Jun 13 2008
The sand 一盘散沙
I didn’t know there are so many financial related Sino-US groups, mostly founded by students from mainland China. I should rephrase, I now aware that many Chinese on Wall Street formed financial related groups in New York 真是百花齐放 - redundant. The typical profile would include a name brand da xue (university) and an ivy master degree or PhD now works in finances (by larger margin) or accounting.
Why do we have to have those many groups with identical background drew from same pool of people? Isn’t one Sino-US Financial Association or whatever the name might be, be enough? The reality is for some popular guys/gals, they joined (mostly being asked by friends and if they’re popular, they must have many friends ..) so many groups, and it become a chore or music chair - dinners week in and week out.
I attended one this week and wondered out loud. The president said their group is the only one that speaks English and doesn’t charge a membership fee. Hmmmm .. which language to use isn’t a big deal - I’m sure other groups’ ability on English is as good as this one. Free? I think people tend to treasure something that’s costly. Am I right? One of a new comers at the meeting mentioned that people come to an association or club, they look for three things: prestige, information and access. It’s true and I don’t think any of the groups has prestige. Even the oldies like China Institute has a spin off called youth group (or close to that). I would consider CI is prestigious. .. so we Chinese are really just 一盘散沙? We need a great box to contain it, make it stick and make it work.
One more thing, pls find me an eloquent Chinaman. Meeting ivy PhDs is like a piece of cake but articulate man/woman is hard. The weekend reporter at Bloomberg Bernard Lo has great diction and is very concise and sharp, and Bloomberg radio weekday’s Paul Lin (?).