Thursday, December 31, 2009

A little description about this blog



My name is Benny Chan, Chinese, in my mid-30s. I was a foreign student in the United States for 7 years. After I finally graduated from my master's degree in June 2009, I decided that it's about time to return to my home in Hong Kong. However, instead of taking a 15 hours direct flight from Chicago to Hong Kong, I took a much longer and much more interesting detour via Peru, Chile and Australia to go home. I departed from the US on Sep 28, and arrived home in Hong Kong on Nov 26. This almost 2-months backpacking journey in its entirety has been documented in this blog, from the day I started the preparation of my return to the day I was sitting in my room in Hong Kong looking for job. It covered all the funs, problems, and emotions I had on the road, before and after the trip. I intended to keep this blog available online partly as a memory for myself, but also for those travelers who are doing the similar kind of trip or soul searching journey. Perhaps you compare notes with what I encountered.

To start reading from the preparation... HERE

To start reading from the beginning of the trip... HERE

By Day
Day 0, Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6, Day 7, Day 8, Day 9, Day 10, Day 11,
Day 12, Day 13, Day 14, Day 15, Day 16, Day 17, Day 18, Day 19, Day 20, Day 21, Day 22,
Day 23, Day 24, Day 25, Day 26, Day 27, Day 28, Day 29, Day 30, Day 31, Day 32, Day 33,
Day 34, Day 35, Day 36, Day 37, Day 38, Day 39, Day 40, Day 41, Day 42, Day 43, Day 44,
Day 45, Day 46, Day 47, Day 48, Day 49, Day 50, Day 51, Day 52, Day 53, Day 54, Day 55,
Day 56, Day 57, Day 58, Day 59


By Place:
- Lima, Peru | Arrival | Photo Albums: 1, 2, 3

- Cuzco & The Sacred Valley, Peru | Arrival | Photo Albums: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23

- Machu Picchu, Peru | Arrival | Photo Albums: 1, 2, 3

- Puno (Lake Titicaca), Peru | Arrival | Photo Albums: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

- Arequipa & Colca Canyon, Peru | Arrival | Photo Albums: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

- Tacna, Peru | Arrival | Photo Album

- Arica, Chile | Arrival | Photo Album

- San Pedro de Atacama (Atacama Desert), Chile | Arrival | Photo Albums: 1, 2, 3, 4

- Valparaiso, Chile | Arrival | Photo Albums: 1, 2, 3, 4

- Santiago, Chile | Arrival: 1, 2, 3 | Photo Albums: 1, 2, 3, 4

- Easter Island, Chile | Arrival | Photo Albums: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

- Sydney, Australia | Arrival | Photo Albums: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

- Hong Kong, China | Arrival | Photo Albums: 1, 2

PDF:
Want a downloadable PDF version of the blog, shoot me an email, I will send you the link. :)

Saturday, December 19, 2009

The first job interview in HK since 1999



A week from now, I will be back home in Hong Kong for a month already. It seem like it has been just a blink of an eye, feels totally weird, but at the same times, it's kind of like things around me becoming more "real". You know, at first it's kind of dreamy, am I really here? Not exactly sure what I should be doing everyday. I couldn't even get my shower pattern back on track. Sometimes I shower in the morning, sometimes afternoon, sometimes at night. There is no regularity. Be honest, I am still trying to get that fixed. I mean, I am not exactly retired and the last thing I want is allowing myself to become lazier and lazier. So a daily schedule will do me good.

Time does really fly though, I admit. It's Xmas in a week. Looks like we gonna have a cooler X'mas, "cooler" as in HK standard, which is around 50-60F. Be honest, when you don't have heater or central heating to maintain the temperature, it can be chilly. Some of my friends do use those portable heaters, but my family don't. I don't know if I really need it, I should just put on a long pant, my mom would say.

By the way, all my shipped stuffs arrived and delivered. I have found my Hong Kong identification card back. Apparently, before I went to South America, I decided that I should not be carrying so many cards and junks in my wallet, so I took everything out, including my HK ID, for whatever reasons. I wasn't really thinking straight, I suppose. Anyway, I am glad that I have found it back, and do not spend more money to have it replaced. All my CD/DVDs, books, clothes, shoes are found their home in my tiny room. You will be amazed how those 7 boxes of stuffs be putted away inside my room, and I still have a bed to sleep, a table to work and some rooms to move around in this no bigger than 7x7 sq ft room.

Yesterday, I had my first job interview. It was actually for the first application I sent out two weeks ago. They asked to fill a form and answer a few exam type kind of question (to see if I can really do statistics), and then they wanted to meet me. It was a western woman whom I met, she was extremely friendly. We actually spent the first 5 mins talking about traveling. She loves traveling too and have been to some of the places I have visited in South America. So, that was a good start. It's a really small company, only 6 persons, one of them is even located in the UK. They don't have an office, and if they will hire me. I'll be doing the work at home. That's completely new to me and I am not sure if that's good or not yet really, for a person who just says he wants some regularity. The title is business analyst / biostatistician, doing healthcare-related forecast, analysis, building models..etc. My role will mainly focus on epidemiology at the beginning. In US and Europe, there are already well-established companies doing these stuffs and have well-maintain databases built. But in the emerging countries, this area is still very much underdeveloped. So, on the surface, I really think it could be a really good direction for me to go and get myself into. But at the same time, I have no background in healthcare or even biostatistics at all. It will be a tough job to do, especially since the company is so small and have no office, you are pretty much on your own right off the back. That's my concern whether I can really meet their expectation. I mean, not trying to beat up myself, in Statistics field, I am a "fresh" graduate without any previous relevant experience. Anyway, a friend is saying I am thinking too much (do you just know me? of course I am), I should just see if they'd hire me, and then I think about I'd take or not. I guess. The woman at the interview seemed to be really happy with my academic background and previous employment references. That might be a good sign. And we talked for 90 mins! That ought to be the longest job interview I have ever had in HK.

One of my biggest problem right now is that I am not sure at all how much I should ask for. Unlike the US, it's easy to find a list of median wages or a rough guide for pretty much for all positions. Here there are some, but not a lot. Positions, confusing like "business analyst", it can be anything from an insurance salesman to an analyst in a financial institute. I don't want to be asking too high, nor do I want to get an office assistant salary and doing statistical analysis. I am not a greedy person, I just want a fair salary, whatever this position should be worth in this market then I just take it, although a capitalist society never works that way, does it? I guess I'll find out how much I am worth when I will finally find a job.

Just for the record, my last job interview in Hong Kong before this one was actually a decade ago, in 1999. I think I did ok with the interview really, partly because she was an western woman instead of a chinese woman. I am afraid of chinese female interviewers, they should be featuring in the Simpson's horrortree's episodes.

Finally, I must announce that this will be the last newsletter from my travel blog. I will set up a new blog very very soon, I am debating on the name right now, it will be about my daily life in Hong Kong, I suppose. If you are interested to still hear from this little pal of yours, please let me know. So, I'd add you on the distribution list. I will probably connect with some of you on Facebook too. For those who lives in Hong Kong, I probably won't be sending you the blog anymore. You'll probably have enough seeing me all the times anyway.

Last but not least, thank you so much for being a friend and I am glad that I have shared my South America to you all, I hope you have enjoyed it as much as I did. Wherever you are, keep in touch. Good luck to you all!

Photos here: Hong Kong (Misc Photos)

Monday, December 7, 2009

From a traveler to a resident



Slowly as it is, I am transforming from a traveler to a resident here at home in Hong Kong. Last night, I think it has been the first night I slept 8 hours straight without waking up in the middle of the night. Maybe I was just too tired, or I have finally started to filter out the noises, a little more everyday anyway. My room has become more livable, now I have a desk, a bookcase which I already half filled, even though my stuffs shipped from the US has not arrived yet. I have no idea what I'll do when it does, where and how to keep my stuffs in this tiny room. I'll figure something out.

Before I came back, I thought I would be very glad to eat at home, to taste my parents' cooking. But it's very strange to say, I have started to miss cooking for myself. I miss going to shop for foods in the supermarket, and prepare dinner for myself, even though I can only cook a very limited variety of things and they are not very good either. It's that autonomy in making your own decision, choosing something for yourself without compromising. I think I really miss that. I mean, I have no complaint about the food at home at all, and it's not like my parents controlling what I can do per se, but it is just different between living on your own or with a non-related roommate and living with your parents. So, I still say I'll keep my goal to move out as soon as I can afford it.

Curt, my roommate in Chicago, were here to visit for a weekend, we had dinner last Thursday and Saturday. It was great seeing Curt. Make me miss Chicago more, in a good way. Last night, a friend and I went to see a Volleyball match for the East Asian Games: China vs Taiwan! China won. 3 sets straight. A quick game. It is an interesting experience. Except soccer, I have never really gone to any other sport games in HK before. In US, I saw the baseball and hockey games a couple times. The difference between sport games in US and HK: in US, everyone get drunk, talk loud to each other, cheer and boo at their team at the same time, it's a social event, the sport itself is important, but there is also a social thing going on in the audience that has nothing to do with the sport. While in HK, the audience are usually more tamed, very focused in the game, and the stupid MC makes you play the silly human waves around the stadium, kind of shit. The cheers are usually positive, and no beers or nachos in the stadium.

I have officially sent out my first job application letter (email) today. It is for a Business Analyst/Biostatistician position for a healthcare forecasting company. Honestly, I doubt that I will be able to get this job, not because I don't have any experience in biostatistics or working with medical data, but it's because I haven't had a job interview for a million years, I think it will take me a few times to get back to the game. I am still reworking on my cover letter format anyway, I have a long list of sound bites that can be used to describe myself. I am trying to write a piece that is not too lengthy or self-deluding (yeah right, it's freaking cover letter!), but at the same time, have the right amount of indigents to promote myself. We'll see how it goes. But to start is the first place, I am glad the first letter is out, the next thing I'll do is to contact some employment search firms this week.

Just a head up. I probably will end this travel blog very soon, as the title suggests, I am no longer a traveler. But I will probably open and keep a personal blog, to keep a journal on my bittersweet daily life here in HK. I shall invite you to see the new site soon.

Photos here: East Asian Game