“I have never seen anyone that is fluent in English and Mandarin to be poor.”

After a good class, I had a quick conversation with my Mandarin teacher and this is what he said. So cool! I wanted to learn Mandarin because of the possible advantages it would give me in the business world or in my job (locally and globally). Good to hear that I’m not the only one with that opinion!

China's ME Generation

I first became interested with Chinese affairs two years ago. I was reading a Time magazine with the cover story “China’s ME generation,” which highlighted the contrast between their economic growth and their disinterest in politics.

Just imagine, a country that big, becoming more open and industrialised. China is also speculated to become one of the fastest growing luxury markets.

Even today, amidst recession, most high-end and luxury brands turn to China for majority of their sales! (Read more here.)

My schedule is a bit difficult right now. Saturday classes are just blah — it’s hard to contain the party/weekend mood. Everytime I attend a class, I enjoy it though. My teacher’s funny and gives me new insight about their culture. No regrets.

The moment I said “Difficult times lie ahead. We’re in a recession” and repeated it as an explanation behind every conceivable matter, I knew I’m becoming the person I used to hate.

Gone are the trivial days. I used to have so many problems ranging from what clothes to wear, school work, boys, my parents, the fights between my sisters. Now, whenever I hear a friend saying he has so many problems, I just want to mock him and yell, “What problems? Hell week? Oh, right, you are so going to die from the amount of school work you have to do.” Listen, buster, don’t be melodramatic, you haven’t seen hell yet.

I know! When did this happen? I used to hate my mom because she used to mock me about my “problems” during college. Now, I’m becoming more and more like her. Everyday, I try to think of a business idea. I read the news. I’m slowly gaining awareness about famous families, business dynasties, and political climate.

What is everyone doing after college? What is everyone’s life plan? How are you mapping out your goals? It’s cliched, but life is so short. I’m 21 years old and I only have few years left to gain financial independence before I turn 30! Then what happens when I am nearing 30? I plan a family. Five years after turning 30, maybe I’ll have a kid. Ten years after that, I’ll be sending him to school. Yikes!

Okay, I may be getting carried away. But how much can you do in all those time? I don’t want to look back and regret what I did to my life. What did Rockefeller do? He revolutionalised the petroloeum industry. The Vanderbilts, Ayalas, Gokongwei, to mention a few. It’s amazing what they’ve done and the changes they created to society.

I don’t know my plan. I do know where I want to end up with, how I want my life to turn out. Everyday, during my spare time, I read. I increase my awareness. I don’t know how I’d get there, but I’m always looking for that one-in-a-million opportunity.

I don’t like the corporate life. I don’t like the rat race. I want to be my own boss, have a business, and give jobs to people. I want to do my line of interest. I don’t want to go through the cookie-cutter build– the typical jobs that college taught us to end up with.

Somebody once told me, “Just do what you want to do and it’ll make sense in the end.” Right now, I’m just doing that. I’m dabbling in so many things.

Here are the things I’m currently doing:

1. I’m learning Mandarin every Saturday at ACFL. Originally, I wanted to be multi-lingual, but let’s see about that. Hard!
2. I’m reading about finance, economics, and stocks at Investopedia and (occassionaly) Babypips.com during my spare time. They didn’t teach finance in college the way I am learning about them now.
3. I’m observing the trends with anything related to the Internet. I’m extremely fascinated with the (business) possibilities that the Internet opens up.
4. I’m becoming familiar with our family business.

I don’t know where I’m going. Forex trading? Stocks? Dot com companies? I’m scared. I may end up chewing more than I can handle. But all these are so interesting now! China’s becoming so different now. Do you know that the United States got most of its dollars from China? Asian countries are naturally inclined to save dollars. Without China, where could they have gotten it? It’s getting very different.

Dot com companies have low overhead cost. I can just try and fail and try again! And with stocks and forex, heh… I want to invest my money on something (instead of spending it on trivial stuff).

I don’t know. Someone teach me about internet marketing, stocks, forex, economics, and Mandarin? Let’s learn together.

I just want to get an overview of my options. The corporate life is not everything. Hopefully, everything works out in the end.