in and having the offer force me to make a decision to possibly forego interviewing with the hardware company. I even wished that the manager would take his time in making the hiring decisions so I would have as much time and opportunities to interview at the other company as possible. In the weeks since I have heard feedback from both companies – the one that I wanted to work for has decided to not offer me an interview and the manager from the other company has decided to wait until he moves here from Utah before making his decisions. In a way I got exactly what I wanted – the company I did not want to work for as much has decided to take its time in making a hiring decision and yet I find myself wishing I had received an offer so I would at least know I would have a job comes 2008. This experience goes to illustrate just how emotional this job search process has been and how easy it is for my emotions to overwhelm my decision making process.

 

Last week, the same week I heard the decisions from the two companies, was a rough week. I looked at the calendar and really began to worry about this job search. I worried that when I come back from my trip, my credentials would “expire” when recruiters look at my resume and realize that I have not worked in six months. It was the type of week where I had doubts about myself, about my faith in God and about His faithfulness. I felt as though God was “playing chicken” with me – to drag out this job search as long as possible to see if I would swerve off the road. I remember praying for some kind of sign that He was still with me and got my answer on Sunday in church. The title of the sermon was “How much time do you have?” The speaker talked about how we should not view time as a threat but as … I actually don’t remember what the rest of this line was and will have to check the audio tapes for the actual quotes. But it made me realize that instead of questioning God’s faithfulness, perhaps I should be questioning my own.

 

On a programming note – I mentioned that I will be leaving the country for a trip with my parents. I am not going to reveal our destination just yet except to say that we are scheduled to land around 7am Monday (all times Eastern) and I will try to update this blog around Monday night or Tuesday morning.

Overheard at Panera

Usually these “overheard” blog posts are about things I have overheard people say that I find odd or unusual. This time I am writing about a situation where I said something that someone else overheard and found quite unusual.

 

I met up with a UVA classmate yesterday at Panera on Franklin Street. She was a year behind me and is now a news reporter for one of the local newspapers. We were recollecting and reminiscing stories about people we both knew during our years at UVA and the following exchange took place.

 

Me: Do you remember Sam H.? He wrote for the Cavalier Daily and lived on the Lawn.

Friend: Oh yea. Sam H. is now an actor out in L.A..

Me: Are you sure? Sam H. went to law school. The Sam you’re talking about is Sam S.

 

At this point a girl in the next table jumped up and excited proclaimed “I know Sam S.! He’s my cousin!” Apparently she overheard us talking about UVA and thought about her cousin and almost immediately I mentioned his name.

 

Small world.

Jack Bauer suspended indefinitely

Unfortunately what I am about to write is not about a storyline in the upcoming season of 24. According to reports, it looks like the January 13, 2008 two-hour premier may be delayed due to the writers strike.

“Most notably, the network is postponing the seventh season premiere of “24,” which was originally scheduled for January. The move will “ensure that ‘Day 7’ can air uninterrupted, in its entirety,” a Fox press release states.”

One writer who has no plans to go on strike is yours truly. In the weeks ahead, I will be filling you in on details on my recent experience on the job search front, a rather disturbing piece of mail that I got this week, and one particular trip that I will be embarking upon. Stay tuned!

On politicians and job seekers

Today is Election Day and this morning I visited my polling precinct to cast my vote for various candidates for Durham City Council and Mayor of Durham. (When I moved over the summer, I didn’t change my registration and my “voting address” remains the same from when I lived at Alta Springs. I could never figure out why Alta Springs uses a Chapel Hill mailing address even though it’s technically part of Durham County.)

 

I have not followed the local political scene much over the past two years and mostly relied on some rather superficial methods upon which to choose my preferences. For the Durham City Council race, I based my choices (these are at-large districts where the top three vote getters win) on a visit to someone’s house last week. I was in the kitchen and saw a newspaper clipping on the refrigerator with a list of candidates. Three names were circled and those were the three (I voted for only two because I forgot the last one) I voted for today.

 

 

The Durham Mayoral race pit incumbent Bill Bell against challenger Thomas Stith. I knew next to nothing about the differences between the candidates and the newspaper clipping did not indicate a preference for this race. I therefore relied on an even more unorthodox methodology upon which to base my vote. While watching a news story on NBC 17 last night, I noticed that one man came across as much more competent than the other. It had little to do with what they were saying and much more to do with the way they looked, the way they came across, and the way they projected their confidence. I therefore decided that one man was more capable than the other and voted for him.

 

This reminded me of something I heard in the news two weeks ago about a research experiment that took place at Princeton University.

 

“To find the extent to which a candidate’s face predicted a winner, researchers exposed subjects to a pair of faces—one recently elected governor and the runner-up—for one-fourth of a second or less. They were then asked to pick the most competent candidate of the two people shown. If someone recognized a candidate, their results were excluded from the study.”

 

The study concluded that in many cases, the more competent looking candidate was more likely to win.

 

“Subjects picked the elected governor over the runner-up as the most competent one about 64 percent of the time, a result that significantly exceeded random chance of 50 percent. When the two candidates shown were of the same ethnicity and sex, the results were even more predictive of a winner.”

 

It goes to show that it when you are seeking a job, it pays to look confident. This applies to conventional job seekers on an interview as well as political job seekers appearing on television.