SG notes part 1: the very noble intentions of a Chinese teacher

Hello again guys. I have just returned to the UK from Singapore and I barely had any time to blog whilst in Singapore, it was a working trip and not a holiday. Now that I am back home in London, I have decided to do a series of posts to deal with some of the things that I had encountered in Singapore. You'll be pleased to know that I didn't fight or argue with my parents once on this trip - it's not a question of our relationship improving (more on that later), rather it is me becoming better at avoiding conflict with them. I shall begin with my father because recently, I wrote a rather harsh piece, criticizing his ignorance and I'd like to do a follow up. Don't get me wrong, I do stand by what I wrote back in June but there were two instances which I would like to use to give you an idea of how my father cannot help but see the world through the eyes of a teacher and how the world beyond the school gates can still baffle him. He's long retired of course, nonetheless you can take the teacher out of the primary school classroom but you just can't take the classroom out of the teacher.

Are teachers happiest where they belong - in the classroom?

So, I was in Singapore on a business trip and I had three local business partners who were introducing me to loads of people in Singapore - some of those contacts were excellent whilst others were questionable at best. You see, I go into these meetings with an open mind as I know the business culture in Singapore is radically different from the UK so there was this guy who had the demeanour of a taxi driver uncle: he looked the part of the taxi driver, dressed like one and even spoke like one (complete with broken English/Singlish - I even offered to speak in Mandarin instead as his English was so bad). He really reminded me of Phua Chu Kang (please see the video clip below) and that's a character that comedian Gurmit Singh came up with, PCK wasn't supposed to be attractive at all but a caricature of a certain kind of Singaporean man. I kept telling myself to keep an open mind and not to judge him by my British business standards but really, by the end of the meeting, I walked away from there thinking, "never mind doing a deal with you, I wouldn't even trust you to give my nephew tuition. Even if you've achieved some success in your field, you have totally failed to win my trust or confidence." Look, I work in corporate finance, I spend my days with very capable and intelligent people, hence I would set the benchmark rather high if you want to sit down with me and earn my trust, so I would want to deal with you.

When I met my father later that day, he asked me how my meeting well and I told him it was a waste of time as I didn't trust the guy - he simply did not inspire any confidence on my part as he appeared stupid. My dad actually lashed out at me and scolded me for discriminating against someone who was stupid. I rolled my eyes in disbelief - as if I would enter into a business venture with someone I had no confidence in, never mind someone I genuinely believed was quite stupid. However, in the eyes of my father the teacher, he saw me as an arrogant student who refused to play with a child who was perhaps stupid, poor, fat or lacking in social skills and it was his duty as the teacher in charge to make sure kids like me would engage everyone in the playground socially. Well, the only difference was that I could potentially lose a lot of money if I went into a business venture with the wrong person and I am only doing a few big corporate finance deals a year - choosing the right people to work with is crucial. I'm not treating corporate finance to do charity, I'm doing what I do to make money. And as I have clarified in a recent post, I am not a monster - I do make significant contributions to a number of charities - I simply hand over the money to the charities rather than try to incorporate any element of charity into my work. It is unwise to try to mix charity and business - you should simply do whatever it takes to make as much profit as possible, then make a substantial contribution to the charity of your choice. And of course, my dad doesn't get it.

Then there was another project which did involve the China market - well, I can't reveal too much details here yet as I don't want to count my chickens before they hatch, but it suffices to say that it is a reputable Singaporean company who have been very successful in China and they want to expand to the UK. I am in the right place to be incredibly useful to them given that I have the right connections and expertise in the UK to help them do just that. It is all about being in the right place at the right time! I met the CEO of that company is a very nice guy and we got along very well. There was a certain shrewd, streetwise quality about his approach to business that I liked and could relate to. I am very excited about the prospects of working with them of course and I told my family. And as expected, my father latched onto the part where I said I would be working with people from China and he got very excited, he said that I could function as the translator/interpreter. I rolled my eyes in disbelief and protested, hell no - that's the last thing I would want to do especially after how badly things went in Shenzhen back in May when I tried to play that part. Well, my father wouldn't listen but at least to his credit, he did try to be encouraging: he told me that with some practice and hard work, I could improve the standard of my Chinese to the point where I would be in a position to use it in that kind of professional business context. But no, he doesn't get it. Let's be rational here: I have only 24 hours in a day like everyone else, I would rather spend my waking hours making money (a lot of it), then trying to improve my Chinese (which sucks so bad).

In the world of business, you get the best results when you play to your strengths and avoid your weaknesses. If I am going to be working with this Singaporean company, there will be a lot of people in China and Singapore who will be counting on this venture into London being successful - I don't want to let anyone down not just because I don't want to disappoint them, but I want the project to be profitable at the end of the day, so we can all make a lot of money. Imagine if I had placed myself in a pivotal position to negotiate with the Chinese and messed up royally due to my rather poor ability to translate and if the whole project comes crashing down because of me, then good grief: do I want to be the idiot who causes the whole thing to fall apart? Do I want to be the one to blame if it all goes wrong? Hell no. Besides, the Singaporean guy who has engaged me knows that - his Chinese is far better than mine in any case, he has a whole team of effectively bilingual staff and more to the point, he did NOT engage me to be his translator in the first place but simply as someone who has good connections in London to help him replicate a very successful business in London. Yes I am going to work with him and no, I am not going to use any Chinese at all in this business venture. But for my father, he doesn't get it - he spent years trying to get me to learn Chinese as a child and finally, this was the moment he had been waiting for. I am finally engaging with Chinese clients from China and he thought, great: it has paid off and now you can use your Chinese. But no, this is clearly not the case as my Chinese still really sucks, irregardless. Oh and this is probably a good point for me to tell you why "irregardless" is a word and why this is the perfect time for me to use it.

Well, some of my less antagonistic readers would probably say at this point, why pick a fight with your father? Why not just give him the satisfaction of thinking that he has somehow, in some way managed to help contribute to your success today by having taught you Chinese when you were a kid? Sure, there's an element of truth to that but there's a huge difference between what a primary school teacher does and what I do in the world of business. I remember when I was in primary school, there was a very shy girl in my class who was selected to perform at a national day event. She was terrified to go on stage to sing, but the teacher coaxed her to do it - so when she got on that stage and finally sang, it was terrible of course but everyone was encouraging her and applauding because we all knew how hard it was for her to have even gone through with it. Nobody minded that she was completely out of tune and barely audible, we celebrated her rising to the occasion and overcoming her fears. Yeah, that's the kinda thing that happens in a primary school because you're in a consequence-free environment, it didn't matter if that shy girl sang terribly: but there would be serious consequences if I attempted to use my Chinese at work and failed miserably. There are people trying to make money - a lot of it - with this project and thus there is no room for error. That means me saying, "my Chinese sucks, if there's any translation or interpretation that needs to be done, let's either let someone else who can do a better job do it, or we'll hire a professional." The real world is harsh, if you are foolhardy enough attempt something you can't do well and fail miserably in public, well, you risk becoming the next Ken Lee (Valentina Hassan of Bulgaria, please see video below).

I do wonder if my father is really that ignorant about how harsh the real world is, after having been a primary school teacher all his life? On one hand, yes his intentions are noble of course: he wants the arrogant student to be inclusive and play with all the kids in the playground including the stupid ones who have no friends. My father is like the teacher who wants to coax the shy kid onto the stage to sing and not to care what others may think or say. Sure, I can see how my dad plays the role of the primary school teacher well after all this years and of course, all these intentions are noble. But is he really that naive, did he really think that he could treat the real world out there like the primary school where he taught for so many years? That does seem to be the case, hence it is that combination of ignorance, naivety and noble intentions that makes me hesitant to criticize him here: he is so incredibly misguided and out of touch with the real world. I don't even know where to start or how to start explaining the harsh realities of the adult world to him; and without teachers like him, the shy, stupid and socially awkward kids in primary school would have had a much harder time. But on the other hand, that's simply not how it works in the real world: there are consequences for coming across like a stupid idiot and there aren't any benevolent teachers to run to when reality bites hard. Are teachers like that doing those kids a disservice then, by creating a consequence-free environment in the primary school when there are consequences in the real world? Would you want to turn to your kind teacher for any kind of career advice about how to get ahead in the harsh working world beyond the school gates? Surely other teachers aren't as ignorant as my dad about the real world?

So there you go, that's it from me on this topic. What about you - how do you judge the people you meet and decide if you want to work with them? What do you think about kind teachers like my father who may be somewhat misguided, but are motivated by noble intentions at the end of the day? How do we introduce the concept of consequences to young children then? Please feel free to leave a comment below and do let me know what you think. Many thanks for reading.