A bicultural professional--divided loyalty or best of both worlds?

Speech: Silicon Valley Chinese Engineers Association Annual Conferenc, October 6, 2001

Despite recent tragic events, we are lucky to be living in America. This is a country of generosity, in space and in spirit. This is a country that has room for everyone and anyone. Anyone with the desire and the drive has the opportunity to succeed here in America. As previous speakers have already recounted, nowhere exemplifies this fact more than here in Silicon Valley.

According to latest U.S. census figures, more than one out of four persons living in Santa Clara County is an Asian American and one out of every fourteen is a Chinese American. Walk through any high tech company in Silicon Valley, and one would meet engineers, managers and executives from all over the world. If America is the land of opportunity, then Silicon Valley the source where opportunities originate.

Silicon Valley is the living proof that diversity is the strength of America. All of us that live and work in Silicon Valley have become to varying degrees multicultural professionals. We have to develop multicultural sensitivities in order to communicate with each other, to work as effective teams and therefore to be successful. Tragically, it is the lack of diversity and cultural sensitivity that kept our intelligence gathering agencies from detecting and preventing the recent acts of terrorism but that’s a topic of discussion for another day.

Today however, I would like to talk about the merit of being a bicultural professional rather than multicultural. More specifically, I would like to talk about being a professional person that takes advantage of being a Chinese and at the same time being an American.

In 1978, more than twenty years ago, I joined Chase Manhattan Bank to help American corporations do business in China, thus making use of my Chinese background as well as my consulting experience and my technical education. At that time, China was just opening its doors to the west and I took the job with Chase Bank with a sense of adventure and it did not occur to me that being bicultural could serve as a basis for a professional career. In fact, many people I met in China and not a few in the U.S. had trouble understanding what a person with a doctorate degree in polymer science was doing in an intermediary role of uncertain calling.

Today is very different. China has become the sixth largest economy in the world, the only major trillion-dollar economy expected to double within ten years, and has become a major trading partner of the U.S. and of California. Today opportunities abound for those who can move comfortably and get things done on both sides of the Pacific and who can function as a bridge between the east and west.

For the twenty some odd years that I have been going back and forth to China, I find certain practices and ways of doing of things essential to a successful career. One is that I take careful notes. Basically it is never a good idea to rely solely on one’s memory on important matters, such as your wedding anniversary, but it is even more important when you know you are jet lagged. When you are jet-lagged, it is amazing as to how easy it is to get order of events, people seen, nature of discussion and decisions made all mixed up just a few weeks after it all took place.

Another important characteristic is careful and active listening, or listening with empathy. This means listening in such a way that the speaker feels assured that he/she is being understood, not feeling the pressure from a listener who is anxious to interrupt and get a word in. An active listener is learning from the conversation and meeting, absorbing and digesting and understanding. Most of us leave a lot on the table because we have never paid enough attention to becoming a good listener. Active listening is a part of effective communication.

To be an effective listener in a cross cultural situation is even more challenging because it requires the person to be constantly switching the contextual background. A Chinese may be saying certain things that have certain significance while an American might be saying similar things but mean quite something different. A bicultural person has to have the ability to put the remarks in context and be able to explain one side to the other.

There are many occasions when I have been called upon to assist with the interpreting between Chinese officials and American business executives. My command of the Chinese language is never good enough for me to be a professional interpreter. But ironically, because I cannot be a word for word interpreter, I concentrate on making sure that the meaning and intent is accurately conveyed. For this, I get expressions of appreciation from both sides of the conversation.

To be a truly bicultural person is someone who can explain what one side is saying in the context such that the other person from the other culture can understand it. To be honest, I think I am pretty good at this and I do it naturally and do not really think about what I am doing. In that environment, my brain is constantly switching back and forth from the Chinese context to the American context, to the point that I am not even aware of what I am doing.

While I take a great deal of satisfaction in being able to help bridge the cultural gap between the Chinese attitude and the American one, sometimes the line seems blurred between explaining a position and taking a position. Sometimes one has to be able to distinguish between explaining China’s policy versus defending China’s policy. As an American citizen, I have an interest in helping Americans understand China’s policy, but I am not sure that I should be in any way defending China’s policy and be labeled an apologist for China.

For example, China has been criticized for their one child policy and their sometimes rather draconian ways of enforcing such a policy. I would point to the alternative, namely without the policy there would be 300 million more Chinese today than there already are. Certainly, I would not defend or even try to explain the extreme lengths some officials in the countryside have gone to enforce the one-child policy.

On the matter of protection of intellectual property, I would explain to my American client that this is a big headache and needs serious attention. I might indicate that lack of respect for software is part of Asian culture endemic throughout Asia, that solution will take a long time and require not only enforcement and prosecution but a great deal of education to promote understanding and respect. Again I would not defend or even condone piracy. In fact every chance I get when I am in China I would point out that protection of IP is in China’s self interest and is crucial to China developing a serious software industry.

China, of course, has been severely castigated over their so-called human rights record. Usually, this matter does not come up in my business assignments but does come up when the overall bilateral relationship is the issue. Again, I do not feel that it is my duty to defend China’s practices, especially since I have no way of gaining enough expertise to say anything authoritative about many of the practices. What I can say and have said to my American clients and political leaders is that human right condition in China is better now than ever in recent history. I have on occasion while in China with my clients and as we stroll along the Shanghai Bund to quietly ask first time visitors if the China they see is what they expected. Did China seem like a police state to them as portrayed by the American media? Of course, I have no respect for those individuals who go the other extreme, i.e., those who fabricate and distort the situation in China to increase bilateral tension in order to make a living from it.

In explaining China, it’s important to avoid using the party line from China for the simple reason that words from China tend to be doctrinaire and sounds more like slogans than are persuasive. For example, I think it is less persuasive to label the Falun Gong a dangerous evil cult, than it is to describe some of the teachings of their founder. Such concepts as levitation, power of spinning wheel to ward off bodily harm, and sickness as punishment for sins that cannot be cured by medication do a lot more to show the cult aspects of this movement than all the name calling.

As a member of the Committee of 100, I am very proud to be part of the team who has been engaged in preparing and updating a position paper on the U.S. China relations, entitled “Seeking common grounds while respecting differences.” We’ve been issuing this paper about every two years and the intended audience for this paper is The White House and Congress. In this paper we claim the advantage of bicultural perspective in pointing out that China is different from the U.S. in many ways. We encourage frequent interactions between government leaders to promote understanding and mutual respect. We argued that hectoring and lecturing and making highly public demands of China to modify their behavior to suit our American standard is not productive and not useful. Every year, we organize a conference and part of the program is to promote greater understanding between our land of origin and our adopted country. [Next year this conference will be held in San Jose and I look forward to seeing you there.]

As a bicultural person, I also devote efforts the other way, that is helping China better understand America. In the days of late 70s and early 80s, my efforts were mainly trying to convince people in China that the streets of America are not paved with gold and that everybody works hard for the admittedly high standard of living. That the image of a matronly woman in fur walking down 5th Avenue of New York with a poodle wearing a cute cashmere sweater and dainty booties does not typify America.

Today, I don’t have to do that anymore. China has largely caught up and in general understands the U.S. better than the other way around. Now, we talk about high tech development and ways of attracting foreign investments. Everybody is interested in the secrets of Silicon Valley’s success. Every chance I get, I explained that Silicon Valley’s success is in the people. When they ask what should the government do to create another Silicon Valley. My answer is that the government should do nothing other than creating an open environment. How to create a venture capital industry to breed successful high tech start-ups? I say first get the stock market up to international standards, let the market conditions, rather the government, decide on who should go public and who should not and do not limit how much windfall profit a venture capital firm can make on a successful investment. Of course to really attract foreign capital and venture capitalists the Renminbi needs to be freely convertible.

Of course, we Americans love to think that democracy is the best form of government and the right one for everybody. I happen to think a democratic government is one that I would prefer to live under but I do not presume to think that it necessarily is the only form of government nor necessarily the best one under all circumstances. In any case, I do not believe unsolicited lectures on the superiority of democracy is a very effective way to convincing anyone. One the other hand, when appropriate I wouldn’t mind explaining to my friends from China about the concept of democracy by using actual real life situations.

Let me give you an example. A few years ago, I was driving some visitors from China along route 280. Suddenly, I had an idea and pull into a rest area that featured a real ugly sculpture of Father Junipero Serra. “See this garden and flowers in this rest area,” I said to my visitors, “That’s the work of a homeless priest.” I then told them the story of this priest who was homeless and spent his time beautifying the rest area and sleeping there. The authorities found out about it and wanted to evict him. The public found out about what the authorities planned to do and raised uproar in sympathy with the homeless priest. In face of the public pressure, the authorities relented and allowed the priest to stay. Somebody, I don’t know who, even provided the priest with a small camper trailer so that he did not have to sleep in a tent anymore. Today if you go by this rest area you will see even more elaborate garden as well as the camper in the back. End of a beautiful story.

Why did I tell the story? Because of its human interest and because it is a good illustration of the benefits of a democracy where public opinion counts. In my view, telling the story is a way of making some points without being obnoxious about it.

Hopefully I have demonstrated and convince you that in acting as a bridge between China and America, in speaking about China to help Americe better understand China, you do not have to defend China. For sure, you should not feel any sense of divided loyalty. As a citizen of this country, you owe your allegiance to the United States. Period. This is not negotiable. As we know well from the recent experiences of Wen Ho Lee, there will be plenty of people that will suspect you of divided loyalty anyway. You must not give them cause and you must fight back when they discriminate and practice racial profiling.

As I alluded to at the beginning of my presentation, to be a bicultural person is to have the best of both worlds. As China grows in preeminence on the world stage, there will be a growing need for people that can communicate, facilitate and motivate on both sides of the Pacific. But the opportunities are even broader than just those that can go back and forth.

China is now actively recruiting those that have been trained and working in the U.S. to go back to China, much like Taiwan did about 10-15 years ago. Why? Because these people have the kind of training, experience, skill set and mindset and network of contacts of value to China. When China completes their reform of the securities market and open up the venture capital market and make the Renminbi convertible, the trickle of people returning to China to live and work there would become a torrent.

Opportunities in Silicon Valley are also growing for the bicultural person as well. For every new ethnic shopping center that opens means more jobs from chefs and waiters to clerks and shop owners to managers and small business operators.

The venture capital industry used to be virtually an all white business. Thanks to more and more high tech companies successfully started up by Chinese American and other Asian American entrepreneurs, the VC firms now realized that they are the ones missing out on deal flow if they do not have some partners who can interact with the Asian American founders.

Same with us here at Deloitte & Touche. We recognize the opportunity to serve increasing number of companies founded by Chinese American entrepreneurs as well as companies coming to Silicon Valley from China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Thus we have formed Chinese Services Group with bi-lingual and bi-cultural members to provide an array of services.

My friends, we are facing tough tough times right now. When it’s the gloomiest, it’s most difficult to see the light at the end of the tunnel. But inevitably the economy will turn the corner. The long-term future for Silicon Valley, for China and for those of us that can live and work in both environments is bright and exciting. I wish all of you the best for the coming era, an era where multiculturalism and multilateralism will triumph.

Is High Technology in Hong Kong's Future

I wrote this commentary for the May 1998 issue of Asian Venture Capital Journal two months after visiting Hong Kong as a guest of the new government after the handover.

Recently I had the pleasure of visiting Hong Kong as a guest of the government. The "theme" of my visit was to explore how Hong Kong will develop a high tech industry. While there, I paid particular attention to questions relating to government, capital and people. Thanks to the efficiency and hospitality of my hosts, I met over 60 individuals in the public and private sector to discuss this issue.

In recent action is any indication, the post-handover government is clearly eager to make sure that high technology is in Hong Kong's future. Shortly after my visit, Chief Executive C.H. Tung appointed Chang-lin Tien, former Chancellor of University of California at Berkeley, to chair his Commission on Innovation and Technology. At the same time, Executive Councilor Raymond Ch'ien led a 30-strong delegation from Hong Kong for match making meeting with high tech companies in Silicon Valley.

To be or not to be?
Dr. Ch'ien's view that Hong Kong will either join the "head table countries possessing advanced technology" or risk losing its strategic place of eminence is one shared by many that I spoke with. He argues that Hong Kong must and needs to install a second tier stock market to facilitate investments into high tech ventures. Of course, he understands that an NASDAQ type of stock market in Hong Kong is only part of the conditions necessary to nurture and grow high tech companies. The other major conditions have to do with availability of capital and techno-entrepreneurs.

Hong Kong is world renown as the place where fortunes are easily won by betting on real estate. Why risk money on high technology is a natural question. Before the handover, the Hong Kong government was actually constrained by the Joint Declaration, negotiated in 1984 between Beijing and London, which limited the amount of land that could be made available for development every year. Now no longer under such constraint, the Chief Executive has declared the government's intention to make more land and housing available. This is not only good news for people living in Hong Kong, but slowing down the rate of return on property investments should also enhance the appeal and help divert local capital toward high tech investments.

Besides availability of capital, Hong Kong will need projects worthy of investments. To turn ideas into projects that become funded ventures requires talented, trained and motivated people. Hong Kong has plenty of bright and talented people but are they properly trained and motivated about high technology? In the past, careers in property development and management, trading, banking and government service, all appeared more attractive to Hong Kong's Young people. Consequently, Hong Kong has seen a heavy tilt in the enrollment of their university students towards the soft sciences, e.g., real estate management or business administration.

Few wanted to embark on the steep slope of attaining a technical degree. Even those that made the climb often drifted toward more financially rewarding careers in investment backing and the like. The minority attracted to high tech careers find themselves ending up in places such as Silicon Valley where they can get proper training, funding and an opportunity to form a critical mass of fellow entrepreneurs needed for high tech ventures. There are a few exceptions to the rule in Hong Kong such as VTech. Typically there have not been funded by venture capital but by boot strapping from a modest initial investment and growing the business from retained earnings.

Mediocre in training and motivation
Hong Kong now has seven universities and colleges, all heavily subsidized by the government. There are now plenty of "seats" available for those Hong Kong residents that aspire to a higher education. Too many, some people in Hong Kong feel, because the students are not challenged and can muddle through. Akin to the problem plaguing the California K-12 educational system, the students are not forced to jump over a high bar. If they spend the required time in school, they graduate. Unfortunately this ease of entry and exit has led to a general body of college graduates that are mediocre in training and in motivation.

Opening enrollment, immigration
One solution is to open the universities to significant outside enrollment. Motivated students from mainland, Taiwan and elsewhere will raise the academic standard and benefit the entire student body. If there are sufficient inducements to remain in Hong Kong after graduation, these students will join the nucleus needed to start and develop high tech ventures. Though not be design, this is exactly how Silicon Valley came into being. As much as 50% of the undergraduate and graduate students majoring in technical disciplines attending Stanford and U.C. at Berkeley are either foreign students or first generation immigrants. They keep the standards high and many enter local workforce when they graduate.

In the same vein, Hong Kong needs to selectively loosen its immigration policy and facilitate an influx of skilled technical professionals to live and work in Hong Kong. The secret of Silicon Valley's success has been its diversity and continuous influx of immigrants from other parts of the world. Contrary to superficial first impression, these people create jobs--by starting companies--and not take away jobs from the local population.

Singapore and Taiwan's successes in developing their native high tech industry are not suitable for emulation by Hong Kong, because they possess comparative advantages that are absent in Hong Kong. Most notably, Singapore has an aggressive hands-on government with the world's highest per capita foreign reserve at its disposal. Taiwan enjoys the support of a stock market that is absolutely in love with high tech listings and a technical workforce peopled by significant reverse brain drain from the U.S.

However, Hong Kong has one major comparative advantage with the potential of outweighing all others: namely, the potential synergy when combined with the resources of Mainland China. These can solve the near term shortfall until Hong Kong starts to generate a significant crop of high tech workers and entrepreneurs. Offering access to China's huge market is also part of the advantage for Hong Kong. This can be used to attract high tech partners from the West that are seeking to build a successful base in China.

A dark cloud
A dark cloud looming in Hong Kong's future in the threat of its children becoming victimized by local politics. A movement is afoot to teach in mother tongue only. Mother tongue in Hong Kong means teaching in Cantonese. Such a more will surely consign Hong Kong's future generations to a dismal future. Even now, Hong Kong is accused of producing a crop of students fluent in neither English or Mandarin or written Chinese. In a contemplated move, some 100 elite schools with long traditions in Hong Kong, representing less than 20% of the total number of schools, will be allowed to continue teaching English as the second language. The rest will teach in Cantonese only. The response is predictable. Wealthy families will send their children to preparatory schools and private, high tuition, international schools. The rest of the population will be condemned to second class citizenship because of their illiteracy in English and Putonghua or Mandarin Chinese, the most important languages of commerce the the next century.

If mother tongue teaching in favor of Cantonese wins the ongoing debate, the future of Hong Kong will be dismal. Period. Cities such as Shanghai, Singapore, Manila and Taipei will all become serious contenders for the regional headquarters of multinational corporations. Dreams of developing a high tech industry will evaporate faster than a puddle under Hong Kong's noonday sun.

Government incentives
The Hong Kong government is telling the world that they are going to be friendly to high tech ventures in Hong Kong. They can't offer much of a tax break because their tax rate is already one of the lowest in the world. They can offer the Industry Technology Center with space at below market rates as incubator for ventures at their infancy; and a Science Park in the New Territories for more mature enterprises. Hopefully, they will be successful in changing the culture of Hong Kong and make the people of Hong Kong more aware of the importance of technology in their future. Through government's efforts, young people in Hong Kong can begin to see the glamour in pursuing high tech careers.

Many venture capital firms operating in Asia are based in Hong Kong even though they have not been actively locally. They have a vested interest in helping the government chart a course favorable to formation of ventures that will merit their consideration for investment. While only a few have already made their mark in technology ventures,more will surely find their way in. The venture investment firms in Hong Kong are in the best position to help this along and become the first to find and fund the professionally invested high tech ventures to be born in Hong Kong.

Planting an Economy in Silicon Valley

What makes an economy grow? It must create or increase value. From a bare piece of ground, one can add value by planting seeds and reap the resulting crop. Through mechanization, the farmer can till more land for the same effort. By using fertilizer, the yield is increased from the same amount of land.

How else can one increase value beside planting, that is, besides being a farmer? One can dig up the minerals from the ground. Or one can build machinery and manufacture goods out of the natural resources from earth. With technology, one can build smarter machines to make more and higher value goods with greater efficiency.

As one produces high demand goods, one can expand the operation and hire more people, i.e., create jobs. Others may seize the opportunity to build factories to make and supply intermediate materials and thus create a secondary industry. Perhaps a proliferation of tertiary markets is then created by such things as retail outlets, service and repair centers, and second hand stores.

For example, sand is the starting material for semiconductors. Intel and many other companies in the valley have done wonders making integrated circuits out of this humble and readily available material. Other companies follow suit by manufacturing production equipment needed to run the factories. The finished semiconductor chips are shipped to distributors and dealers; they in turn sell to the personal computer makers.

The PC industry grows by leaps and bounds with new products built around new generations of chips from Intel and its competitors and complementary chips from others. The industry growth include not just those assemblying computers, but all the makers of computer peripherals that attach to the PC, the software houses, the publishers of PC related books and magazines, and of course, training firms that teaches increasing number of new users. These products and services are sold in increasing number of department stores, warehouse stores, chains of computer stores, hotel meeting rooms and through the mail. More new jobs are thus created.

Since each generation of personal computers offers more performance for less money, more and more are sold. And that, in a nutshell, is how an economy can grow.

So what is the one essential element that is absolutely necessary in order for a technology-based economy to grow? Isn't it obvious that it would take people? Not any people but people trained to use the technology, develop new applications and further its advances. As the rate of change in technology accelerates, the more critical is the training of the people.

California and especially Silicon Valley revolves around technology. The irony and contradiction is that this is a state that no longer seems to believe in the value of a sound education system. This is a state that cares more about illegal immigrants taking advantage of our education system, a system, mind you, whose elementary schools rank No. 49 out of 50 states, and more about "wasting" tax money on schools and teachers.

If the voters of California do not wake up soon, we will not have the needed trained people to staff the high tech industry. The high tech companies would have to relocate to where such skilled people are available. Then Silicon Valley can go back to being fruit orchards. Jobs will be so hard to come by that we will have to pick our own fruits and vegetables. We wouldn't have to worry about the illigal immigrants because there wouldn't be any vacancies for them.