A French Date

Time: 8pm, Thursday, May 25, 2006
Location: Blue Bar, Novotel Hotel, Dubai, UAE
Date: Vianney, KSG Classmate Luc’s close college friend in France

After some aerobics in the French swimming pool, I forced myself on heavy make-up and a futuristic patterned dress. Fashionably late, I was confident with my smell of Light Blue down the elevator. Vianney was waiting in his French casual, matching well with the white sofa just outside the bar. We picked the Kriek, first on the drink list. Vianney proposed Blue Bar because he used to stay in this French hotel and I stay here. Blue bar is not French but fusion, famous for its live Jazz music and unique selection of Belgium beers, such as Kriek.

I have never been to France nor Vianney to China but both of us have worked in South East Asia and Middle East. Vianney roamed on Arabian Peninsula for the past 18 months while I beached in Israel last summer. We both thumbed up on the best Singapore Sling at Raffle’s Hotel. Gradually, culture became a focus of our conversation. Vianney joked that wives were important assets here because they had priorities in performing civil duties. Otherwise, men had to queue in long lines with 65% Indians and Pakistanis in this country. Islamic marriage allows males to have up to four wives as long as they are treated equally. “Men are privileged.” Vianney had a sway of his head. “Or, women are disadvantaged.” This time he nodded.

After 9:30pm, the Jazz music was on and it got so loud that even though we bumped our noses we couldn’t hear each other. We started walking out while the cherry fermented beer hit my head strongly. Barely balancing myself, I still recognized his French humor on his Dubai experience. We kept on talking in Café Cream as time passed by until my eye lids were getting heavy. His farewell cheek kisses certainly woke me up—“I apologize for being French.”

Meeting Ali, a Banker Entrepreneur

Meeting Ali was an exciting opportunity not only because he is a UAE national with his bachelor’s education in Boston, but also because he is a part-time entrepreneur and a full-time banker. Walking from the parking lot towards the back door of his office, I was immediately reminded of the Duck Tour on Charles River by the full cover of an amphibious bus on Dubai Creek. Al’s business is called Wonder Bus Tour.

His voice was very soft and his hands were always on his laps—nowhere close to a banker, nor an entrepreneur. His marketing manager, a big white man in black suit sitting three feet away, was a sharp contrast to Ali in his traditional white dishdasha—no sign of Americanization. “There are a lot of hours after my banking job 7:30am-2:30pm that I can work on Wonder Bus, and plus weekends… My bank job allows me to support myself without putting any salary burden on the start-up.” Leveraging his finance skill, Ali arranged the 2nd round financing all by himself. Banker Entrepreneur Ali got his perfect match.

I left my banking career in New York because my director and I both believe that MIT Sloan is the place to nurture my entrepreneurial spirit. Nonetheless, I failed on my first attempt. Laughably, I was worried about no financing, and couldn’t resist other temptations. Ali failed several entrepreneurial endeavors as well but this time he succeeded in Wonder Bus. I admire his conviction, which was almost buried in his banker’s job and soft voice. Ali is also an achieved branch manager for the local bank.

Meeting Ali is not a mere case interview behind hundreds of pages that I studied, but a lesson from a real-life entrepreneur: One’s conviction can drive him to integrate different parts of his experience for the Wonder.

City of Angels

Even angels long for the passion in human life.

Riding the escalator up in City Center, the largest shopping mall in town, I worshipped a white dishdasha (floor-length shirt-dress), 6’2” tall and three stairs above of me. I thought I saw an angel but when looking around I realized that there were so many of them in this huge complex. There were equally as many black angels in abeyya (female shapeless black gown). While I still immersed myself in the colorful saris from my April India trip, I was stunned by this purity and simplicity. But the black and white itself did not compose a city of angels—Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Today was my third day interning at SME (Small and Medium Enterprises) division of Dubai Development & Investment Authority (DDIA). We were not located in the luxury Emirates Towers but the 1st fl of a simple construction in the Humanitarian City, next to the United Nation. However, I was quite happy when I saw the ground floor set up quite creatively for entrepreneurs’ office usage, because it reminded me much about the Cambridge Innovation Center by the MIT campus. SME is 25 folks strong with two thirds in either black or white, meaning they are UAE nationals, operated more in a venture capital mode than a bureaucratic government entity.

Before getting to know them, I would not associate my colleagues with angels. For example, my assigned buddy, Ram, is an Indian, who only dressed in suits. Nonetheless, he drove a very cool black four by four picking up every morning from the hotel. As the fund manager, he surprisingly did not talk much about the business but rather introduced me great resources allowing me the space to explore my entrepreneurial endeavor— to identify creative financing strategies for UAE nationals’ SMEs. So many conversations have taken place between Ram’s colleagues and me that I feel that they are the angels who are passionate about bringing building blocks to local entrepreneurs.

the origin

I almost forgot that i have this account for almost 10 mons when my friend Aaron encouraged me. I forgot what my writing Aaron read led to this introduction of the whole blog concept. Now i'm really blogging.

Sometimes it's hard to imagine things come back to you after a while--almost a serendipity.