Posted 9:56 PM by Andy
I’ve been in China for two months now, so I’ll recap some notable experiences.

Work. I’m officially reintegrated into the corporate world with its attendant mixture of paper-shuffling and actual usage of the cranium. In this Dilbertesque world that I occupy, I am stuck in a morass of meetings and documents with no foreseeable end in sight. Work can be boiled down to a few key activities: write a document proposing a change, ask others to review and approve it, make the change. The nature of some of the tasks are mildly interesting such as interpreting contracts and thinking through implementation plans for expanding the firm’s alliance program. The part that absolutely saps the life out of me with its grinding tedium is verifying royalty calculations against those done by a colleague. I guess I am not cut out to be an auditor. I’m torn between asking for more responsibilities and getting overwhelmed in the details when my wish is granted.

Peeps/Social Life. There are two distinct groups of people here, the foreigners and the locals. A large contingent forms the teaching corps at the company school. The others are sprinkled throughout the firm. Within these there are subcultures by hobbies or social affinity. There are the ball players, the DVD serial watchers, the paint-the-towners, and the Christians who form an umbrella group that covers all cliques. Although I’m intensely private, when I’m feeling social, I like to roam between each one. This past Friday night I hung out playing games with the expats. The next day I bowled, enjoyed a banquet meal, sung karaoke, and jumped around a dance floor at the Celebrity Garden Hotel with my division colleagues on the company tab. Sunday I could’ve and would’ve on any other weekend gone to Suzhou with the singles at the firm’s newly established “Singles Club.” During the week I’m too drained to cruise the town so I stay in Pudong. Things should become even busier now that summer is here and I venture out more. Tangent: I went on a blind date set up by my buddy Situ, the giggly girl that I work closely with. The synopsys: The girl was a tall jewelry saleswoman, local Shanghainese. We shared a meal, walked around a mall, had coffee, and parted ways. Conclusion: nice girl, no chemistry. The most interesting guy that’s about to head back to the USA is Peter K, this kid from Cali who is very vocal and a social gadfly. The self-proclaimed general (master of Counterstrike,) the guy who in the heat of a paintball battle will pump several rounds into an opponent curled up in a fetal position at point blank range against the rules and relish the retelling, who breathes vehemence at the Lakers in general and Karl Malone in particular, someone who hates sharing his basketball while practicing shooting, this is the Peter I’m very amused by. Contrary to the profile I portray, he is a nice guy.

General Observations. Shanghai is unquestionably commercial. From the halcyon days of the opium trade to the current times with an unstanchable inflow of foreign direct investment, those who live to make a buck and turn a profit have congregated here and made Shanghai their base of operations. Vendors line every nook and cranny of seemingly every street hawking contraband for various tastes. Within such a scene, there is fertile soil for scams. I’m the victim of one hoodwinking scheme that still disgusts me to this day. Basically one night I was wandering along Nanjing East Road, when a huckster sidled up and proceeded to chat me up. My defenses should have been higher, but I was courteous and conversed with him. Next thing you know, he led me to a karaoke lounge/bar. I was amenable to singing because I was bored and had few peeps to hang with that night. Long story short, on top of the room rental fee, the shady joint charged me exorbitant amounts for alcohol that a couple of tips girls ordered. Naively I didn’t check the prices closely enough up front and was tagged with a huge bill that was not reduced despite my protests. Mind you, this was the second week I was here. I didn’t have enough cash so the manager sent a guy back to my pad to get my credit card. There were several options throughout the night during which I could have evaded them but I chose to play it straight. I didn’t want to fight them and I didn’t want to go through arbitration to test the dispute resolution process here which is murky at best. So I paid them off for a lesson. I guess the ageless maxims of “don’t talk to a stranger” and its corollary “stay away from alcohol” holds true. Later, after consultations with local friends, their response was enlightening. There are two ways to resolve this, they advised me. One, go through the courts. Two, solicit the help of local triad members. Both solutions were impractical given the small amount in the grand scheme of things so I let it go. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when I heard their suggestion of enlisting the local gangsters in my bid for justice. That’s Shanghai for you.

Investments. After a recent encounter with Frank W, my interest in investing has peaked. I finally unloaded Cisco which has been a tremendous underperformer. If it weren’t for Autodesk, my portfolio would be worthless. ADSK grew 150% the last year in price, with earnings growth at an impressive 100% rate. My SMIC options are underwater but since I haven’t even received them and the vesting schedule is backloaded, the point is moot. We discussed his new venture in non-performing loans. Basically China is awash in a spate of bad loans that will be written off if they cannot be reclaimed. Enter investment banks that buy these loans at discount prices and try to collect some portion of the assets. Frank has formed a fund to play this niche. Seeing how he made oodles off real estate, I am biding my time to claim my piece of land here as well. Maybe I’ll raise some funds and form my own real estate investment trust if I find it interesting. There are so many things that I need to save up for: stocks, real estate, poker, entreprenuership.
Let’s discuss these in turn. Stocks as an asset class is a no-brainer especially if your portfolio consists of a broad sector of firms that will not be highly correlated to reduce volatility. Real estate if purchased judiciously with an eye on interest rates has proven to be a highly lucrative investment class. Poker has taken off in the US and other hotspots like the UK because of its everyman can win premise. Low-limit is pure mechanics, where someone with the patience to grind it out can eke out some profits. For purists, pot-limit is the most skill-intensive game because it punishes chasers and rewards timely bluffing. But the most notorious game format is no-limit. The idea that you can lose your stack on any one card means luck is as much a factor as skill. In hold-‘em, you can be way ahead with a set of aces to a gut-shot straight draw on the turn and still lose. I’ve been honing my craft and am getting the rhythms of no-limit down. The major leaks in my game are overcalling with second-best hands and occasionally being trapped by monster hands. My strengths are betting for value and trapping others with the nut hand. I caught the entreprenuerial bug from working in Nor-Cal. Now I’m just accumulating the experience and contacts for the day when I hang up my own shingles with a few others. Mark Cuban of Broadcast.com and Mavericks fame has an interesting take on venture capital. In essence, he rejects it in favor of sweat equity. So I’m not as worried about startup funds as much as operating cash flow. It’s also interesting to note those who have crossed over from the corporate world to the poker community, like Paul Phillips and Phil Gordon.
Ball. After several more sessions on the playground, I have scoped out the competition and now understand the pecking order. I rank myself either second or third for guards. I separate by position because there are plenty of 6-foot bruisers who outweigh me by 50 pounds that I should not match up against if teams are balanced. I classify those guys as forwards. The top guard here is this local guy built like Vinnie “The Microwave” Johnson, about 5’7’’, solid as a rock, and has incredible touch on his jumpshot. I pride myself on being able to lock down my opponents so it was much to my chagrin a couple weeks ago when he repeatedly hit difficult fadeaway jumpers with me draped over him. On my drives he would hold and grab to wear me down taking a page from the Pistons defensive playbook. I was so upset I lost to him that day that I started to hack him on defense too. When I left the court that day, he came up and shook my hand. I took it as a sign of respect. The other basketball junkie is Rob Y, who traversed a path from NYC to Stanford to Cisco to SMIC. When he is on, his jumper is automatic because he elevates to the height of his jump before releasing. Most defenders wouldn’t even get up to challenge that. Originally I gave him the edge over myself in terms of pure shooting ability but over the weekend I forced him into a 1 for 20 performance, and even caused him to sprain his back on a fadeaway to avoid my outstretched arm that I have to rerank him equal to myself.

Non-monetary investments. Lest you think I’m a self-engrossed egomaniac that only cares about money, power, and respect (check ESPN’s article on Edgerrin James when he first came out,) I do care to invest in kingdom values. I visited an orphanage one weekend with 3 of my colleagues. Ivan Y had been to the Living Stone orphanage in Nanning on previous occasions and led us there. We flew out on a Friday and stayed through the weekend. I hung out with the kids chatting, playing hoops, cards, and running around. Half are disabled and the others are healthy. Some personalities are apparent from an early age. The most fascinating kid was this girl Yu-yen who is highly energetic and extremely upbeat. At 7 years old, she would tease me about my eating mannerisms and try to use me to incite Ivan to confessing he has a girlfriend. It was fun but draining since the kids get up at 6 a.m. to the sound of a gonging bell. Why did I drop 2 grand to play with those kids? No other motivation except for the biblical injunction to take care of orphans and widows. Since I don’t know too many widows, I’ll have to opt for orphans. On another note, I have started an English corner meeting for my colleagues. I lead these freewheeling English discussions so they can improve their conversational skills. A consulting firm has contacted me to teach on Saturday mornings too. Looks like I can’t indulge my lazy tendencies on Saturdays any more.

Next time: Thoughts on romantic interests via insights gleaned from a novel.