Remnants of Subconsciousness

Recapturing the Financial Crisis

Given we are now more than three years removed from the height of the start of the financial crisis in 2008, a few films have come to the big screen recently trying to capture some facet of the chaos and turmoil that took place that autumn.

Went to watch "Margin Call" tonight after hearing about the film from a few friends and colleagues.  It's features a star-studded cast of Kevin Spacey, Demi Moore, Paul Bettany, Jeremy Irons, Zachary Quinto, Stanley Tucci, Simon Baker, and Penn Badgley.  The film focuses on the rapid deterioration of the MBS market in 2008 as a result of the sub-prime crisis, and throws in loose hints of Lehman Brothers.  

The film, given its relatively fast pace and simplified storyline, is reasonably captivating.  Yet as somewhat of an industry insider (after all, I began my Global Markets new hire training during the fall of 2007 and was very much a part of the capital markets sitting on the trading floor in London during 2008), I couldn't help but feel a bit unsatisfied with this version of the story.  

I suppose it is understandable that for the general public to remain captivated (or even interested) in this theme, the film had to be relatively easy to understand, and some stereotypes were unavoidable (and honestly, some of the stereotypes were not bad at all), those did draw laughter from the knowing members of the theatre audience and a few chuckles and snorts from me as well.  

Despite my earlier reluctance, I have picked up a few of the books on the financial crisis recently, and have read Michael Lewis' The Big Short, Hank Paulson's On the Brink, and am currently reading Andrew Ross Sorkin's Too Big to Fail.  Like many people, Michael Lewis' book is the most entertaining, with Andrew Ross Sorkin's containing the most factual tidbits which I do quite enjoy as well. 

I read the other day that HBO has made Too Big to Fail into a TV movie, I intend to find it and watch it some time, after I've finished with the book.   Apparently, the movie-adaptation of The Big Short is also in the works, with Brad Pitt rumored to play the lead (who would be the lead?).  This ought to be interesting.

Coincidentally, someone asked me about applying to Cornell's Financial Engineering program tonight on Weibo.  Of course, having graduated as an undergrad in OR&E (FE is a masters degree granted by the School or ORIE), I know very little about the M.Eng application process, but it did get me thinking about the kind of enthusiasm many students, especially Chinese students (not to sound stereotypical on purpose) show in pursuing an FE degree and aiming for a job in a financial services firm.

While it is admirable and one could only encourage the pursuit of higher education and one's dreams, but I have begun to wonder just how many real opportunities this industry will have to offer students who are experts in developing exotic financial products, especially in tomorrow's world.  Yes, I suppose we will always need traders and structurers who can devise custom-tailored solutions to meet clients' needs, but the trend across the industry is definitely for less structures rather than more, with the increasing amount of regulatory scrutiny and oversight placed on complex financial products, firms no longer have the same desire to sell, and clients certainly do not have same desire to buy complex derivative products.  

The financial services industry is going through, or should I say have been going through changes since 2008, perhaps there is some truth in what the character in Margin Call said about the industry having a short memory and repeating itself in cycles, but perhaps as we go through this current cycle, the industry will be transformed, at least for the medium term, into something quite different from what it had been in the days when pure product capabilities beat everything else.

Now the question to industry practitioners as well as those who hope to enter this industry is whether each one of us has something valuable to offer our clients, do we really understand what the client needs?  It's no longer about trying to convince a client to buy something that ultimately is immensely profitable for the bank (which may or may not be profitable for the client in the long term), it is now about whether we understand the client, whether we are willing to commit time, resources, energy to build a client relationship based on something much more long term, and whether we can convince clients to see that in us.

This is definitely not an easy task, whether we succeed will likely affect how long and how well we survive.

One Day - A Story about Life

Finally managed to finish this book on my flight this evening, come to think of it, I read more than two-thirds of this book on the plane, as often has been the case with most of my serious readings lately.  This is all before I have had a chance to watch the film (in theatres in Hong Kong with movie posters plastered around town), something I hope to do soon.  I think I was first attracted to the book by the movie version cover of Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess kissing.  Somehow I cannot imagine another actress playing the lead for this film adaptation. 

I’ve always imagined it to be a rather melancholy story as soon as I read the short introduction on the back cover (reproduced on the book’s Amazon page as well), yet there was this inexplicable urge to read it, as if I knew the process of digesting this rather melancholy story would be an enjoyable one.

I suppose it’s a story that I would best describe as touching, not in the cheesy, idealistic way typical of many Hollywood feel-good stories that are often the basis of romantic comedies over the years, but a story that actually feels real, despite its being set in the UK (with a small portion in Paris).  What the author manages to accomplish is not so much to write a story that makes the reader feel all warm and fuzzy inside, but rather he pieces together a tale of life, of two people whose lives are intertwined from that one fateful day.  David Nicholls manages to make the story real, so real that there are bits and pieces that the reader, regardless of having ever lived in the UK or anywhere in the West, would find easy to relate.

It’s a story about friendships and love, about all the emotions, quasi-emotions and all the rest that one goes through when two people’s lives are intertwined. 

It’s a story about the power of fate, about the missed opportunities and the unbreakable link that draws two people towards each other and finally allows their lives to become in sync, and then just as abruptly and mercilessly severs that link. 

This is a story neither easily categorized nor simply defined, and that is what makes it such a wonderful reflection of life and love.  

It’s a story one would read and sigh, and as you approach the inevitable end, feel a different sense of warmth wash over you, and one may find oneself showing an appreciative smile. 

This is a story worth reading, with one’s heart. 

Remembering 9.11

We are just 2 days away from the 10th anniversary of September 11, 2001, a fateful day, along with all the images, sounds, and much more, forever engraved in my mind and the minds of many in the Big Apple and around the world.  

In the past few weeks leading up to this Sunday, there have been, and will certainly be a plethora of articles, TV specials, interviews, etc., all focused on that day 10 years ago, what led up to that day, what occur ed on that day, and what has changed since. Yet for me, and in fact for many who have a connection to that day in more ways than one, this day remains special in different and unique ways to each one of us.

My recollection of that day has always begun with the initial realization that it was the 10th anniversary of my arrival in the US (I arrived at JFK Airport on Sept. 11, 1991), and as I was ready to tell my new colleagues (it was my second week of full-time work) that little bit of news, I received a short but succinct email from Vivian, who was entering her second week of full time work at Merrill Lynch, at World Financial Center, across the street from the Twin Towers.  I distinctly remember her telling me I should rush to a TV and watch the news, as a plane had just struck the World Trade Center.  Not being able to actually find a TV in our office in Midtown, I picked up my desk phone and tried to get more information from her, yet in the span of a few minutes, no one was answering at the other end (I later found out they began an evacuation not long after she sent out the email, and made it to safety rather quickly).

Most of the people in our office had rushed into one of our MD's office that had a direct line of sight to the Twin Towers, a few miles to the south of our office, as we watched one of the towers with smoke slowing rising from its upper torso, a second plane slammed into its neighbor, even though it was physically impossible to actually have felt the impact, but every one in that office shuddered and a few let out a gasp.

We spent most of that morning huddled in that office, looking at the burning Twin Towers south of our 18th floor office, and simultaneously watching close-up images on the TV on the wall.  It felt surreal, it was surreal.

Eventually, without warning, one of the two towers started to collapse, amidst the gasps in the crowd, almost everyone inhaled hard and bit their lips.  We were certainly in uncharted territories.

 The rest of that day is somewhat lacking in details in my memory, I remember first being told that Manhattan was closed to traffic in and out of the island, and only in mid-afternoon, was the order changed to allow vehicles out of Manhattan.  I remember driving home on the West Side Highway, peering into the rear view mirror at the huge cloud of smoke, driving north there were only a few cars, while emergency vehicles sped south on the other side of the highway towards downtown Manhattan.

Remembering these details brings back a sense of sorrow.  The area that the Twin Towers sat were perhaps one of my most familiar surroundings in Manhattan.  After all, our high school sits just a few blocks north of what became Ground Zero, and the mall under WTC was one of our favorite hang outs during the high school years.  We were all used to the shadow cast by the Towers on our classrooms as we sat.

Much have been written about that day, from noted documentaries to government reports, yet nothing can replace the memories of that day.  I had many friends who worked in or near the Twin Towers, and luckily the vast majority of them were accounted for and made it safely home on that day, but one of my high school classmates, along with her uncle, were two of the 2,606 people that perished around the WTC that day.

Despite the political implications that day has since brought, and all the changes countries, governments and our society have had to make as a result of the attacks experienced that day, this was, and will always remain an intensely personal day for every New Yorker, every person who had some degree of connection to that day, and those unique memories will likely remain, and perhaps evolve over time.

Little Island

I recently changed my profile name on Sina Weibo to "小岛上的考拉," which literally translates into "Koala on a Little Island."  

(a side note, of the more than two dozen SNS Typepad currently links to, Weibo is still not one of them! I think that's a pity and a significant oversight since Weibo has just surpassed 200 million users, and catching up to the likes of Twitter and Facebook quickly, not to mention that Weibo actually has combined the best features of both)  

Actually this name evolved from conversations I have had with a good friend (on Weibo too) over the past few months, we affectionately refer to Hong Kong as the "little island" both for its minute size and for the fact that it is a second home to many of us.  I think it is rather endearing to some extent.

Come to think of it (as I've summarized after some recollection), I have spent a majority of my lifetime on one island after another, from the archipelegoes of Zhoushan as a child, to the city of glass skyscrapers of Manhattan, then off to the British Isles and finally back to this little island by the Frangrant Harbor.  Maybe I have a subconscious preference to islands that is deeply rooted in my ancestry (after all, they were fishermen to my best knowledge), but by choice or coincidence, here I am.

This is second time I've lived in Hong Kong for an extended period of time, sufficient to call it a home (at least for now, if not "the" home) .  Last time I was here almost exactly 12 (!) years ago, I was still a college student clueless about this industry called "investment banking," and Hong Kong was still barely two years into its post-British rule, for all practical purposes, no one spoke Mandarin and there were far fewer tourists and shoppers in malls (the Asian Financial Crisis had something to do with it).  A lot has changed since then, from the rise of China and its economic influence comes a flood of mainland shoppers and tourists, financial institutions now all see Hong Kong as "the" platform from which to cover Chinese clients' offshore financing needs, to the Mandarin announcements one hears in the MTR and malls, but yet somehow a large part of this little island has remained familiar to me.

Perhaps I have always been drawn to metropolises such as Hong Kong, London and most of all, New York City.  Of course, those three cities are quite different in their cultural mix and feel, but I suppose having spent my teenage and part of my post-university years in Manhattan, I have come to appreciate and love a city that is a cultural melting pot (in this respect, NYC is second to none).  My own experience, perhaps more so than anything else, has determined that I would always feel a bit out of place in a very "Chinese"-oriented city, and likewise, a very purely Western town (such as the US South or Midwest).  

I remember the discussion I had with some of my friends when I first entered Cornell, it was a crowd of no more than a dozen students, each having arrived in the US in their teenage years after spending the first dozen or more of their life in China, we found that what drew us together was that we shared an unique experience and cultural identity that was somewhere in between the ABCs and the recent Chinese immigrants or Chinese graduate students (of the time).  We all harbored a deep sense of belonging to the Chinese culture in which we grew up, yet we have become sufficiently inculcated in the American mainstream culture to feel quite comfortable in mainstream society.  

Therefore it is not at all surprising that many of these friends, and those I came to know in NYC and elsewhere that shared this cultural trait have come to live and work on this little island.

As I randomly jot down my admittedly very unorganized words sitting in this little café, I look up and see a wall full of eclectic albums ranging from jazz to new age; the other patrons around me speak in English, French, Russian, Mandarin, Shanghainese, with some Cantonese here and there.  The last time I walked in here, I was welcomed by Enya's music.  It's not difficult to imagine why this has quickly become my favorite weekend hang-out.

Time to do some reading, a jazzy tune has begun to play. 

Our Cyber-Presence versus Our Real Self

I suppose in this day and age, everyone has some sort of online presence.  I myself probably have half a dozen profiles spread across the social media outlets of Facebook, Linkedin, Google+, Twitter, and since I couldn't access a few of those while I was in China, now also on Sina Weibo and Kaixin.

It is our ubiquitous presence online that begs the question, how do we really present ourselves online?  Do we purposedly try to portrait ourselves in a totally different manner or do we merely create a mirror image of ourselves in real life?  For some, the answer lies closer to one end of that spectrum, yet for others, it's perhaps a mixture of both, thus placing us somewhat in the middle of that identity spectrum.

The natural follow-up question would be how do people, both those whom we know in real life and those who have only become acquainted with our online images perceive us?  When I first began to build my online profiles, I mostly preferred to interact with those whom I have already built a relationship, whether personal or professional, in real life, and that is why I had a natural affinity towards being a part of Facebook and Linkedin, for those were based on (or at least were the case when I first joined them) real-life relationships.  Yet as the online world expanded, and as Weibo became a more popular medium, strangers began to intrude into my previously well-guarded world.  

Of course, I must admit that I have met many interesting people via one of these online media, yet as I ponder this question of cyber-presence versus real self, I realize that for me, a large part of whether I let someone into my inner sanctum has to do not with how I met this person or how long we have known each other, but more to do with how much chemistry there is between us.  

Of course, this is something I have realized long ago, and have probably written about this topic on many occassions in the past, but as I ponder this issue (at a rather ungodly hour I must admit, perhaps to use up some of my overly zealous brain cells), I must admit my online self, at least the one that I choose to show those whom I consider good friends, is one that is a true manifestation of my real life self.

I do realize that what I described is hardly the norm, and many people certainly don't perceive that to be the norm.  I have encountered those strangers who somehow came across my weibo or blog, and began to draw rather unfounded conclusions about my background, my views and my life.  While amusing at first and sometimes certainly fun to read, at a certain point, my self-protective instinct does kick in and I become rather suspicious of those rather random attention.

So I suppose I wouldn't change much about how I present myself online, and there is little I can do to influence how others behave, however I reserve the right to eliminate those "followers" that I deem rather suspicious in nature and motive from my online world.  After all, my online presence is in essence just an extention of my real world, and for the sake of those close to me and important to me, this is something very much worth protecting with care.

Life's Simple Pleasures - Part 2: Films

I suppose my love of the arts is primarily reflected in my devotion to books and films.  Growing up in Zhoushan, my memories of film-watching were always associated with class trips to one of the three movie theatres in town, and only a few films from that era remain in my recollection.

After arriving in the US, as my English began to improve, my interest in films also perked up.  Other than the Hollywood mega productions that I watched with friends and family, often at one of the two movie theatres near Time Square, I had the opportunity to watch quite a few independent productions at the cinema near Lincoln Center and in the Chelsea area of Manhattan.

When I first began this blog, I wanted to catalog all the films I have come to watch either on DVD or in theatres, however that task had been abandoned along with my blog, but looking at the list on the left side of my blog, it is certainly quite eclectic in genre and taste.  There aren't too many that I would call classics or favorites, but I suppose real classics only come every so often.

Recently a good friend lent me a book on films written (somewhat ironically) by someone who is a finance professional, a good number of classics are mentioned in this collection of his essays, from the incomparable Godfather series to the two legendary Star Wars trilogies, from one of my all time favorites - Casablanca, to the cult classics such as Pulp Fiction.

Yet what had stirred my memory was the mention of Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation.  I don't quite recall who introduced me to that film when it was first screened at the Lincoln Center cinema, but I immediately felt a particularly strong connection to this story.  At the time I had yet been to Tokyo, but there was the subtle undercurrents of the story somehow managed to grab my heartstrings.

Not long after the DVD release of this film, I went on a 9-week trip to Tokyo, and naturally I watched the film again in my hotel room (with a few other movie-loving colleagues), and we managed to visit many of the places around Tokyo that was seen in the film, not the least of all the New York Bar atop the Tokyo Park Hyatt which was featured prominently in the film.  

I suppose to some extent, it isn't too hard for someone like myself who had to deal with being thrust into a new culture at a young age, to relate to the cultural undertones that are often "lost in translation," but even more so than this superficial layer, I suppose oftentimes in life we are faced with a sense of being "lost in translation" that renders us utterly hopeless or helpless, at least for a time.

So the attractiveness of a good film lies not in what megastars the film happens to feature, or what special effects the director employs, but rather how easily one's heartstrings can be tugged, and how much of an impact it has on the audience, reaching into the depth of one's soul.

Some of my all time favorites to this day, separately in Foreign/English and Chinese, in no particular order, are:

Foreign/English

• My Fair Lady
• Casablanca
• Amelie
• Lost in Translation
• The English Patient
• Kill Bill
• Definitely, Maybe
• My Blueberry Nights

Chinese

• 玻璃之城
• 非诚勿扰 2
• 生日快乐
• 伤城
• 重庆森林
• 不再让你孤单
• 霸王别姬
• 活着

 

Life's Simple Pleasures - Part 1: Books

I've always been a fan of books.  One of the few memories of my kindergarten years that I still have to this day is sitting in a chair in front of a roomful of older kids, with a story book open in my lap, with a somewhat trembling voice, reading a story for the class.  I suppose this has to do with I being raised by my grandma who was an elementary school Chinese teacher before I was born, and books were always plentiful during my childhood.

I suppose as a child, even well into my teenage years, as I moved to the US and faced a new and unfamiliar environment, books became the constant in my life.  When I first arrived in the US and began my education at Hudson River Middle School, my favorite part of the day was always the English class during which I could pick books I thought were interesting and immerse myself in them.  Of course, I was encouraged to read, and those novels and biographies I read during the first two years in the US did great wonders to help me build my vocabulary and allowed me to quickly fill knowledge gaps in American history.

As a co-founder of the Chinese Language Society during high school, books became the medium through which I introduced many facets of Chinese culture and history to students who wanted to learn about their Chinese heritage, and by extension to better their understanding of the world from which their parents, grandparents had come.

My favorite and most memorable class during my high school years was not in science or math, despite my high school being one of the top math and science schools in the nation, it was actually an elective English class appropriately named "Crisis in Values in Twentieth Century Literature."  Taught by the then English department chairman Dr. Shapiro, the class really was more about identifying challenges to society's values in some of the most well-known works of literature of the 20th century, including such works as One Hundred Years of Solitude, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and Angela's Ashes.  For what it was worth, to this day I still think it was in that classroom that I participated in some of the most profound discussions about some of the most serious (and not so serious) issues in life.  It's been nearly 15 years since I left that classroom, yet some of the thought-provoking questions we encountered in the books we read then still linger with me, and continue to influence the way I think.

Throughout my college years, books have often helped me find common grounds in a discussion, and some of the friendships I built during those years also have been influenced by our common love for certain works of literature or history.

As I have traveled from Ithaca to Manhattan to Ann Arbor, then to London and now to Hong Kong, my favorite past time remains visiting a bookstore on a weekend.  Be it a Barnes & Nobles or Borders in the NYC, a Waterstones in London, or Page One and Metro Books in Hong Kong, there is a joy that I can only get by grasping in my hands a good paperback.  Even with the advent of ebooks on Kindle and other electronic readers, the feel (and smell) of a new book is still intoxicating. 

I find that the friends with whom I have the most in common often are the same ones with whom I share the same immense love for the same type of books.  There are a few friends who I don't get to see in person very often, yet over the years we've always managed to exchange recommendations for good books.  of the many new friends I have made along the way, those with whom I "click" right away are always those who share my interest in books, and in sharing their collections, allow me to continuously broaden my scope of knowledge and horizon.

So, without sounding like a total bookworm, I must say my life would not be quite the same without these books.  Life's simplest pleasures often rest not in those seemingly grandiose objects or events, but rather in those ordinary things that have an impact on our hearts and souls.

 

Redefining blogging?

As micro-blogging seems have overtaken the more traditional blogs in recent years (or is it actually recent months?), many of my previously-dedicated bloggers have given up their blog spaces and opted for (mostly) an weibo account. Of course I, being the pseudo-technology fan and engineer, also made the switch quite quickly.

Yet, I never could fully convince myself to close down this blog, not so much because I've recorded any overly profound thoughts here, although my travel journal of our 5-day trip to Switzerland in 2006 has been quite frequently read and referenced, mostly to answer friends' questions about the Swiss countryside and the Alps.

Then I guess there is a part of me, the part of me that always had a more liberal arts bent, that wanted to keep a space where I could still record my musings, my wordy thoughts that go beyond 140 characters and remnants of the subconsciousness that sometimes need a place to find release.

So I figured that instead of abandoning this precious space, I will likely make it a more private space as opposed to the more public weibo, a quieter, more personal arena for thoughts. It's funny how not too long ago this blog was the public face of my persona. How times have changed.

More thoughts to come, but interval and frequency TBD.

Stay tuned.

After a long hiatus

I'm not sure if calling my absence from my own blog a hiatus is too much of an euphemism, in all honesty, I have practically abandoned it for quite a while, while this abandonment can be partially attributed to the many changes in my life over the past few years, both personally and professionally, there is inevitably a large part that cannot be simply explained away. I suppose with the advent of micro-blogging, especially the ever so popular Sina Weibo, one finds it so much easier and to a large extent, more convenient to just broadcast one's thoughts and observations at any given moment via a 140-letter (which, when written in the concise language of Chinese, can pack quite a lot of content). Too often we no longer bother to distill and expand our thoughts to create blog entries. But somewhere deep within, I still kept this blog account alive despite my absence. Perhaps my subconsciousness still yearns for a place where I could record its more in-depth thoughts, or perhaps I just wanted to keep this as a sanctum where words can be recorded when they do flow. Changes in life are unavoidable, having a place that serves as a depository of my experiences and reflections is still quite useful, I suppose.

I guess I need to revive this blog sooner or later... but in this time of microblogs, I wonder how the role of blogs will evolve...