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Important pieces:
Dec 22, 2002 Against Article 23 - Letter to the government
Jan 2, 2003 Lessons from the feedback attained on case competition report
Apr 11, 2003 Graduate School Application Failures
Apr 15, 2003 Career and Important Things Ahead
Apr 28, 2003 Mottos and guiding principles
Apr 29, 2003 Summary of University Life
Dec 31, 2003 Retrospect, Prospect and New Year Wishes
Dec 22, 2 002 Letter to the Government
I
oppose the proposed legislation of Article 23 because:
The
HKSAR Government has refused to allow proper and open debate on detail
provisions of the legislation.
I
demand the HKSAR Government to publish a White Bill to enable genuine public
consultation to take place.
I
have further comments:
As a mainland resident who came to Hong Kong three years ago in pursuit of study at one of the leading universities in the world, I used to be greatly attracted and encouraged by the freedom of exchange of ideas and unlimited access to information. I by and by loved this patch of land as I saw the miraculous working of efficiency brings substantial benefits to this business hub, standing utterly different from any city from the hinterland. A Shanghai resident for more than twenty years, I perfectly agreed with comments of mayor Xu Kuangdi that none of any mainland city can rival Hong Kong in the coming decade due to its efficient and advanced systems oriented at business. However, now when I learnt of the proposed legislation on the Article 23 of Basic Law and explore more into the issue, I lost my heart. Now my prediction of Hong Kong's picture is gloomy. What I oppose is the government's clumsy and foolish attitude. For one thing, I completely understand the government's intentions - not bad in nature. China is a diverse country and hence there has to be some legal restrictions imposed on the public to uphold political stability. For the other thing, because for society based on common law system, Hong Kong has never seen any precedent ordinance against subversion, sedition, secession, and treason, levy of war and disclosure of state secret. The definitions of such acts are so unclear and the scope to be criminalized is so broad to the mass public that it's not surprising to receive such huge opposing voices from academia and business, which are the core cadre sectors supporting Hong Kong's success today. I strongly urge the government issue a White Bill, stating the details of the conducts that the proposed law is expected to criminalize. Only in that way can the anger and fear of the mass public be allayed and Hong Kong's advantageous business status can still be preserved. Otherwise, exactly as the Wall Street Journal states, Hong Kong's future is at risk. I do not oppose the enacting of such laws, but what I strongly object is the government's impetuous and ruthless attitudes. If tens of thousands of people are giving up their precious time in protesting, how can the government say that the majority is on the side of welcoming such laws? It is a naked lie! The most most most important thing now for our society is the trust in the governing body. Once we lost trust, Hong Kong will collapse. This simple commonsense logic also applies to the debate on the maintenance of pegged exchange rate system. Please bear in mind, win trust, win trust and win trust!!! I see that your government is foolish in this course. It seems to me that you even have to learn from Iraqi regime that has won profound trust from its people.
The passing year 2002 is not a common one. Around the ending time, many a media essays flood in and remind us of all those terrible events, mournful disasters, gloomy economy and of course, China¡¦s smiles standing as exceptions amid global sadness. To me, it is even more frustrating. The first watershed in my life has come out of fogs, while I have to face the decision all alone. Even at the beginning of year 2002, I started to look for summer interns, but only to be defeated by repeating rejections. As a result, summer 2002 only offers me loneliness and a meaningless two-and-a-half-month period, with a two-week academic program as a makeshift. Approaching graduation, my job-hunting engine started again right after October. This year, investment banks, my dream workplace, unanimously plan to recruit zero. Funny? Or fatal? All first choices have passed away due to disastrous climate. When shall the global economy rebound? For schools, I definitely targeted at the tops, but odds are low, particularly low in the aftermath of security worries in the States and my lacking of research products. Then I began to understand that it is sometimes not possible to achieve when you exert complete energy and effort. I began to see the importance of luck again. But sarcastically for a person especially ambitious like me, to accept this turn out to be not so easy. Still I constantly drive myself to limits when I study and work, but being discouraged from time to time when my predetermined targets disappear from my sight, of course not resulting from me! It is really depressing. Year 2002 is full of frustrations, may the coming 2003 be full of hopes and fruits, if only!
My three wishes for the new year: start a suitable and promising future cause for myself, may there be less violence and more peace on the globe and finally, may Sandy have a good time in her academics. May God have mercy on me.
Jan 2, 2003 Lessons from the feedback attained on case competition report
Thorough recognition of all problems or defects exhibited. Following up with convincing analysis, covering all the issues and possible scenarios.
Hit the right point to attack others¡¦ work. Make strong complaints. Find big flaws and make significant rectifications. Improvements should always be far more reliable than the original work.
Do not easily trust the provided data. Develop an inquisitive trait.
A more common practice to secure risky equity holding than hedging (especially when great nonsystematic risk is existent, is monetization.
Book value is a frequent target for fudging.
For oil/gas industry, EPS is not a reliable candidate for valuation. (oil prices)
How
defeated I was to screw up all the graduate applications! It will very likely
turn out that my failure in getting a worldly known school is not due to any
incompetence, but rather lack of wise techniques! Oh God, if only I was able to
recollect all the recommendation letters myself and send them out in one time.
There will never be any chances for me to compensate for my negligence and try
once more. Now I still have not yet recovered from last year's abruptness and
recklessness nature. This cursed nature must bear all potential causes for
future frustrations, if not rectified.
For the last five days, I¡¦ve been playing a lot with Sandy. The real human body exhibition in Hong Kong Exhibition Hall drove both of us to utmost fear. It was the first time I saw so clearly the real human organs, muscles, brain structure, bones and etc., part by part. One riddle left for us was whether the organizer of these things ¡V Japan ¡V utilized the bodies of our Chinese casualties in the WWII. Chinese University, then, is a beautiful and vast campus, though the food in the restaurant facing spring-like pond doesn¡¦t match its fame. We had to take campus bus to move around, it was simply too big, a bit inconvenient. Unfortunately, all the halls and lecture rooms were shut that day. Then the third day we visited the de facto most exhilarating campus in Hong Kong ¡V UST. Though not big, located just along the sea bank, buildings and sports facilities are placed in a geometrically efficient way. Lifts were important transportation. Ball game courts and swimming pools were nicely laid and very near to residential halls with excellent sea view. The entire landscape of the campus was so gracefully mingled with the natural terrains. Inside the academic building, we were both amazed by the strength of UST¡¦s physics and engineering research by the advanced apparatus there. Then the following day our attention was drawn in the Waxing Figures Museum at the Victoria Peak, after a lunch with my Singapore friend, Theodore. We were free and happy to take side-by-side photos with celebrities. Being very tired, we went to karaoke the last day. I sang a lot of sepia songs.
These day two things extremely frustrate me. Lots of scholarships have been posted, with which I¡¦ve matched so nicely (say, second year academics, third year¡K) for every item except one! What the hell fate I¡¦m experiencing now!!! Last year one of our peers got five extra scholarships! This year, with so huge amount of the available to every other discipline than mine, may turn out to see far more. The other frustrating matter is the hard make-up study for the stochastic calculus course and differential equations course. Every second is packed before books. Gees!
The ignorance of scholarships payment methods made me bogging into a very disastrous financial distress for the coming five months. How could I not realize the hall fee and all future installments were paid in advance in the Dec lump? Why didn¡¦t I ask then? A great lesson I should draw.
Enron¡¦s bite on financial giant has become more and more severe. Yesterday Citigroup reported billions of loss resulting from fines relating to the energy tyrant and today, JPMorgan also announced its loss. Waves of bad news bring corporate governance back then to concentrated topic.
April 11, 2003 The Paramount Importance of Personal Relationship
One year ago I teased Yang Jie upon her unwarranted success built on personal relationship, whose meaning to me was unclear though. Now, after a strikingly fatal year marked by thorough failure in graduate school applications including even HKU, a sheer shame, I realize finally, from the lesson of pain, that how detrimental is lack of personal relationship, even in the Western World. See, they simply put merit valuation underneath the recognition of which professor you¡¦d contacted. I surely have no right to say anything against the academic community, but the fact that I should totally lost my face and label myself as an social idiot is now unprecedentedly clear. IMPROVEMENT may take a long process, but this painful lesson must guide me to the humbleness and some sort of relationship-building in the foreseeable future.
(A letter to all teachers who has recommended me:
Dear XXX
I greatly appreciate your work in writing recommendation letters for my graduate school applications. Now I'm informing you of my thorough failure in all the twelve schools I attempted.
This fatal disaster culminated and ended today when I received a twelfth rejection letter from HKU Business School, who didn't even give me any interviews. From decent ex post analysis into myself and broad consultations with my peer schoolmates who have got offers, I find out that ultimate cause of this debacle is the lack of personal relationship. See, they just value the applicant's prior contact with any professors dominantly important and heavily down-weigh his/her true merit. I've seen people who succeeded because of good contacts/email communications or even personal affiliations with faculty members.
As a young man, I certainly do not have the right to say anything against the academic community. But this debacle actually killed my 16 years of academic pursuit, during which I've always been a super student. Also this forms the most important watershed in my life: my view of the academic world has utterly changed now. I am simply not the right person they want. But my great interest and passion in academic research in the field of money and finance is ever increasing and ever-lasting. Now I don't know where I should go and what I shall do to fulfill my dreams. Certainly, I couldn't bear the living cost of waiting here for one year and apply again.
If I should say goodbye to my beloved academic career (I definitely do not want it to end at such an early stage), I should also farewell to you (hope it's temporary). Sincerely, I thank you for your teaching, guiding and nurturing me through the kingdom of true knowledge. I respect your efforts. May I wish from the bottom of heart every good fortune of you.)
Lessons and Important Points from the failure of Graduate Application (economics doctoral)
State specifically research topics, research capacity (including math preparation, papers written¡K) and personnel contacted
Contact professors and admission directors as early as possible (in July)
Diversify: include Chicago, Yale, NYU, Stanford, UCBerkeley and 5 2nd tier¡K
Consult BBS for writing PS
Redo GRE paper test?
Rutgers (J Zhang)
3-4 recommenders including J. Zhang, W. Chan, T Hau(?) and¡K
Career plan: settle down at the current accounting industry for one year, finish all the exams by then (HKQP GRE and TOEFL...and then apply to US again, stealthily; if not successful, find another better job (finance, better linked with US, like AIG, Bank of America...) after two years (2005) or acquire MBA or part-time master in finance then (economics dream killed), in the meanwhile, do CFA from 2003 to 2005. Accomplish MBA and CFA by no later than 2007 and settle a long-term placement in finance giants by 2008 (at the age of 27).
A genuinely strong person should always be able to stand up and learn from the mistakes he's made and implement improvements. Now that my ultimate objective is to be an economist, that must guild through every of my behavior and thinking, by the spirit of tenacity. Mottos:
FIGHT RELENTLESSLY !
STRIVE FOR EXCELLENCE!
LIFE IS TOUGH, BUT I'M TOUGHER!
Incredibly I've got only less than two weeks' formal study in this campus, meaning I'm basically entitled to all facilities and premium services here for the last month. Never before have I been so obsessed with this University. First time I'd really have to say farewell to a university. Gee............
*Number in parenthesis shows value attached.
What I got from HKU period: (gain 55)
Interactive teaching, dynamic knowledge and good results achieved (10)
Self-learning motivation and determination, tenacity (10)
Dramatic enhancement of English (9)
Broaden vision with the outside world, decision on career objective made (7)
Increased energy and vibrancy, fashion (5)
Connection with professors (5)
Sandy and some locals from all backgrounds (9)
What I failed to attain during HKU period (more severe): (loss 64)
A ought-to-be appropriate job placement (12)
A ought-to-be appropriate graduate study placement (18)
Shallow involvement in campus communities (5)
Superficial affiliations with local students (5)
Exchange opportunity (7)
Summer internship opportunity (8)
Mentorship opportunity (1)
Several scholarships (4)
Savings in wasteful financial outflow due to "no reason" (1)
Inefficient time management (1)
Less sports (2)
LOSS EXCEEDS GAIN!
May 1 2003 Labor days calls for labor, my long standing belief
As most of my peers are down weighing nowadays their academics, I'm still hopelessly floundering over the warning lines, evidenced by the shameful failure of uncertainty test, accounting for 30% of the final grade. SHAME
Lesson from three years' failure: not be impetuous! Do not show out real feelings before useful people!!
Oct 11 2003 On the resignation of Chairman of Protection for Harbor Society Mr. Wilson Chu
The recent environmentalists' movements to protect our famous Victoria Harbor has gained waves of social support, in an attempt to halt Government's plan to further reclaim land from sea to expand traffic infrastructure. Such an issue should, and in every case must, be solved at a high court level, as it did happen. Due to its complex nature, the decent balance in the cost-benefit analysis must be extremely carefully stricken. Now let's just leave alone the debate on the economics of such an issue. Today's news really shocked me. The Chairman, after decades' fight against Government's reclamation to protect the sea, resigned from office only because a "serious threat letter" which put his family into jeopardy. I really don't understand why he would ever be afraid of such ridiculous letter. His action to resign "irreversibly" indeed confirmed the power and effectiveness of threat letter, anonymous, to shut up any top level officials and powerful person! That's so easy. I'm going to throw down any chairman by writing and sending such a nonsense letter, right? To me, if the guy is truly loyal to his cause as an environmentalist, he should not cringe in front of any threats, no matter how serious that is. Trust cops! Well, in such a free and human rights developed society as Hong Kong, threat letters is an understandable but unacceptable phenomenon. We must not scare.
Dec 25 2003 Christmas Eve - Restraint
Three things are of crucial importance to a Christian's religious life. Self-discipline, integrity and worship to God. Of those, self-discipline is what I'm lack of most. It requires restraint, sometimes a pull over of emotional impulse when somebody irritates me, other times a simply restraint from unleashing true mind which is incongruous with surroundings. The coming 2004 must be lived as a most prosperous year during my teens-to-twenties transition period, under the these guiding principle.
Dec 27 2003 Iran Earthquake
Everyday Christians pray for world peace and security of human life, yet artificial and natural disasters continuously take their tolls on human lives somehow. In the aftermath of Chongqing natural gas blast killing 191, we're even more shocked by the recent lethal earthquake in Bam, Iran, claiming allegedly 20,000 people. Poor infrastructure is sure to blame, with regard to such a poverty-ridden country using most of its resources in preserving or upholding fundamental Islamic cultures, but sparing little on real economy. Again I'm reminded of how important it is for the government to take good care of its citizens in order to maintain a harmonious and peaceful realm of control.
Dec 31 2003 Retrospect, Prospect and New Year Wishes
Another year draws close to its end and it looks as if my dream would be drawn close to its end, too. It's a good practice to keep writing diary and particularly, write a yearly review and prospect on each 31st of December, as some sort of reminding oneself how his dream was being satisfied. However, it hurts me more and more that every year and even every day, such review would be filled with sheer despair. The Peter years ago when coming to this dynamic city for the first time was one full of energy, ambitions, intelligence and sense of achievement, gorgeous and glamorous. Now I sat at the table of a very small room of a very poorly-fashioned and untidy house, whose rent crunches one fourth of my salary, fatigue, with everything used to be in my dream basket but now have vanished. I got a bad fate this year. I don't know if it's just about the luck, or, the result of some accumulated, profound defects of my own, that lurked throughout the previous years. Now I don't have, maybe can never get back, those ambition and energy with me years ago when I was still a "youngster". To survive over a moderately long period is some target tangible to me now.
The year 2003 has been disastrous in my entire life. With the absolute failure in the life watershed as a result, I mishandled everything from graduate school application to job seeking. Then I only found I was already locked in some position which I'm never willing to be in, like being a public accountant under inhumane treatment at Big Four. Realization of miserable fact is always later than the deadline of remedy, for me. The deprivation of my right to reshape my future pushed me further to the verge of collapse. Standing at the turning point of 2003, I have nothing to say but I AM AN ABSOLUTELY SHAMED LOSER.
Every time when I failed, I would count on tomorrow or next time, and next time would normally repeat this time. So, 2004 for me should be another disaster if I plan well but implement poorly. Before the mystery / misery comes true, I wish, as I wished one year ago, that the world peace can be enhanced not undermined (I grieved over the death of more than 20,000 people in Iran lately). Secondly, I wish people around me get a well-balanced life, not ideal but satisfactory one. (I'm growing into an ever more lonely person as I've left my beloved campus and academia. So people around me are truly few). Finally, I wish myself a "fortunate" year. With the true feeling of guilty and determination to improve myself, may the mercy of God have an ear on those three wishes.
To shape an "up" in my critical youngster life and to make firm progress towards the goal of "revival plan", I pray for wisdom to know the right thing to do and the courage and perseverance to do it. The result is something I could only wish but not control.
Tomorrow sun will rise. A new chapter shall be ushered in.
Strive for Excellence - «C¬K无®¬