Final Term

I have now started my final term at b-school. I have been negligent in my blogging. I basically took the whole term off. There was a lot going on. There was a credit crisis and a market crash to watch. My wife is working now and I am now spending more Daddy time. The first term of my second year has been the best part of the MBA for me. We got to do some family holidays. Careerwise, I knew where I was going.

I finally got to go home at the end of the second term. A cousin had a kid. That's 4 great-grandkids for one of my grandma's. The other has 6. Family was asking me "how was the MBA?” I didn't even know where to start. So much has happened.

I thought that I had got a lot of done in clubs, job hunting and in academics but the thing that they were most impressed was a picture of me and CBS's distinguished alumni Warren Buffet. I got to go to Omaha last year and he was very kind about taking photos with MBA's he meets. Mr. Buffet is a serious contrast to the tycoons you see in Singapore and Malaysia. He's 10 times richer and far more humble. He's amazingly generous with his time and a testament to the character of Americans from the central regions.

Malaysia was a little bit down. Tensions between the Malay (Bumiputra) and non-Malay populations have got pretty bad. Non-Malays in Malaysia are genuinely wondering if they will have any role in 20 years time. Me and a friend who had reached a senior role in the Malaysia office of a multinational insurer were joking that there wasn't much of a story for the Malaysian economy. There are links to the Middle East (which wouldn't help non-Muslim Malaysians) and ASEAN. Unfortunately an ASEAN Free Trade Zone would take 10 years and talented Malaysians need to know what to do with themselves in the meantime.

If I were an educated young Malaysian, I would be taking a good hard look at Singapore, HK or Shanghai. It might require a 3-9 month investment to studying Mandarin in China for Shanghai but going regional seems to make a lot of sense. One of my MBA colleagues who is joining a bulge bracket bank in Equity Research in HK is using the June-August period between graduating and starting work to do an intensive Mandarin class in Shanghai.