Agreements Set Down and Some Thoughts about Future

Waiting for phone call from the consultant in a head hunting company the entire daytime, I wasted time doing nothing today. I think I need to breathe some fresh air so I make an appointment with Olive tomorrow to hike in Xiang Shan tomorrow. In the evening on MSN, Jolt caught me and begun discussing our agreements. I, hence, pulled Ethanol into our conversation and reported to both partners about some obstacles so far I encountered. After one hour or so, we come to conclusion and will move on to registration work next week.

These days I cannot help speculating whether I should follow my original plan to pursue my MBA degree from next year, or I should seize the promising job opportunity in the Great China market, probably a more booming economy than the one in the U.S., if I get the job offer later. I was confused today. Can MBA program in U.S. promise my a better career and life than those in China, a limelight all round the world in this century? Am I too stubborn insisting on this switch of locations, industries, and life? I thought of these questions and then one thing loomed on my mind. That is, yes, I will go on to study abroad, no matter I would start my own business later or I would work in Suzhou for that Taiwanese company. My point is neither that how high position in a company I can get in my future, nor that how many fortune I can amass in my life. My point is that I want to keep experiencing different, interesting, multi-culture life in the following decades. There is not much different between my past and my future if I still work in China for the following years. The only breakthrough I can make is for sure to work overseas, a life experience much different from the traveling experiences that I had in Europe. I might later on feel tired, frightened, and helpless later on the road toward this destination. However, I must give it a try or I would never know if it worth or not.

An Unexpected Job Opportunity and the End of the TOEFL Registration Battle

In the late afternoon, a specialist of a head hunting company in Shanghai phoned me and provided me some basic information for some position of a Taiwanese company. At first, I was not really interested in it because the location is in Suzhou, a second-tier city in China where many Taiwan companies amass there. However, the salary is attracting, and I found that the company is promising after checking data about it. This company gained a big amount of investments from two famous venture capitals at the end of last year. Now I am really in a dilemma: Should I do my best to land this job opportunity? Or I'd better follow my original plan to start my own business and study abroad afterwards?

I decided to give it a try for this special job. I replied an e-mail to the specialist to ask her to arrange an interview in Beijing ASAP because the GM of the employer is visiting Beijing currently. I want to go through the entire process as soon as possible so that if I do not match the requirements of the employer, I can go on my previous plan without too much waste of time on this interlude.

By the way, yesterday I spent more than 5 hours registering for TOEFL seats. It was definitely a war that thousands of Chinese people sitting in Internet cafés, offices, dormitories or at home stared at the monitors, cursed the stupid website registration system, complained the Department of Education in China and the ETS in the U.S., and cried for the eventual success or unfortunate failure. Some people decided to register for more than one seat because of the fear of facing this kind of torture again. Many students still failed to get any seats for the exam and thus might lose their opportunities for study overseas.

My Friend Did His Best to Recruit Me

Beijing Botanical Garden
Originally uploaded by taigerwan.

Colt invited me for dinner yesterday in Guomao. He used to invite me for dinner this Monday but I had to wait for my landlord to pay the rents.

He tried his best to persuade me to join his company, although he was unwilling to give me any shares of his company. He explained that there is no difference between holding some shares of the company and merely sharing profits of business, an idea which he can only talk about theoretically and can not give me pragmatic salary package. His company has set up for more than one year and has not broken even. Therefore, his company can not afford my salary for sure. This is why I proposed him to give me some shares because as a stockholder, I could comfort myself that I am working for my own company although the pay is so low.

The atmosphere of the end of the dinner may be kind of uncomfortable. He kept saying that I do not admit the wrong decisions I made about my previous job selection. Nonetheless, I thought he was the person who was too confident to see his own weakness and to understand that each person has his or her own values. It was not necessarily wrong if I chose a different path from his.

I revealed to him that I might have four options for my current career path. Among these choices, the most possible is to create a start-up with my other friends. I stop convincing me after knowing my thoughts.

This talk makes me feel that there is no possibility for cooperation between his company and my future start-up, a beautiful plan I considered for a long time before today’s meeting.

Our Start-up Dream Will Resume in Another Day

On MSN, En told me that he has given up the plan for a start-up, which he invited me to join a few days ago and proposed a further discussion if I would visit Taipei.

" I guess so," because I have perceived some trance last week when he told me that I don't have to rush to get the project of a American company. I didn't ask the reasons he gave up. Although it is a little bit pity that we can not cooperate to set up our own venture, I deeply believe we, or I, will still have other opportunity to do so. EN has been interested in inviting me to cooperate to develop his own software localization business. I can sense his intention to invite me as his partner. But we have never discussed it directly until several days ago when I got a potential project and talk with him. At the moment, he thought that I planned to withdraw from the software localization industry. After a long discussion until 3:00 A.M., by MSN we come up with some initial idea of our cooperation.

In fact, both of us think this industry has gone to a low profit stage and prefer to change our career if possible. However, Cao, one of my former colleagues in Shanghai, asked me to help a Singapore friend of his to begin a new business in the localization industry. Furthermore, another friend of mine, who started up his own company to do translation business last early year, told me that he has succeeded in extending his business into the software localization business and that he has been doing business with a big American company which is also the main client of Lionbridge. It seems that some people dash off this industry, while the other desire to get involved in it.