"Nobody can face the world with his eyes open all the time." (Rushdie) I took a nap while our airplane was on the way to Bombay. When my eyes re-opened after 7pm, I was eager to catch my first scene of the city through the plane window. Not trying to match Manhattan treasury island’s glamour, Bombay gleamed at its own charm. I saw its unique shape as a piece of wildly decorative necklace. Days later when we drove by Marine Drive, I heard her nick name--Queens’ necklace again. Though the views were very different, I was satisfied with my Bombay dream.
“You look Indian!” –the best comment that I ever heard from a shop assistant.
I smiled at the mirror when looking at myself in churidar with mixed feelings. Last day last stop for my Bombay tour was this clothing shop run by local Indians. It was recommended by Anthony, my taxi driver, who made my day. I had dreams for Bombay hoping to share the venture with an Indian friend but Anthony accidentally became this Indian friend, a Roman Catholic.
Our day started with lavish color—an Indian way.
Mahalaxmi Temple, one of the busiest Hindu temples, welcomed us with pink roof embellished by orange and yellow flowers, red carpets, and women in splendid saris. I was enchanted before noticing my bare feet burning under the brilliant sunshine. While waiting in queue for the worship, I had the leisure to enjoy a closer look at the saris worn by the locals: cotton, silk, and synthetic. Under the pink roof, the face-to-face conversation between a Chinese and an Indian woman started without any hesitation. With a lotus flower in hand, she excitedly pointed to me her husband and sons in the other queue. This was the first Saturday of the month when the family came and worshiped their goddess of wealth, Mahalaxmi.
Before I fully soaked myself in Indian scents, I smelled fish when Anthony and I walked along the bank by the Gateway of India. Looking afar into Mumbai Harbor and glancing back at the majestic Taj Mahal Palace, for a moment, I was confused whether this was India or China, precisely Mumbai or Shanghai?
History might be able to explain this. Barely a stone's throw from the Gateway of India was the Prince of Wales Museum. Anthony still took his car along to the southern end of the Mahatma Gandhi Road. I was immediately intrigued by the structure of the "Crescent Site" crowned by a sparkling white dome—a confluence of Gothic and Moorish styles. The nature of embracing diversity was even more obvious inside—from ancient Indus Valley artifacts, Buddhist tankha scrolls, Tibetan bronzes to European paintings. I was more attracted to miniature paintings from various art schools of India—they are colorful windows to watch India while listening to Gulzar’s poetry.
Anthony understood me well when I asked for a visit to a local bookstore. I was led to Crossword, the largest bookstore in the city. Though it was one tenth of the size of a typical Barnes & Nobles, Crossword carried similar popular titles. Language was not a barrier, unlike Chinese. I fell in love with the corner shelves where the Indian literatures were waiting to be picked up. “If you lose touch with nature, you lose touch with humanity…. You carry a gun for ‘sport.’” I was first shocked by Krishnamurti’s precise analogy but later relieved with confidence. Since 1962, India and China have sported no more and I hope that they can become allies.
Since cricket tournament was out of town, I decided to overlook some impromptu match along Marine Drive. Very quickly, I discovered that it was more fun to play in the field. Cricket is an Indian men’s game. Being a Chinese woman, I was not afraid to walk into the field, becoming the batswoman. The Indian boys were excited, becoming bowlers. When the pink balls were thrown at me, I felt the heat on my cheek reflecting the color of the red sand field. I did not miss hitting the balls while Anthony cheered for me on the side. Two hours later, I walked back into his yellow and black car with a green covered cricket bat on my shoulder. He smiled at me blissfully so that I couldn’t find his eyes on his bronze face. At that moment, I knew that religion, ethnicity and language can only enhance the color of our lives.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Sleepless in Accra
Howard (’06) and I were eating dinner in Jazztone when the music was interrupted by the electricity shortage, which we were both used to. It would have been a perfect candle light dinner for Howard and Emily, his fiancée had she not caught malaria. In the darkness and silence, a to-be consultant and an ex-investment banker’s conversation became more engaged in Accra, the Capital of Ghana in West Africa.
“I don’t think I worked as hard in Sloan as I did in Ghana. Everyday in Temale, if I just push myself a bit harder, the impact carries further.” As Howard unfolded his challenges with Safe Household Water, a water and sanitation project started by an MIT professor, I firmed my decision not to hedge myself in New York or Hong Kong for the summer. When fighting malaria mosquitoes, taking cold bucket showers, Howard had his mission in mind and enjoyed living closer with the locals. Nonetheless, ,many things kept him awake: The rural communities could not afford the water filtering system his NGO targeted to provide while the official beneficiaries were the rich banks and international NGOs. How could he encourage more real jobs among Ghanaians while International NGOs with much higher salary levels were perceived a golden career in many Ghanaian’s minds?. The path less traveled brought the two Sloanies together and took some African dreams away late into the night.
The favorite Ghanaian hand shakes kept me awake and wiped my frowns off. I chose my summer internship in Africa and in financial services because my expertise in banking allowed me to make full contribution in a short time frame. While I felt frustrated on many manual processes, such as filling trade orders on white boards in the Ghana Stock exchange, my heart was closer to the community every time our palms touched and fingers clicked. At Databank Accra office, I shook hands with Ghanaian colleagues dozens of times a day. Late Monday nights, I offered my Ghanaian hand shakes before my best friend, Paa Nii, walked into live studio interviews for TV3. Early Tuesday mornings, we each showed up with our bright smiles palm touching and finger clicking with everybody else. We belonged to the Friday night office club enjoying each other’s accompany through MSN when electricity was off and computers ran on a back-up generator. The nights with less sleep were the ones with much concordance.
Role modeling from Paa Nii, I learned the smiley way to deal with the bank’s challenges—participation, patience, and persistence. Having lost much sleep over the strategies on the 13 subsidiaries’ operations in four West African countries, I set my mind to build capacity for the bank. From simple things like running Excel workshop, demonstrating portfolio optimization models, to evaluating HR performance measurement, I found myself spending more time with my colleagues during the day while working on my strategy report late at night. My colleagues thought I wanted to build a new Wall Street career in West Africa deal making with ministers and Ghana Club 100 (equivalent of Fortune 500), I smiled again because I knew that I was pushing my own limit to the heart of the African challenges as they did to themselves. Those sleepless nights were definitely more real than dancing with the elephants in the Mole National Park.
Almost to the verge of being work alcoholic, I managed to take half day off to visit my KSG classmate Makoto, a volunteer for Children Better Way, in Budaburam, the Liberia refugee camp in Ghana. Surprisingly, the camp looked quite similar to some Accra communities with 40,000 Liberians living peacefully in packaged houses since 1991. As he and I walked down the dirt road with our nose filled with the diesel smell, Makoto confessed that he wanted to run away in his first week in Budaburam. Before KSG, not only did he work for the ministry in Tokyo, Makoto was a world traveler backpacked by himself in India and Tibet. Therefore, lack of running water or electricity was not the real reason. It was the bareness of history, content and intellectual curiosity in a frozen hourglass.
I saw many exciting post-conflict national rebuilding projects in Monrovia, Capital of Liberia but Liberians in Budaburam did not see and seemed not even thinking about going back to their home country. As I was puzzled walking by the soccer field, Mokoto was all of sudden crowded and cheered by a team of teenager soccer players. Makoto was their hero!!!
The Ghanaian life tastes like Fufu, a local dish made of plantains and cassava—plain and fulfilling. I raised the rod pounding in rhythm while my partner rolled the dough smiling. Our sweat went together into the Fufu and made it a special taste.
“I don’t think I worked as hard in Sloan as I did in Ghana. Everyday in Temale, if I just push myself a bit harder, the impact carries further.” As Howard unfolded his challenges with Safe Household Water, a water and sanitation project started by an MIT professor, I firmed my decision not to hedge myself in New York or Hong Kong for the summer. When fighting malaria mosquitoes, taking cold bucket showers, Howard had his mission in mind and enjoyed living closer with the locals. Nonetheless, ,many things kept him awake: The rural communities could not afford the water filtering system his NGO targeted to provide while the official beneficiaries were the rich banks and international NGOs. How could he encourage more real jobs among Ghanaians while International NGOs with much higher salary levels were perceived a golden career in many Ghanaian’s minds?. The path less traveled brought the two Sloanies together and took some African dreams away late into the night.
The favorite Ghanaian hand shakes kept me awake and wiped my frowns off. I chose my summer internship in Africa and in financial services because my expertise in banking allowed me to make full contribution in a short time frame. While I felt frustrated on many manual processes, such as filling trade orders on white boards in the Ghana Stock exchange, my heart was closer to the community every time our palms touched and fingers clicked. At Databank Accra office, I shook hands with Ghanaian colleagues dozens of times a day. Late Monday nights, I offered my Ghanaian hand shakes before my best friend, Paa Nii, walked into live studio interviews for TV3. Early Tuesday mornings, we each showed up with our bright smiles palm touching and finger clicking with everybody else. We belonged to the Friday night office club enjoying each other’s accompany through MSN when electricity was off and computers ran on a back-up generator. The nights with less sleep were the ones with much concordance.
Role modeling from Paa Nii, I learned the smiley way to deal with the bank’s challenges—participation, patience, and persistence. Having lost much sleep over the strategies on the 13 subsidiaries’ operations in four West African countries, I set my mind to build capacity for the bank. From simple things like running Excel workshop, demonstrating portfolio optimization models, to evaluating HR performance measurement, I found myself spending more time with my colleagues during the day while working on my strategy report late at night. My colleagues thought I wanted to build a new Wall Street career in West Africa deal making with ministers and Ghana Club 100 (equivalent of Fortune 500), I smiled again because I knew that I was pushing my own limit to the heart of the African challenges as they did to themselves. Those sleepless nights were definitely more real than dancing with the elephants in the Mole National Park.
Almost to the verge of being work alcoholic, I managed to take half day off to visit my KSG classmate Makoto, a volunteer for Children Better Way, in Budaburam, the Liberia refugee camp in Ghana. Surprisingly, the camp looked quite similar to some Accra communities with 40,000 Liberians living peacefully in packaged houses since 1991. As he and I walked down the dirt road with our nose filled with the diesel smell, Makoto confessed that he wanted to run away in his first week in Budaburam. Before KSG, not only did he work for the ministry in Tokyo, Makoto was a world traveler backpacked by himself in India and Tibet. Therefore, lack of running water or electricity was not the real reason. It was the bareness of history, content and intellectual curiosity in a frozen hourglass.
I saw many exciting post-conflict national rebuilding projects in Monrovia, Capital of Liberia but Liberians in Budaburam did not see and seemed not even thinking about going back to their home country. As I was puzzled walking by the soccer field, Mokoto was all of sudden crowded and cheered by a team of teenager soccer players. Makoto was their hero!!!
The Ghanaian life tastes like Fufu, a local dish made of plantains and cassava—plain and fulfilling. I raised the rod pounding in rhythm while my partner rolled the dough smiling. Our sweat went together into the Fufu and made it a special taste.
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