A: I went to London from Singapore and that was the right decision - when I left Singapore, I was very much the product of the Singaporean system and my social skills were poor then, very poor indeed. If I had gone from Singapore directly to Hong Kong, I would be no better than the locals who were passed over for jobs in banking - I have spent most of the last 23 years in the UK and in that time, I was able to work with a lot of white people who had excellent social skills. So London was definitely the right place for me to go to because there was so much I needed to learn - goodness me, when I left Singapore I was inexperienced, I had poor social skills, I was certainly not ready for the many challenges of the working world. Don't get me wrong, I think Hong Kong is an awesome place and that is why I am so glad that my friend is moving there to spend a few years working there. I spent some time visiting friends there 2018 and I had a wonderful time in the city, I truly love Hong Kong. Sure it is far from perfect given the difficult political situation and I really dislike Carrie Lam, but I have really struggled there if I had moved there to try my luck in my 20s, without first having developed my social skills in London. A lot of people always complain that there's not enough opportunities and good jobs where they live, but few would actually admit that the problem actually lies with them - that they do not yet have the necessary skills to land their dream job and that it would be necessary for them to spend some time in an environment where they can get the appropriate training to become a much more attractive candidate in the job market. Hence I will be totally honest and say that as a young man in my 20s, I was a greenhorn who needed a lot of help, a lot of training - thus I wasn't ready for Hong Kong back then in a way that I would be today if I did decide to move there, but I'll leave that to my younger friends who have that thirst for adventure as I am very much settled down in London and am happy where I am.
Q: Are the FILTH generation are mostly working class folks escaping class-based discrimination in London? There must have been some rich people who were part of that British expatriate community in Hong Kong?
Many people from all social backgrounds were attracted to the opportunities in Hong Kong, the same way many people of all social backgrounds moved from China to Singapore over the years. Some were insanely rich (as depicted in the movie Crazy Rich Asians) whilst others like the ancestors on my mother's side, were very poor. What I wanted to address was the reasons why someone would want to try their luck in a place like Hong Kong halfway around the world from their friends and family back in the UK, because the simplistic narrative was that it was racism that allowed inept white people to gain access to good jobs that they were ill-qualified for is simply too simple - that's why I wanted to talk about the factors that drove them out of the UK in the first place and class based discrimination is a very real thing here in the UK and it is an issue that my readers in Asia may not be that familiar with, that's why I am using my platform to talk about it, to introduce that dimension of the story. My allegation is that Chinese people are often guilty of simply lumping all white people into one category of laowai/angmoh/gwailo and treating them as if they're a monolithic entity - they do that because of a complete lack of understanding of the culture in Western societies. I live in London, I'm surrounded by white people, I've spent more of my life in the UK than in Singapore and I've seen first hand how white people are capable of hating each other based on so many different factors that define them. I talk about class based discrimination as it is something I am familiar with personally, being a working class person who has found a way to redefine my image so as to be able to work in the banking industry in the UK. This is why when people talk about 'white privilege' as if all white people would experience that equally - that is when I have to point out that some white people are really at the bottom of the pecking order in society here in the West so they experience a city like London very differently from that perspective.
Q: Are you somewhat biased against the people of Hong Kong by accusing them of having poor social skills? Social skills are very much based on context - a posh English gentleman may be brilliant in London, but he would be totally useless in dealing with a bunch of Mandarin speaking clients from mainland China. Aren't you guilty of valuing one kind of social skills, very specific to the context of London, over other form of social skills?
A posh English gentleman who doesn't speak Mandarin would obviously be unable to serve clients in China (who expect to receive customer service in Mandarin), but even if you could speak Mandarin fluently, it doesn't mean you still know how to do business with such clients if you lack the requisite social skills. So there are two dimensions to this role: language skills and social skills. The English banker may bring a translator along to overcome the language barrier - not an ideal situation but at least there is a simple solution, but a Chinese banker who lacks the right social skills will simply offer poor customer service in Mandarin. Between the two different skill set, it is obvious which one is more important and harder to overcome. When my Malaysian friend went to do business in Taiwan, I helped him find a local interpreter to facilitate the English-Mandarin translation and we managed to find this university student who did a brilliant job - my Malaysian friend didn't even pay her that much but as a university student, she was just happy to get the job to earn a bit of money in her spare time. I used the analogy of teachers to explain this point: sure there are schools in both England and China, but the way the teaching is conducted in both countries are radically different because of the prevalent local cultures and attitudes towards education. So it's not like there are no schools or teachers in places like Hong Kong, Singapore or China, but I'm simply pointing out that teachers from England who do that very same job in quite a different way, with a completely different approach and students with British teachers have a very different learning experience. This boils down to the way the different cultures have shaped the way the teachers approach their jobs and conduct their lessons; I don't think it is racist or biased to point out the differences and how some aspects of British culture do create a more conducive learning environment for the students in the classroom or create bankers who are far better at customer services or sales negotiations. British people would be better at some things, whilst Chinese people would be better at other things because of the stark differences in culture. I think it would be arrogant, even foolish to imagine that Chinese culture is so perfect that us Chinese people cannot possibly learn anything from people of other cultures or nationalities.
Q: If working class people from England had such a hard time in London, how come you are somehow able to get yourself a decent job in banking, despite being from a very working class family in Singapore then?
Again, that's a great question but let's start with why it is so hard for working class people to get into an industry like banking in the UK. The banking industry is very lucrative, jobs in banking are very well paid and so this has been an industry that has been dominated by white people from the middle and upper classes here, who have traditionally controlled the wealth and power of this country. Thus if you want to work for them and get your foot in the door, you need to be able to fit in with such people - that means everything from your accent to the socks you wear to your body language to your knowledge of the fine arts is subject to scrutiny for them to decide if you are "one of them"- whether you are accepted in the exclusive club of people who are allowed to work in the banking industry or if you are rejected as the outsider who doesn't belong here. This has nothing to do with skin colour - you could be white but still rejected because of your working class background. This system isn't as harsh as it seems of course, I am living proof that you can be Asian, an immigrant, from a working class family and openly gay and still fit in within this industry but of course, the key thing in my case is that I have adapted every aspect of my presentation in order to fit in - I've changed my accent, I studied the rules about how to dress according to their rules, I have acquired a lot of knowledge about the culture of the industry (and also of the upper classes in the UK). So I am accepted in the company because they feel comfortable around me because of the way I have demonstrated that I am willing to assimilate and be like them, follow their rules - it's not like they would reject someone automatically on the basis of their parents' social class, heck my parents are painfully working class. But such is the essence of social mobility in the UK, if you are willing to work hard, adapt, learn and make the necessary changes in order to get ahead in life - then doors would open for you and there is genuine social mobility. I am living proof of that. Was I did even easy? No, of course not; not by a long way, otherwise everyone would be doing it.
Q: Are the FILTH generation are mostly working class folks escaping class-based discrimination in London? There must have been some rich people who were part of that British expatriate community in Hong Kong?
Many people from all social backgrounds were attracted to the opportunities in Hong Kong, the same way many people of all social backgrounds moved from China to Singapore over the years. Some were insanely rich (as depicted in the movie Crazy Rich Asians) whilst others like the ancestors on my mother's side, were very poor. What I wanted to address was the reasons why someone would want to try their luck in a place like Hong Kong halfway around the world from their friends and family back in the UK, because the simplistic narrative was that it was racism that allowed inept white people to gain access to good jobs that they were ill-qualified for is simply too simple - that's why I wanted to talk about the factors that drove them out of the UK in the first place and class based discrimination is a very real thing here in the UK and it is an issue that my readers in Asia may not be that familiar with, that's why I am using my platform to talk about it, to introduce that dimension of the story. My allegation is that Chinese people are often guilty of simply lumping all white people into one category of laowai/angmoh/gwailo and treating them as if they're a monolithic entity - they do that because of a complete lack of understanding of the culture in Western societies. I live in London, I'm surrounded by white people, I've spent more of my life in the UK than in Singapore and I've seen first hand how white people are capable of hating each other based on so many different factors that define them. I talk about class based discrimination as it is something I am familiar with personally, being a working class person who has found a way to redefine my image so as to be able to work in the banking industry in the UK. This is why when people talk about 'white privilege' as if all white people would experience that equally - that is when I have to point out that some white people are really at the bottom of the pecking order in society here in the West so they experience a city like London very differently from that perspective.
Q: Are you somewhat biased against the people of Hong Kong by accusing them of having poor social skills? Social skills are very much based on context - a posh English gentleman may be brilliant in London, but he would be totally useless in dealing with a bunch of Mandarin speaking clients from mainland China. Aren't you guilty of valuing one kind of social skills, very specific to the context of London, over other form of social skills?
A posh English gentleman who doesn't speak Mandarin would obviously be unable to serve clients in China (who expect to receive customer service in Mandarin), but even if you could speak Mandarin fluently, it doesn't mean you still know how to do business with such clients if you lack the requisite social skills. So there are two dimensions to this role: language skills and social skills. The English banker may bring a translator along to overcome the language barrier - not an ideal situation but at least there is a simple solution, but a Chinese banker who lacks the right social skills will simply offer poor customer service in Mandarin. Between the two different skill set, it is obvious which one is more important and harder to overcome. When my Malaysian friend went to do business in Taiwan, I helped him find a local interpreter to facilitate the English-Mandarin translation and we managed to find this university student who did a brilliant job - my Malaysian friend didn't even pay her that much but as a university student, she was just happy to get the job to earn a bit of money in her spare time. I used the analogy of teachers to explain this point: sure there are schools in both England and China, but the way the teaching is conducted in both countries are radically different because of the prevalent local cultures and attitudes towards education. So it's not like there are no schools or teachers in places like Hong Kong, Singapore or China, but I'm simply pointing out that teachers from England who do that very same job in quite a different way, with a completely different approach and students with British teachers have a very different learning experience. This boils down to the way the different cultures have shaped the way the teachers approach their jobs and conduct their lessons; I don't think it is racist or biased to point out the differences and how some aspects of British culture do create a more conducive learning environment for the students in the classroom or create bankers who are far better at customer services or sales negotiations. British people would be better at some things, whilst Chinese people would be better at other things because of the stark differences in culture. I think it would be arrogant, even foolish to imagine that Chinese culture is so perfect that us Chinese people cannot possibly learn anything from people of other cultures or nationalities.
Q: If working class people from England had such a hard time in London, how come you are somehow able to get yourself a decent job in banking, despite being from a very working class family in Singapore then?
Again, that's a great question but let's start with why it is so hard for working class people to get into an industry like banking in the UK. The banking industry is very lucrative, jobs in banking are very well paid and so this has been an industry that has been dominated by white people from the middle and upper classes here, who have traditionally controlled the wealth and power of this country. Thus if you want to work for them and get your foot in the door, you need to be able to fit in with such people - that means everything from your accent to the socks you wear to your body language to your knowledge of the fine arts is subject to scrutiny for them to decide if you are "one of them"- whether you are accepted in the exclusive club of people who are allowed to work in the banking industry or if you are rejected as the outsider who doesn't belong here. This has nothing to do with skin colour - you could be white but still rejected because of your working class background. This system isn't as harsh as it seems of course, I am living proof that you can be Asian, an immigrant, from a working class family and openly gay and still fit in within this industry but of course, the key thing in my case is that I have adapted every aspect of my presentation in order to fit in - I've changed my accent, I studied the rules about how to dress according to their rules, I have acquired a lot of knowledge about the culture of the industry (and also of the upper classes in the UK). So I am accepted in the company because they feel comfortable around me because of the way I have demonstrated that I am willing to assimilate and be like them, follow their rules - it's not like they would reject someone automatically on the basis of their parents' social class, heck my parents are painfully working class. But such is the essence of social mobility in the UK, if you are willing to work hard, adapt, learn and make the necessary changes in order to get ahead in life - then doors would open for you and there is genuine social mobility. I am living proof of that. Was I did even easy? No, of course not; not by a long way, otherwise everyone would be doing it.
I am lucky in that I was very interested in the dramatic arts when I was growing up in Singapore, I participated in all kinds of drama clubs, amateur performances - I then went on to do TSD (Theatre Studies & Drama) as an A level subject and I also appeared in some local TV shows. When I moved to the UK, I also did my share of acting not just in the UK but in other European countries as well but in particular Germany, because of the near total absence of Chinese looking German speaking actors: now that's a rather niche category. When I go to an event like a banking conference, I step into the room and I tell myself that I am playing the role of someone who fits in and belongs here - there is a lot of acting involved and some people are terrified at the thought of acting, they think it is pretending to be something they're not and they're afraid of being exposed as an imposter. But for me, I've done so much acting on stage, for films, on TV - pretending to be someone else is second nature to me, it doesn't scare me and I find it all really quite fun. It really is that simple - a lot of people may choose to take a moral stance against what I do and pour scorn over it. So instead of saying, "I'm afraid I simply can't act, I can't even lie to make an excuse for being late for a meeting," they claim, "Nonetheless I shouldn't be forced to change my working class accent, there's absolutely nothing wrong with being working class but it is immoral to discriminate against someone for their accent." Now that's a whole other debate about having a working class accent, but I have also spent many years competing in gymnastics: so for those of you not familiar with gymnastics, allow me to explain how the competitions work. You perform a routine and you will have two panels of judges that will work out your score: one panel will work out the difficulty of your routine (which will determined your difficulty score) and the other will work out your execution (which will determine your execution score): how they work out those two components of your score are determined by the holy grail of gymnastics - this 'rule book' known as 'the Code of Points'.
Gymnasts pick the skills they train and compose their routines according to the Code of Points - in order to maximize their score, they have to follow all the rules. Because the sport evolves so quickly, the Code of Points is updated every four years so all coaches and gymnasts eagerly read the rule book again to see what has changed each time an update happens. Some skills and combination that were rewarded under the old rules may become a lot less favoured under the new rules, some other skills and combinations may be more handsomely rewarded and some skills may be banned altogether. As gymnasts, we don't question the rules as long as they are fairly applied to everyone competing - thus I have grown up with the mindset of, "please tell me what the latest rules are according to the rule book and I will follow them, I won't ask stupid questions - I'll just do whatever it takes to win the competition." Sure coaches and gymnasts are allowed to protest their scores during a competition but such protests don't often change the results. In fact we have a phrase in gymnastics, "work the code" - that's when a gymnast composes a routine that may not be the most difficult, but somehow gets a pretty high difficulty score because it contains certain skills and/or combinations that the Code of Points would reward. So if you think certain people from certain countries are quite law abiding and follow the rules - well, gymnasts take following the rules to a whole new level and I suppose that has shaped my mindset about being totally willing to treat the rules of British social graces and etiquette just like the Code of Points. The information is out there, there are books to read on the topic and plenty of websites that talk about it - this information is in the public domain and is by no means 'secret', so I simply did my research, followed the rules and like the gymnast who has read the Code of Points and 'worked the code' - I have been rewarded for following the rules. So this really isn't rocket science, you know.
Q: Are working class people who are trying to get into the financial services industry in London today still facing the same kinds of barriers and discrimination based on social class that you talked about then?
Yes of course and some succeed, some don't. Let's use some very basic logic to understand the situation here: people generally would like to work in banking because many of the jobs in the industry are well paid. If the industry has 500 jobs available this month and there are say, 50,000 people looking for work at the moment (well there is a recession and a pandemic), then employers are in a very strong position to pick the very best applicants for the 500 jobs available. So under those circumstances, you're expected to prove to employers that you are exceptional, that you're better than everyone else and that doesn't matter whether or not your posh or working class - the competition is extremely intense even amongst those who are indeed white and have come from a rather privileged background. There's a saying, "if you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen", it means that you ought not persist with a task if you can't take the pressure as well as others. That's why some people are willing to do whatever it takes to get ahead in the game and they are the ones who are often richly rewarded with the better paid jobs, whilst those who bark up the wrong tree or are unwilling to adapt will find themselves stuck in terrible, poorly paid jobs. So I think it is misleading to say that "oh these poor working class folks are being kept out of the banking industry because of class based discrimination, this is totally unfair and a disgrace". No, that is simply not true, when you have so few jobs and so many people dreaming about working in banking, then the vast majority of applicants are going to be disappointed and be rejected, not because they are working class or because they're of an ethnic minority, but simply because they're not amongst the top 500 applicants when there are only 500 jobs available and there just so happens to be more than 500 applicants who have a much more impressive CV - that's the harsh reality of the situation. Like I said, you should see how working class my upbringing was and what my working class parents are like, but the fact that I am gainfully employed in banking shows that social mobility is real.
The fact is there are some jobs out there which are very desirable: we're talking about good pay, great prospects, fantastic working environment, nice management - of course, for jobs like that, there are going to be far more people who wish to apply for these jobs than the number of actual positions to be filled. Let's look at another industry that's totally different: journalism. A famous, respectable newspaper like the Wall Street Journal can only employ so many people and the number of people who want to work there far exceeds the number of people they need to employ - so again, they have the luxury of picking only the very best for their team. Rich kids have an advantage because their parents have invested far more money in buying them the best education money can buy, that is evident the moment you look at their CVs. So with that kind of advantage, they are far more likely to land the good jobs in such a situation: remember when you have 500 applicants for 5 positions, the HR manager is looking for reasons to say no to someone (and eliminate them from the process) rather than for reasons to say yes to someone. So the fact is even if a working class applicant has worked hard, made his way to a top university and he even gets as far as the interview stage where they are interviewing about 20 candidates when they have only 5 positions to fill - you have to remember that even at that stage, you have to avoid giving them any reason to say no to you and this is when social skills are so important because you have to demonstrate that you are able to fit in well. Obviously, in the case of a company where the majority of the people working there are of a more upper class background, then you need to convince them that you will be a good fit for the team especially when they are looking for reasons to say no to candidates at that stage. Thus at this stage, those with better social skills often have the edge over the candidates, to get what they want and clinch that job. It's such a competitive environment today so one must be ready for that by improving one's social skills - I can't stress that enough.
Q: Aren't you assuming that working class people have poor social skills - that's an unfair/untrue assumption.
A: Oh there are loads of rich people with poor social skills - I remember this family friend in Singapore, let's call him uncle Vincent (obviously not his real name). He is a very successful businessman with two kids, both of whom are atrociously rude. Vincent is extremely rich, but his kids are brought up to believe that the only thing that mattered were their grades at school, that if they got straight As then they are perfect kids who have fulfilled all expectations of them. Except of course, Vincent's kids were extremely rude - I remember how I encountered them at an event when they refused to look up from their phones despite the fact that they had just been introduced to some of Vincent's friends. I thought that was deeply disrespectful to Vincent's friends and they had caused Vincent a lot of embarrassment by behaving so badly. If I was Vincent, I would have thrown their phones out of the window to punish them but no, instead Vincent was too busy telling his friends just how well his two children were doing at school. I just rolled my eyes and thought, "bite your tongue - this is Vincent's problem, don't get involved." This was many years ago and I think that Vincent's children will be in their early 20s now and entering the work force (or just finishing their further education). Are they going to be disadvantaged by their poor social skills? Of course they are - would their father's wealth make any difference in this case? Well, it would make a small difference in terms of paying for their education but at the end of the day, their kids would probably fuck up any job interview if they don't change their attitudes. At the risk of stating the obvious, there is more than one way to fuck up a job interview: Vincent's obnoxious daughter would fuck up her job interview in a totally different way compared to a working class applicant who lacks the social skills to establish any kind of rapport with the posh people interviewing him. Yup, there's more than one way to fuck up and I have no doubt Vincent's daughter will be fucking up a lot as she has a terrible attitude. She is such a classic spoilt brat - she's daddy's little princess and he would never reprimand her for her bad behaviour, he thinks the sun shines out of her ass, she is in for a very rude shock when she joins the working world!
And that's it from me, please do let me know what you think and let's continue the discussion. Many thanks for reading.
I was wondering how you pulled off impersonating a doctor at that Italian airport, then I realized you used to be a professional actor haha.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, as someone from an upper-middle class background, I used to offend lots of people who felt I was "too posh" and disrespecting their working class background by talking about "posh" things. On the other hand very posh employers discriminate against working class people if they don't talk about posh things, which is deeply unfair and I get why a lot of working class folks are angry about it. But it seems in your case, you don't complain that the system is unfair or that you weren't given the best start, instead you just do what you can to play by the rules and win at the system. I really have to admire that, but it is such a rare thing which is why social mobility or "success" in general isn't very common.
Oh yeah, I look back at my acting CV, I have been everything from a mafia boss to a university student to a soldier to a businessman to a kungfu master to a breakdancer to a drama teacher to a chef to an Eskimo hunter to a Japanese ninja to a zombie to a central Asian NGO worker in a war zone in Afghanistan to a Japanese Santa Claus. Yup, the last one was a huge role in a comedy shot here in the UK. And I never thought, who's gonna believe I'm Japanese, never mind Santa Claus. But you just have to be super confident and say if I can believe that I'm Santa Claus, then nobody is going to question me - but if I doubt myself then nobody will believe me. It boils down to confidence and that's why I had the balls to pull off the doctor stun at Rimini airport when many wouldn't dare.
DeleteThe funny thing about class identity is that there is always someone above you and someone below you - I had to hide the fact that I was well educated in the army because there were many 'below me' in the system in the army, they came from poor families, had a crap education and couldn't speak English properly. So in the army, I would always speak Mandarin, Malay or Hokkien - if I had to speak English, it would be broken English in a way that I would never speak say with friends whom I know are equally well educated. Whereas when I am working in banking, good grief, I am so working class compared to them. I know I have used this story before, I once worked for this guy who met the Queen when he was a child because his late father was invited to Buckingham Palace when he won an award - my father would be lucky to win a lucky draw at the local supermarket in Ang Mo Kio. That's how real the struggle is - that's what I am up against but I used my social skills to adapt and I had to adapt and learn very quickly, but I'm grateful that I had been given many chances: though I have to state that I did earn those chances by proving myself again and again. It is necessary for me to claim some credit for myself.
I did scan through that long list of roles I had played, I had never played a doctor before mind you. But hey, if I was given the task of convincing people I was a Japanese Santa Claus, I think that convincing 2 people at an airport I am a doctor is not that hard especially since I've spent most of this year reading up about Covid-19 everyday. The only tricky part was that I was doing it in Italian of course rather than just English - but remember, my Italian didn't need to be perfect, this wasn't a test of my Italian but rather my acting skills. Now I'm ready to be cast as a doctor in a movie!
DeleteMind you, I'll compare that to when I played the role of a mafia boss in a German drama series many years ago, the nearly entire script was in German of course, like it was 95% German 5% English. So acting in a different language was something I loved doing and gosh, that incident in Italy reminded me of just how much I missed acting. Ah well. Maybe in the future.
DeleteI think it shouldn't matter how posh(or working class) someone is for a job, but I guess in banking you have to make posh people feel comfortable, and that is best done by talking about things they grew up with (horse-riding, exotic vacations, owning a Rolex, riding a Mercedes/Bentley, visiting Buckingham palace, etc.). Though I think like acting, if someone finds out you are working class then they will respect you as long as you are confident about it("I may be working class, but never say I had any success handed to me"), and never use being working class as an excuse for poor performance.
DeleteWow that's an extremely varied CV. Its crazy how directors just expect an actor to be convincing in something they have never played before after some preparation. I do think that convincing someone is a lot to do with what they already think about that role, which in the case of doctors would have been "respected, authoritative, polite, educated, well-off", which you as a well-off banker could easily pull off. Nobody expects you to throw around medical terms, because even doctors wouldn't do that out of politeness (nobody would understand anyway). I think not being a native speaker in Italian actually helps here. An Italian with a strong working class accent would find it difficult to pretend to be a doctor, as much as a Londoner with a strong Cockney accent would find it difficult to do the same in England. But you can just pretend to be "asian doctor who speaks only some Italian."
If you wanna do acting as a hobby, maybe volunteer for short films directed by film students? One of my friends is a film student, and they have to hire actors or play the parts themselves to finish school projects.
Here's the thing about banking - we're not just talking about serving rich people when they visit the bank, I deal with a B2B service (business to business) and not a B2C service (business to customer). However, the other businessmen I deal with are posh and are unlikely to want to do business with me if I cannot connect with them. Without getting too technical there is a huge difference between B2B and B2C services in the banking industry and most people only know about B2C because that's their only experience with banking but the real money is made in the B2B part of the financial services industry (and that's where I work).
DeleteBut the number one rule about connecting with people is this: talk about THEM, never talk about yourself. They are everything, they are important, you are nothing, you're not worthy, so shut up about yourself and talk to THEM about THEM. I follow this simple rule and people come away with the impression that I'm such a lovely person to speak to because all I wanna talk about is them - the fact is people have massive egos and love talking about themselves, so all I am doing is laying a trap, massaging their egos by talking about them and they may know nothing about me but they walk away loving that interaction we've just had so when I ask them for something (how about an investment of $1m then), they say yes because they like me. So it's not even about being posh, it's more about having the right social skills to manipulate people to get what you want - that's sales for you. I shamelessly manipulate these people I work with and I'm very good at that.
As for acting, I think people have a problem with it because they're afraid of lying, they're conditioned not to lie because a) they are taught it is wrong, b) they are afraid of being exposed as liars and c) they lack the acting skills to lie convincingly. But with practice (as in acting), you become better and better at lying and thus I'm a really good liar.
As for acting, no - I've done real acting where I've been put up in a 5-star hotel, chauffeur driven to set and given a beautiful trailer where the make up artist would knock on the door and say, "excuse me Mr Liang, I'm here to do your make up, may I enter please?" I've been treated like a VIP whereby the assistant director would show me the menu from the local restaurants and I can order anything I like and it would be delivered to me hot in my trailer on set. I've walked down the red carpet in Berlin and Munich with photographers lining up to take photos of me and kids running up to ask me in German if they can talk a selfie with me. I've done all that before, so to go back to a low budget student film where people would be whispering, "do you know he's done some really high profile work in Germany? Then what the hell is he doing on a low budget student film?" Nah. If I can't do the high profile work where I'm treated like a VIP, I would rather not do it.
Yes I know about B2B banking and B2B business in general, my father's company was B2B and he would deal with banks often for financing. Its crazy how business works totally differently at the high end. Its not people using their life savings to invest in new projects, but always getting outside investors to float their boat. My dad also liked to talk about the concept of "entertainment", where I've seen him talk to clients before and how he always asks about them and the things they like, and uses his almost encyclopedic knowledge of interesting facts/stories to talk about it. I guess business just works differently at the high end... Numbers may be concrete, but they can be faked so businesses need charming people to convince others to trust them, especially when ridiculous sums of money are involved.
DeleteOh I knew you were in some high stakes productions from prior blogposts, but I just assumed you didn't have the spare time to act in productions since you're a banker now. But then I realize you only work 20 hours per week and these are flexible hours, so sounds like plenty of time for auditions and shooting some supporting roles. I guess if you can land another VIP role then its worth it haha, didn't know they treated you like a VIP hotel guest since that food part isn't shown in movies.
Hi Amanda, yup, your father's world should give you a pretty good idea. The amount of work I do varies, like I was at home just surfing the net on a wet Saturday evening and someone in Switzerland responded to one of my messages, then I ended up chatting to him for nearly an hour and it's really quite flexible, since many of us are working from home at the moment so it really doesn't matter whether it is office hours or not. In any case, I work in sales - I'm paid mostly in commissions (and there are some bonuses as well) so if I have nothing better to do then I jolly well work harder. Otherwise I was just listening to old Kylie Minogue songs from the 1990s today, so yeah if I have the chance to be productive and do some work from home, then why not.
DeleteOh they treated me like a VIP in places like Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Germany and Belgium when I was on shoots there. I remember walking into my hotel room in Germany and the crew had left me a lovely welcome gift of a fruit basket, snacks and fresh flowers - when I got to my dressing room at the studios, there were fresh orchids in my dressing room and one of the more junior crew members (we call them 'runners' because they are always running around getting stuff for people) asked me if I liked the flowers, otherwise she would get another kind for me and I was like, woah I could be a real diva and insist on something like, "I TOLD YOU I ONLY WANT WHITE ROSES, WHICH PART OF WHITE ROSES DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND?!" Before throwing the bouquet across the hall, oh I have met divas like that before and the lengths they would go to in order to please me was unreal. I remember when I ordered this prawn dish from the local restaurant and the runner called us up on set and apologized, they had run out of prawns would I have another dish instead? And I was like, well they can't be the only restaurant in the Postdam area who serve prawns? I want prawns, you have Google in Germany, start looking for restaurants locally that serve prawns! That was my most diva moment, I did get my prawns eventually and the runner apologized for keeping me waiting.
Then again, I've always done low-budget films when I was younger, I would usually be persuaded if there was a big name in it - there were two films I did which were super low-budget but both had big stars in it. One had a UK singer who had a number 6 hit in the charts when I was 14 and I just wanted to meet her - so I did the film and yes I got to meet her, then there was another time when one of the leads in the film was a guy who had two UK number ones and 12 top ten hits, I saw him in concert so many times when I was at university; I was told, "it's a low budget film but we hope it will be a huge underground hit as this famous guy's in it". So yeah got to rub shoulders with him and in both instances, I made £0.00 from it because the budget was so low they didn't even break even but I had fun meeting my idols. Oh if I was given a chance to do a film like that again just to meet someone famous, then yeah I'll do it not for the money but for the fun. But a bunch of university students assembling a cast made of their friends and family? No thanks, what do I get out of it? I don't even get to meet a B-list celeb there. The fact is, I get to turn the camera on myself and upload stuff onto Youtube or Instagram anytime I want, so I don't feel like I need to do a student film before I am acting again.
Oh so it wasn't just my dad who wakes up whenever he likes, but could be browsing the internet randomly at night and getting a call from someone in a different country which starts social but ends up talking about business. Life really does work differently at that level... No set hours, but business could happen at any hour of the day. My dad was also self-employed so he would only get paid if he closed big contracts with clients, but that also meant he could take his family on long vacations when he wanted to.
DeleteWow they really invested a lot of money (aside from salary) to keep their actors happy. Lol you shouldn't be mean to runners, they might get food from the worst restaurants then haha. But I get that the first time people treat you as important, it feels good to indulge a little, then stop after that. So when movies show actors being divas, it isn't entirely untrue. But I've felt the same about movies showing scientists having cartoonishly big egos, and after working in academia that is 100% true as well.
Oh yeah I forgot about Indie films, they will probably be more flexible with schedules since they aren't offering as much money or prestige. Though I'm really surprised how you've managed to carve decent careers in both acting and banking, since most people can hardly do one thing in their lives. Good for you mate!
Yes Amanda, I want to have the kind of lifestyle that your father had - you see, I compare myself to my sister who earns even more than me as she has a very senior position but she works something silly like 80 to even 85 hours a week, that's in about 12 hours a day including weekends, no breaks, very little sleep whereas I get at least 8 hours of sleep on weekdays and 10 hours on weekends. My sister can't say, "can I work 20% less by putting in only 0.8 x 84 = 67.2 hours a week and take a 20% pay cut? So I can get more sleep and family time." No, it's either she works 84 hours a week and does her job to the standard that her employers expect her to do or it's nothing - resign and find another job. Her situation is "take it or leave it" - if she accepts the position, then she has to work the way they want her to work in order to get paid that much, if not she has to resign: all or nothing. I like the flexibility I have, the work life balance and of course, getting a lot more sleep.
DeleteAs for the divas in showbiz, it's the culture I suppose: the runners are told to always please all the actors, so it really doesn't matter whether you are a super famous star or someone like me whom they have never heard of, they are instructed to treat us all like stars and give us the VIP treatment. Most of the time I do get along well with people but of course, you have to realize that there are two tiers of actors: the stars are treated like VIP and then the extras (and those doing very minor parts) are treated like crap. I remember very, very early on in my acting career I was on a film set and there was Jude Law - a famous actor so I went over and talked to him and the 2nd assistant director blew his top, screamed at me as if I had just shat in Jude Law's tea or something that horrific. Jude Law was extremely nice and friendly but I was made to feel like I wasn't worthy to even approach or go near someone as famous as Jude Law, this 2AD went out of his way to make me feel as worthless as possible - it was an abuse of power of course, just like the security guard at Rimini airport who kicked up a fuss about my face mask. Even in the acting world, I had worked hard to go from being a nobody to someone who was being treated like an A-list VIP.
In any case, I speak 25 languages, 7 of them fluently. If I can master that many languages, then changing my accent in English is faaaaar easier than learning a brand new language like Welsh or Russian. Like duh, I already speak English when I only started learning Russian and Welsh as an adult? Changing one's accent is easy IF one has a an ear for it. It's a process that an expert has taught me, I did get lessons from a voice coach.
Yeah the price of job security(guaranteed salary per month) that your sister pays is less control over her work hours. Maybe if she had a consulting practice then she could pick and choose her own hours. But such is life, risk vs reward (not just in money but also time). And you have to be very well connected and reputable to have your own company, its not corruption/cronyism, just being trustworthy without being a salaried employee of people paying you.
DeleteI really dont get why there are some administrative staff who like to yell at the "lowly" people in a department to protect the higher up people. I've had many university secretaries yell at me just for approaching a professor outside of class to ask about research because I'm "disturbing" them. I dont even know what they get out of it, because in this case professors need undergraduate researchers to do simple research tasks they cant waste their own time on, and these secretaries are getting in the way of science. Yeah you're right its probably like the security guard in Rimini airport, having low prospects and taking out their anger by abusing the little power they had. Though I think an assistant director could be the head director one day, dunno why they're pissed, while a secretary is gonna have a harder time becoming a professor than an undergraduate researcher.
Oh god I used to wonder how actors could pull off other accents well, then I realize its literally their dayjob to lie to you, so accent isnt much different. Robert Pattinson has had to play American/French accents recently, and they arent too bad, even though I still remember his as Edward Cullen from Twilight.
Well Amanda, given that my sister works in health care, this is not the right time to set up her own business (like a consulting practice) - maybe in the future. As for people like the university secretaries and the security guard at the airport, well - their behaviour is a reflection of how wretched their lives are, if that's the greatest thrill of their day to yell at someone over something like that, then we should feel sorry for them.
DeleteAnd some terminology for you: there is the director and then there is the 1st assistant director (who has some real power) and the 2nd assistant director (who yells at people but has no real power). It's crazy how in showbiz, there are many lawyers of hierarchy so if the 2nd AD tries to speak to the director, the 1st AD would yell at him/her and say, "how dare you speak to the director, you're only the 2nd AD, you're supposed to speak to the 1st AD for permission before even approaching the director." Then the 2nd AD would take that frustration out on others lower down in the food chain etc - we end up with the security guard at the airport situation all over again, it's all bullshit.
But I need to point out that you said "an assistant director could be the head director one day" - NOOOOOOO, completely false!!! It's a brutal industry. Totally brutal. Of course everyone in the industry would dream of becoming a famous director one day, but so few people reach the top of the industry. For everyone 1 successful head director, there are like 100 first assistant directors and 10,000 second assistant directors.
Allow me to use your father's business as an analogy to show you just how brutal the reality is. Your father is the big shot CEO, there's only one big shot CEO in the business. Then he would have say 100 middle managers in the business who have some power but still have to answer to the CEO. Then there are 1000 foremen who manage the staff on the factory floor. Will every middle manager become a CEO? No, maybe 1 in 10 would be the other 9 would not. Same thing, would every foreman before a middle manager? No, again maybe 1 in 10 will be promoted one day, most wouldn't - you come from a rich family and you have had a great education, so you clearly are optimistic about your future career Amanda, but not everyone is as fortunate as you. The vast majority of people would NEVER become a CEO like your father, not in a million years. They'll be lucky if they ever reach middle management, they will never be rich, they will never be successful - by that token, a lot of these 2nd ADs dream of the day they will be promoted to 1st AD but the fact is the vast majority of them will NEVER be promoted. This is a brutal industry, there is only work for so many big shot directors, only so many movies are made a year and thus there are waaaaay too many aspiring young people who want to be big shot directors and waaay too little work for them, the odds are so terrible for anyone wishing to make it in this industry.
As for the changing one's accents, that's what voice coaches are for - actors are NOT expected to figure everything out for themselves especially when they can simply hire an expert to teach them how to do it. The latest Spiderman is Tom Holland and there was this stunt sequence that the stunt co-ordinator wanted him to do, a full twisting front dive roll and so some months back, he came to my gym and trained that skill and I was one of the coaches who helped him learn that skill. No one told Tom Holland, "you're Spiderman, now figure out how to do it on your own." Hell no, he got all the help he needed included from me. Yeah, I taught Spiderman how to do one of his stunts. Likewise for my accent, I got help too from a voice coach expert - this Scottish guy who made a lot of money teaching people how to change their accents. So I'm not gonna pretend I did it on my own with no help, like most people in my position, I did whatever I had to do to get the best results: I got professional help the same way Tom Holland got help to train his stunts as Spiderman.
DeleteYeah, the security guard probably felt envy that there were people with enough money to travel during corona while they can barely pay rent. I guess we can take a few beatings knowing our life is "on the up" and not stagnating or going down.
DeleteHmm, my father actually grew up working class, went to Poly in SG, got kicked out for arguing with a lecturer about electronics, but managed to work as a technician in the US before starting his own business(he said immigration was much laxer before 9/11). He actually didn't have 1000s of employees, and only had maybe tops 20 people in his company, but he did work with many more people on the offshore oil-rigs as he was a respected contractor for much larger oil companies. But its true many people in his situation would have stayed a technician or at best a solidly middle-class engineer for a big oil company, and not worked their way up to be CEO of their own small business and a highly paid contractor. I guess I should feel lucky that my science/engineering career has gone smoothly so far, while people like my dad were very talented at engineering but were never given the opportunity to attend university, let alone do a PhD.
Btw, although I initially found it strange you had enough free time to do acting, my father himself had a car hobby that he self-funded, but managed to turn a profit when the occasional rich Indonesian tycoon bought one of his custom cars. Him and his custom cars were even featured on the front cover of Jeep Magazine Indonesia once(even as he was working as a businessman in oil), which was where the rich tycoons tracked him down. He also did bulletproofing work for the police in Indonesia, not really for the money(though it did pay), but because it was a fun engineering hobby and he could take time off from his job when business was slow.
Dude that is so awesome! I did read an article about Tom Holland saying he had to study a little gymnastics to prepare for the spiderman role, didn't expect he did it in London with you though, since it was an American production. Yeah I guess it makes sense to hire an expert when the money is much less than the time cost of an actor doing it on their own, unless it is a very low budget production. So have you used your gymnastics training in some action roles? I imagine its a useful skill to have.
Amanda, I think you take it for granted that everyone will become as successful as you have - I don't want this to sound like a harsh criticism, but maybe you're so smart that things came relatively easily for you when others aren't as smart or talented as you are and thus they realize that their chances of becoming a super successful CEO like your dad are very, very slim. By the same token, the chances of the 2nd assistant directors to ever get promoted to 1st assistant director (and eventually to the real director) is so slim because the food chain is pyramid shaped, loads of people lower down the rungs but fewer and fewer people the higher up the pyramid you try to climb. Not everyone who aspires to climb that pyramid will have the luck, talent and good fortune of finding success.
DeleteAs for Tom Holland, well he is British and I have that photo of him and I somewhere on Facebook, I have to dig it up for you. He is pretty good at gymnastics, ie. not someone who tried it for the first time when he first got the role but he is someone who has done gymnastics for a few years already and can do a lot of the basics when he first showed up at my gym.
Here's a good clip of me doing wire work many years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtBdPg-lNX4 It's only about a minute long but it'll give you an idea of how I use my gymnastics skill doing stunt work when I was younger.
I know that most people won't be as successful as me, and I probably should've known that when I joined Mensa at the age of 15. Look I don't know much about the film industry, so I had no idea that the position of 2nd director wasn't really a good one. And I dunno if I'm just more optimistic overall because I'm in the science industry where it is less of a zero sum game(new knowledge tends to help everyone), and there is less quantifying people as "good" or "bad" as we all have very specific niches.
DeleteBut I guess in movies one cannot make a good living being a "niche" director, as they need a large audience just to fund said movie. And there are far more people who want to work in movies than people who want to be scientists, so pay is lower due to supply and demand.
I knew your ability to do backflips must come in handy, its a very flashy move great for movies That reminded me of the movie Kingsman where the main character did gymnastics as a kid so had no problem doing athletic stunts when he became a spy. That's cool Tom Holland was the same, and he did some of his own stunts with training from experts.
Well Amanda, the key difference between your industry and other industries is that it is less rigid in terms of the pyramid structure - like you said, zero sum game, new knowledge helps everyone, you're trying to discover something brand new in the lab that's uniquely a product of your hard work; compare that to someone bidding for the same project in an industry where loads of other companies wish to do that same project where only one company will be awarded that contract. This supply and demand is what ultimately shapes that pyramid and determines how steep the sides of the pyramid are and it is brutal. Take something as universal as McDonald's - the CEOs at the very top are earning billions whilst the employees at the very bottom are amongst the worst paid in our societies. There are millions of employees doing very poorly paid jobs in McDonald's restaurants around the world but only a very small number of top executives raking in billions - so this pyramid has a very wide base, in fact we shouldn't describe it as a pyramid at all. It would resemble a cushion with a needle stuck in it - the wide base is the cushion and the needle represents the top executives raking in billions. Companies like in finance or engineering tend to employ more skilled staff, so the base usually isn't that wide and there are more people who earn more money in the middle of the pyramid.
DeleteThe film industry resembles the cushion + pin model - tiny number of big shots celebs (big star actors, famous directors) will be earning millions and loads of others (like the 2nd assistant director) in the wide base (ie. the cushion) earning peanuts and very very few in the industry will make it from the cushion to the top of the needle. Yes it is that harsh and brutal. That's why on reflection, I am happy where I am in finance today because I am comfortable in the middle of a pyramid where I can easily climb higher, unlike industries that have the cushion + pin model.
Ahh okay. I finally understand why parents prefer their kid to be a lawyer/doctor/engineer/scientist instead of going into the film industry. There is just not enough to support everyone to have a decent living, even if people at the top make a lot. In my family even though we had money the artsiest job my parents would support was architect or interior designer, where it isnt as pin and cushion shaped as movies/tv.
DeleteExactly, it's the shape of the pyramid that matters and some industries are extremely unbalanced: they have the cushion + pin model as opposed to a pyramid that looks more like an equilateral triangle. When you're dealing with the cushion + pin, the risk is that you'll forever be stuck on the cushion and you'll never end up in the VIP dressing room with the white roses. Even when I got that VIP dressing room with the white roses in Germany, that was for one film - one project, there's no guarantee that just because you get a big role, that you'll keep on getting big roles for the rest of your life unlike say, a doctor, where you know you will always have well paid work until the day you decide to retire. Mind you, it's not just showbiz that has the 'cushion + pin' model, even fast food chains have the same model. Think about how much the big bosses at Burger King earn vs the staff who serve you when you get your lunch at a Burger King.
DeleteI do think that at least in the movie industry if you are talented (and a little lucky), there are scouts to find you. But in McDonalds nobody is looking for the next CEO in the kitchen/cashier of a McDonalds store. I look at my own industry and realize it does have a pyramid, almost every PhD student wants to be a professor but there are at least 6 PhD students for every professor, so only 16% will be promoted. But many people really have a Dunning-Krueger effect, and some professors hire students who they know could never make professor just because they need cheap labor for boring jobs which don't involve any thinking whatsoever (e.g cleaning/pouring beakers). I guess its not just about being talented, but also finding positions with room for advancement.
DeleteSorry Amanda, but you're wrong again about showbiz - please allow me to explain. The myth about talent scouts is nothing but a myth: sure there are stories like the one about famous British model Kate Moss. She was at an airport taking a flight one day, minding her own business when she was talent spotted, someone approached her and said you should be a model, come work with my agency and she then became a super famous model, one of the most famous in the world in the 1990s. Yeah that could happen but the chances are one in a gazillion. Like never. It is impossible.
DeleteNo, instead you have young people who are so determined to make it in the industry that they don't wait for a talent scout to spot them - I have a friend who did his own music, funded his own efforts, wrote his own songs, put them on Youtube, built up a social media following and it eventually led to one of his songs making the charts in Australia where it reached number 3 and he even got his own TV show commissioned in the UK. But that's a LOT of very hard work he had put into getting his own success and he did it his way. Likewise, I know of another comedian in Singapore, spent millions of hours editing his own videos on Youtube before being finally given his own TV show in Singapore.
There's a saying in Chinese 守株待兔 which refers to someone with a very bad attitude, waiting for success to come to them instead of proactively taking steps to achieve that success. The story goes that in ancient China, a farmer was resting under a tree one day when a rabbit came running along, tripped over a root and broke its neck. The farmer than thought, great, instead of working so hard in the fields all day, I can just sit under the tree to wait for the next rabbit to come along and fall over like that. So the farmer waited under the tree and starved to death. Oh yeah, but it means you should never say, "because Kate Moss got talent spotted by a talent scout, I can do the same - so I can do NOTHING and wait for success to come to me." Good grief, hell no. People in showbiz work their butts off, they work so freaking hard to find success. They put so much effort into creating their own content for Youtube just to raise their profiles. So it's not about luck, you become a lot luckier if you work a lot harder - my friends who have achieved success weren't lucky - hell no, they worked soooo hard to achieve the success they found in the end.
Talent scouts don't exist in showbiz at all these days, it's a myth. Instead of you have talent agents who are specialists - so you have the agents that represents the best dancers, the best models, the best singers etc. And if you wanna make it as a model for example, you beg the best modeling agency in America to take you on and for them to consider adding you to their books. The best modeling agency in America has a waiting list that is crazy long because all aspiring models in America wants to be on their books - so it's young models begging the agency to take them on, the agency would NEVER scout for talent when the queue to join their agency is already so ridiculously long.
Anyway, one needs to be aware of the shape of the pyramid one is dealing with and not be given to the Dunning-Kruger effect. Otherwise, one needs to find one's niche, something one is extremely good at and thus can become good at something so unique that they have little competition.
And to be fair about people who work in McDonald's - you can start off as a cashier serving customers, then you work your way up to be crew leader, then floor manager, then branch supervisor etc; of course you wouldn't become the CEO but still, it's not like there is zero career progression even for people who do work in McDonald's. They do get promoted, they do earn (a bit) more money and there is some career progression if they do work there for many years. This career progression is clearly laid out for all McDonald's employees and there is a clear path to follow - you don't get to leapfrog from floor manager to CEO, no you climb up one step, onto the next level onto the pyramid - just bear in mind the higher up the pyramid you climb, the less jobs there are so each subsequent promotion becomes harder and harder to attain thus.
DeleteOh wow... meanwhile I'm sitting in my ivory tower haha. I guess it takes a lot of hustle on your own without someone already in the industry backing you. I went to SUTD when I was in their 2nd batch ever. So the professors didn't even have graduate students yet and had to fight over undergrads to do their research in place of PhD students. I guess I was "scouted" in first year when my physics professor noticed I could already code, and invited me to join their lab for research. But its a new school, so they invest more time into their students' success to build up a reputation. I heard at NUS/NTU there are much more students than professors, and lots of graduate students fighting to get in. So there's very fierce competition among the undergrads to get into any lab when the professor can just hire an older more experienced person(plenty around), than train someone up from nothing. I guess this is what most people go through, even in other majors.
DeleteWell that's good McDonalds does offer a path to progression. I usually hear its pretty grim at the lower levels, but at least it isn't permanent.
Yup, you've found the right word - hustle. The people who find success in showbiz are great at hustling, those who can't hustle will have to settle for a more stable job that pays them a regular income, a monthly salary. Typically, I see a lot of nepotism, such as the director giving his good friend's daughter a big part in the TV programme or film as a personal favour, that kinda thing. But there's no scouting done in showbiz - the management of the talent is pretty well organized.
DeleteSo let me give you an example: I am looking for a dancer to star in a commercial that I am shooting for a big brand, the concept of the commercial is that I have this beautiful lady dance around a living room gracefully, joyfully because she has a wonderful new sound system that makes her feel like she is listening to a concert live when really, she is just in her own living room. Where do I find such a dancer to be the star of my new ad?
I tell you what I won't do: I won't go to the dance schools in London and start 'scouting' for talent. No, I'm too busy to do that. Instead, I'll contact the top 3 or 4 best dance agencies in London and give them a casting brief: I want a female dancer, black or mixed-race, age 25 to 30, height at least 1.75 meters tall, long hair is a must, trained in ballet ideally but also experience with street/hip hop. Please send me no more than 5 suggestions of your best dancers. So if I have contacted 4 agencies and asked for 5 suggestions, I have then a shortlist of 20 dancers to see but this is not 20 random women I have found off the streets of London - no, these are the very, very best dancers in the UK who are represented by the most prestigious dance agencies and all 20 are BRILLIANT dancers who are highly trained and very experienced. They are easily the top 20 female dancers in the country who fit my casting brief. That's how well organized the casting process is - if I am throwing money at making this ad I'm filming super professional, then I want to audition the top 20 dancers in the country for this ad, not run around the streets of London randomly auditioning people who are neither trained nor experienced in dance.
And like I said earlier, the waiting list to join the top dance agencies in the UK is so crazy long, like every single dancer in the UK wants to be on their books. And so that's how talent is organized in the UK within the showbiz industry and you can see how efficient it is done.
And by the same token, if you're not represented by the top dance agencies in the country, then forget it, normally how talented you are, you will never get to audition for such projects and no, there are no 'talent scouts' out there looking for new talent. Not at all! Instead, I hear stories about how young dancers or actors would wait outside the offices of these top agencies for hours just to catch the boss when s/he goes out for lunch, running after them down the street, "please have a look at my CV, please consider me for your agency! I've waited 5 hours in the pouring rain, please just take a look at my CV I am begging of you!" Hence the bosses of these talent agencies are the gods in showbiz, they are the king/queen makers - because they get to decide whether or not to take you on and accept you into their agency and whether or not to send you to the audition (when remember, they're only allowed to send a small number to the audition, so they will pick their favourites). Oh I should do another post about showbiz soon.
DeleteLol this brutal industry would be every Asian parent's nightmare haha. Yeah Alex you should write a post about showbiz, I can see you got a lot of interesting nuances to tell and enjoy speaking about it. It would also break down myths about how people even get into showbiz. I assume everythings just runs auditions, but that is time consuming and some people just wont bother.
DeleteThough this does show talent isnt everything, hustle seems equally as important. That reminds me of your post about people who have good GPAs in college but dont end up successful, and most of the reasons seemed to boil down to lack of streetsmarts (basically hustle) or bad social skills (another thing entirely).
Well let's see, I'm trying to complete another piece that I have written with regards to Covid-19 and then I have another piece I want to write which does cover people working in the creative arts/showbiz because of a ridiculous PR disaster that the government here in the UK has had this week. Just google 'Fatima's next job' - with this blowing up in the UK at the moment, it would be a timely article.
DeleteLol that poster is quite the shitstorm. People are pointing out that during Covid the coders stay employed while the artists don't, and this poster is just kicking people when they're already down. Anyway looking forward to your next articles.
DeleteBtw on the topic of jobs/reskilling, as a former gatekeeper what do you think about new forms of education like "Coding bootcamps" which churn out software engineers after 6 months of intense training instead of traditional 4 year degrees in engineering/computer science? And there are also these short 6-week Artificial intelligence courses offered by MIT and other unis.
DeletePersonally I'd never use these because I have access to my academic network, but people say these nontraditional forms of education are cheaper and more accessible to typically "marginalized groups" such as women, minorities, and low-income groups. Some newspapers even touted them as a form of social mobility for a low income woman/minority person with only a high school education that doesn't have the time or money for 4 years in university (sorta like Vera from your previous blogpost).
To be honest, I don't know enough about coding to make an informed judgment about it. The fact is the closest thing I can compare to it is the learning of languages - there are languages courses which can take 4 years (a degree course) but there are some people who are super gifted at languages and can become fluent in a much shorter period of time and if they are that brilliant and can learn faster than everyone else, then why not let them learn at their own accelerated rate rather than expect them to learn like everyone else? I believe that applies in the world of languages but as for coding, I don't know - I can't comment. I spoke to Vera recently and goodness me, she still wants to go to law school regardless. I just backed off, I didn't want to be the pessimistic friend who pours cold water on her plans (even if I do think she is barking up the wrong tree). I think she might be better off learning coding but then again, coding isn't for everyone. Trust me, I've tried coding and after a few days I was like, no - this is not for me at all.
DeleteSomething is going crazy with blogger. I clicked notify but I'm only seeing messages from LIFT and not Amanda. Spam is also empty.
Delete@Amanda, knowing how to code does not make one a good coder. In my previous life I majored in games programming. I guess the basics like computing maths and algorithms and low level assembly languages are probably not taught in these programming boot camps/crash courses.
DeleteIs the candidate able to write a code that can print out "hello world" on their platform of choice? Sure. But would you hire that person to optimise the code for the next Netflix or AWS? That is debatable.
I guess the principle is alright, why spend 4 years on a degree if one can do it faster? Even a PhD is a variable time length depending on how fast the student can complete 3 pieces of original research (some mathematicians take 1 year, biologists who need human experiments may need 10 years). But it isnt worth it if employers wont recognise the certification.
DeleteOh its alright if you suck in the beginning, almost everyone does. The key to coding is to gain experience debugging so you can code faster and with less mistakes next time (think of it like a new cook burning food but over time getting better at it, its a skill that must be trained). And yeah I think Vera studying code is better than studying law because there are too many lawyers already, while the tech industry is still growing.
Yeah blogger isn't notifying me of my own or your posts either, only LIFT's, but before it did. @Choaniki I know knowing to code isn't enough, I'm a professional coder myself(on top of theoretical physics/electronics), but for scientific simulations instead of consumer software. I assume these short 6 month "coding bootcamps" are not for the top level FAANG type software engineers. But these coding bootcamps could help as a certification for someone to land their 1st software job if they don't have the time or money to pay for 4 years of a computer science degree (tuition + living costs can add up). I guess the MIT/Harvard/etc. short 6-week A.I/other theory courses are to teach the computing maths if someone has difficulty teaching themselves. A combination of the two, coding skills + computing maths theory, could probably be okay for someone who isn't that ambitious but just wants a very basic entry-level job in the software industry. I used to think 4 year degrees were standard, but it only really suits wealthy people who can afford not to work for 4 years without accruing too much debt.
DeleteWell let's put it this way - I tried coding because I wanted to challenge myself and I didn't find it fun, so I chose not to continue with it. I'll just stick to what I am already good at doing as I have already made a career for myself doing precisely and exactly what I am good at (rather than try to do something that is brand new to me). Vera's case is a different story as she doesn't have any skills at the moment that can get her very well paid work and she needs to become good at something if she wants to become richer.
Delete"Vera's next job could be in cyber (she just doesn't know it yet)" hahaha. Yeah, technical skills aren't the only moneymakers in the world (as your solution to that example with the Malaysian dissident showed me).
DeleteAkan datang, I need to post my next post on the second wave of Covid-19 then I will get onto the Fatima's next job fiasco.
DeleteNot sure about UK or HK but skills transferrability in SG only applies to the elites or the "natural aristocrats" as they call themselves.
ReplyDeleteWhereas I had to start from the bottom when I did a career switch, the C levels are parachuted in from another GLC like Singtel and get to start from the top. No healthcare industry experience required. This is not even mentioning the various ex-generals and their comfy GLC roles.
For normal proles like us, its professional career conversion program, SGunited traineeship, life long learning, insert buzzword here in order to "stay relevant" and stay employed.
What you're describing is corruption and I'm sorry but my reaction is still the same: oh Singapore is corrupt because the PAP elites are natural aristocrats in your system? #rolleyes tell me something I don't know.
DeleteAlthough I agree GLCs are corrupt, its common practice for CEOs to learn on the job about a totally new field when starting at a new company. I knew a CEO who worked for a healthcare company then got hired by an oil company, and had to read up about the oil industry on the job, and he grew up working class in Indonesia. Having "managed company with revenue of X billion dollars" is way more valued than "Sg skillsfuture course completed in relevant field."
DeleteAlso skills transferrability does not only apply to management jobs. In academia people change fields all the time because although the problems change, the underlying skillset is usually the same. My mechanical engineer boss did not care that I previously worked in quantum physics for the semiconductor industry, so long as I could do math and code. But this only applies to jobs with a certain degree of independence. If its a job where they just tell you what to do, then they could hire anyone and prefer someone with relevant experience that they dont have to train. A CEO isnt trained by any boss, and a university researcher is expected to train themselves, so adaptability is more important than experience in the field.
@Amanda not all top management start from the top. The hospitality industry requires their management to start from the bottom as a management trainee and be rotated to all departments to understand how they function. At least from what I have seen no hotel manager is an ex-military with 0 hospitality experience.
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