While on a class tour of the French concession, I received an unexpected call. It was the man who lent me his driver when I arrived in Shanghai, and who was supposed to have met up with me two months earlier. Not holding any grudges and very curious as to why he was calling me, I picked up the phone. Turns out Uncle Edward, wanted to have dinner with me that night! Despite being a bit annoyed at the last minuteness of the invitation, I nonetheless accepted because I was curious to meet this man who has helped me so much and who claims a close connection with my family. Uncle Edward picked me up at the end of my French concession tour at Tianzifeng, where I was contemplating what to talk to him about. The dinner conversation went off without a hitch and I actually learned quite a great deal from him.
Uncle Edward took me to a Hong Kong style café/restaurant which I was extremely grateful for. Shanghai food just does not compare to Hong Kong food and my attempts at getting decent Cantonese food have all ended in expensive disasters. That night was the first night in Shanghai where I had a proper pineapple bun, none of that Taiwanese imitation garbage that is 85 Degrees. The meal itself is worth writing about because it was just such a great break from the meat heavy and vegetable-less food I had gotten accustomed to. By Hong Kong standards, the meal itself was just mediocre and the price was astronomically high for the type of food that we ordered, which could be had in Hong Kong for half the price. Thankfully, Uncle Edward picked up the tab adding another thing to the list of things that I was grateful for that night.
It turns out that Uncle Edward has an extremely long relationship to my Dad’s side of the family. In fact, my grandma had specifically told him on the phone to take care of me while I was in Shanghai and to make sure nothing happened to me. Starting all the way from elementary school, he was friends with my aunt. As a child, he was invited to a lot of family outings as friend of my aunt’s and he has many memories of spending time with my grandparents, aunts and uncles. He recalled times of visiting and playing at the old family home in Hong Kong and taking part in barbeques by the beach. Uncle Edward also told me that on two occasions after college, he had stayed over at the family home while visiting Hong Kong. As a result of this long standing relationship, my grandma was very close with his parents as well. The most interesting part of hearing all these stories was not the fact that there was this significant family friend lurking just around the corner, but hearing that my dad’s family actually acted like a family. Looking at the present state of my dad’s side of the family now, I cannot have imagined that they had these fun family outings that Uncle Edward was telling me about. It gives me hope that things can be reversed.
While asking Uncle Edward what exactly it was that he did for a living, I gained some insight into how Singapore society works. As a Singapore national and an employee of a state owned company, Uncle Edward had a unique insight to share. In the US, state owned companies are often vilified to be badly run and doomed to failure, however, in Singapore’s case the opposite is true. Singaporean state owned companies are models of efficiency and industry leaders. Uncle Edward tells me that the firm that he works for runs a tight ship and that being state owned actually gives the firm an advantage in the field. Especially in China, honesty in business dealings is very important and an honest reputation is something that many Chinese companies. However, as a Singaporean state owned company, Uncle Edward’s firm has that reputation for honest dealings that is so in demand. He says that often times his firm gets projects not because they necessarily have the most talented people, but because clients can trust the company.
Uncle Edward also went on to explain why state owned companies are so excellently run and how the executives of these companies are groomed from birth by the state. It starts in the schools, where the most brilliant children are separated from the rest into elite institutions. The Singaporean government invests heavily in their education system. After grade school, young men are conscripted into the military where they are further separated. The ones who show the most promise are chosen to be officers and given leadership training. The most brilliant minds are kept in the military for national security purposes, while the rest are released from the military to continue their education. The Singaporean government covers all the expenses of its students and actively pays for its citizens to study abroad. Those brilliant minds that were kept in the military are further groomed for high posts in the military. High ranking members of the military are forced to retire at a relatively young age at forty something and then are shuffled to either state owned corporations or other high government posts, which ensures that their talents are well utilized and at the same time allowing a new generation of leaders and new ideas. This whole system of taking care of its citizens and providing opportunities for them breeds loyalty to the state, allowing the authoritarian Singapore government to maintain its power. All in all, it is a very interesting system that seems to be working wonders for this small island nation.
The most fascinating thing that Uncle Edward said that night had to do with his Malthusian explanation of Chinese people’s behavior. When I said that I found Chinese people to be a bit more rude than Hong Kong people, Uncle Edward said that this was due to their past, where they had to be rude to survive. He explained that with so many people in China and such limited resources, the Chinese are always competing to survive and that being civilized meant you missed out on resources. Continuing, he said that even during this time of plenty in China, the rudeness is still present because it is left over of an era of scarcity. This tied directly into my observations of how Hong Kong was a lot more efficient than China in almost all aspects. Uncle Edward contends that China’s inefficiency is state created through the need to keep unemployment low in order to maintain power. He says that the Chinese government over hires the amount of workers needed for the job and at the same time resists mechanization. Though I do not necessarily agree with his explanation, it certainly opened my eyes to a different perspective. Also I can see some merit to his argument that the Chinese government demands the hiring of more workers than is efficient in order to keep its populace employed and happy.
Thanks Uncle Edward for the great dinner conversation. I look forward to meeting you again, whenever that might be. Please keep dropping that knowledge.
-muffinman
