Wisdom on Nick Wang

Children Education - Raising a child in Hong Kong

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 09:51:48 +0000

After moving to Hong Kong and hearing all the management horror stories, I had an epiphany in regards to the failure of general Chinese / Asian style education. When I hear about poor management, I realized I cannot possibly work under such a manager or in a company that is governed by “command and control”… and then it hit me… when I went to primary school in Hong Kong, I was also quite rebellious! I was only a few years old, but I already acted out against meaningless rules and unreasonable authorities! My mom would scold me and beat me up, some adults would say I was a bad kid for not obeying the rules… but had anyone really thought about why?! I finally understand… even when I was a kid, even when I was still very inexperienced in life, I could tell what’s efficient, what’s effective, what makes sense… When I encountered “bull shit” rules, like when the adults or teachers told us to just follow the rules and do some stupid shit. I was always like… “Why?! Why do I have to do this?! This is stupid!! Why can’t we do it some other way!!” Last week, I talked to my friend who’s a psychiatric therapist and child psychologist. I told her about this, and she said: “Yes, kids nowadays are still the same way… but eventually, they learn to shut up and comply.” And I said: “That is exactly the problem!!” You see, children are born with creativity and curiosity, but as they grow up, the adults beat them into following their sad footsteps… “Shut up and comply!!” That’s exactly what most working adults do these days!

The managers are inexperienced and assume the position of an “adult”, issuing orders and controlling their subordinates by rules - the only way they know how. The workers, after years of education, fall neatly in line like the good students they were, listen to the boss, shut up, do whatever is told to… never fight back! I know how to write this now, but I actually got some of that education in me too! That’s why I keep saying I was lucky to have a great manager, Phil, back at Yahoo! I am the kind of guy that constantly look for the most efficient way to do things, so I come up with a lot of ideas all the time, and I would bring them to Phil. A lot of times, Phil would deny me the “go ahead”, but if an idea is good, I would continue to develop it on my own. And Phil is OK with that. One time, after I spoke up about another idea, and he hit me back down, he said to me: “Hey, I really appreciate you bring your ideas to me, and don’t let my denial stop you. You don’t have to back down if you think you’ve got a really good idea! Go ahead, argue with me… I don’t touch all the data like you do, so sometimes, you know more than I do and you’re right, I’m wrong.” It really hit me, it made me realize my weakness - that I still have some of that bull shit HK education in me! Realizing it, made me stronger!!

Hong Kong only cares about money, lacks innovation

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 11:38:14 +0000

(Rant!) Generally speaking, that is. I’m sure there are some innovators in Hong Kong too, but from what I can see, Hong Kong people and businesses can be summarized in the following few points:

Most people either work in (or want to work in) banks, insurance, or sales
Most people only care finding a job that makes more money
People would spend that money in foreign brand name goods
Local goods are seen as “cheap” and therefore can only command a low price
Businesses are either small retail shops, textile manufacturing in Chna, or cell phone / mobile phone, laptop covers (they have covers for everything!) (Sarcasm)

It’s really quite sad. Today, I went to meet with a company’s owner whom I thought may be a good local partner for future web development and retail supply logistic. However, I was disappointed to learn that he really doesn’t have a direction for this company. His main concern seems to be to just hang on to their biggest client, and continue to support their intranet, which they developed.

I don’t know if it’s a Chinese thing, but I get the feeling that as a race, we really need to learn some basic economics - “Supply & Demand”… It seems like all Chinese people know to do is to “be cheap”! Sell shit as cheap as possible!! Anyway, here in Hong Kong, designers really have it tough! My wife was a talented accessories designer in New York. She commanded a salary of US$ 70+K / year and could singlehandedly design an entire line of handbags for each season, from start to finish, including flying to Hong Kong to work with the manufacturers. Now however, even though the company she worked for wants her to continue to work for them after she moved to Hong Kong permanently, they don’t want to pay her a US salary anymore! The fact is, American companies are used to hiring people in Hong Kong for less than HKD 15000 a month (roughly US$1900 a month, or $23K a year!!) That’s the typical salary for an experienced designer in Hong Kong! So, even though my wife will be doing the same thing as she did in New York, those companies will not pay her the same salary, simply because the market rate is low like dirt! Why does it have to be this way? Why are untalented designers in New York getting paid as much as $90K a year, while designers in Hong Kong, which often have to come up with designs themselves, plus fix the sketches from New York designers to make them work, then travel to factories in China to do some of the tougher designs hands on, work late and work on Saturdays… only to get paid 1/4 or 1/5 of their New York counterpart?! Before I leave Hong Kong, I hope to do something good for the locals. Hong Kong doesn’t have any big internet destination like the Amazon.com for shopping, or tripadvisor.com for travels… currently, I’m thinking of creating a good, Chinese / English bi-lingual travel & food community based on Drupal. (Drupal 6 possess that localization options, but the problem is most of the modules are not ready for D6 yet.) Chinese people are notorious for eating all sorts of shit, and personally, I am against people drinking Shark-fin soup. I hope to create a registry to take advantage of the current “environmentally conscious” market, to hopefully drive business to restaurants that complies to international conservation laws of efforts. Hopefully, I can create something meaningful and benefits our planet. That, to me, means so much more than just creating wealth for myself.

Comments

Angus Lau — 2008-05-09 23:08:32

Hi nice to meet you. Couldn’t agree more with your post, but there is a small group of web entrepreneurs here, so send me an email when you get a chance and lets hook up.

Environmentally Friendly, Sustainable food supplies - Crowdsourcing meets Food meets Travel | My Journey to Japan — 2008-05-29 00:36:52

[…] mentioned before, I am creating a product that Hong Kong people can be proud of - a community to help people make environmentally friendly choices on food. I have spoken with some business partners and friends and we are all very excited about the […]

Last Day at Yahoo! Farewell email from my manager

Tue, 19 Jun 2007 21:50:46 +0000

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04 My Yahoo Cubicle, originally uploaded by cloneofsnake.

Last Friday was my entire team’s last day at Yahoo! It has been a fun ride… My professional life has grown exponentially during my 5+ years of service there, and the main reason why I was able to achieve so much was because I was lucky enough to report to Phil Eisenberg for the first 3 years I was there. I’m forever grateful for having the opportunity to work with him.

On Friday, Phil came over to chat with us and also to me individually. (We had kept in contact over the past 2 years even if we weren’t working together anymore.) Before I left for the day, I sent out my farewell email to the remaining few old timers that still remain, and Phil replied with something that I thought would be great reference material to put on my LinkedIn profile.

\

—– Forwarded Message —-
From: Phillip Eisenberg
To: Nicholas Wang
Sent: Friday, June 15, 2007 6:19:23 PM
Subject: RE: Farewell

Nick,

Thank you for all your contributions through the years. You certainly made me look good as we grew the data quality department and made my job easier and many others as well. I hope you got as much out of the experience of working together as I did.

Good luck with your future endeavors and don’t be shy about going after what you want. I have worked with many talented folks over the years and you are very high on that list, so never doubt your abilities.

Keep in touch and let me know if you ever need anything.

Regards,

Phil\

I have to write something back as a token of appreciation. Fortunately, it will be very easy, as I had started documenting a list called “Management 101” during my days reporting to Phil. He is like a “wise old man” that leads by example, except he’s not old. :) I filled 3 pages of the word document with things I’ve learned from him!! I’ll be using that to write him a recommendation on LinkedIn.

I guess I’ll post that document here too, so check back later for “Management 101 from Phil”! :)

This is a blog about many failures (and hopefully a few successes)

Wed, 30 May 2007 00:46:37 +0000

There’s a Chinese proverb - “Failure is mother of Success” 「失敗是成功之母」, I’ve known it since I was a little kid but I’ve never really lived according to these words of wisdom… until now. I’ve read numerous books and articles on famous people, I’m intrigued by the charisma that only a person who had overcome hardship can possess. People are always attracted to the successfuls’ achievements and social status. However, one thing I noticed is that when they talk about how they became successful, every single one of them would tell stories of immense hardship, yet their expressions were not of pain or disgust, but rather joyful! Almost seemed reminiscent of the hard times! Why do you think that is? Words of wisdom that I heard from Hiroshi Tasaka, a Professor at Tama University and President of Thinktank SophiaBank, the other night at Japan Society’s “U.S.-Japan Innovators Project Symposium: Improvisation, Creativity, Collaboration: Fueling Innovation in the 21st Century”. “When do you think we grow as a person? Do you think we grow when we’re living life smoothly? No. We grow when we encounter hardship.” You can try to plan ahead in life, but while you’re planning, life is happening. Some would even say that it is all the mishaps and failures that forces one to adapt, that shapes a person’s life. Hardship makes a person grow, builds a person’s character, shapes a person’s life. Hence when successful people tell their stories, they reminiscent of those hard times, as it was the hard times that pushed them to work harder than everyone else and brought them to where they are today. Through this blog, I’m going to document my journey from the USA to Japan. My goal is to go to graduate school in Japan, and ultimately, live and work at one of the big internet companies in Tokyo. I have already endured a few spectacular failures! (Don’t worry, I’ll be sharing them with you shortly.) This blog will be my almost live reality show. :) You’ll all be able to watch me crash and burn! Wish me luck!!