Asians, Asians, Everywhere

I went out to a Korean restaurant with two associates tonight -- my office mate, a 27-year-old Chinese American woman who grew up in Ohio, and a 34-year-old Korean American man who grew up in Korea, Toronto, Papua New Guinea, and L.A. -- and I had a pretty good time. After the initial sizing up, we fell into relatively comfortable conversation about childhoods, clothing, weird Hong Kong fashions, and movies.

At one point, my officemate asked how Mighty Big Firm, in New York, had been, and I gave my stock answer with a shrug: "You know, just like all the rumors -- hardworking, professional, polite, courteous." I thought about saying they'd been a little chilly, but I wasn't sure if that's what I really thought.

My officemate misheard me and thought I'd said "special" instead of "professional" and "white" instead of "polite." We laughed about it, and then said almost simultaneously, "Well, they are pretty white."

This is one of the things that I'm finding very different about Hong Kong. Of course you are, hk, you must be saying. They don't call it Asia for nothin', hon. But it's a different kind of Asia than the kind I found in Korea, which took me months to get used to and finally love. It's a westernized Asia, where most people speak English, blond Caucasian women don't get a second look, and the insouciance and confidence of the West mingle with the driven but exquisitely polite exterior of the East.

It's odd to work in an office that is so western in style but populated almost entirely by Asian faces. I went to lunch today with my officemate (who's been remarkably good about planning things) and an associate who also works in the capital markets group but not on the U.S. law side. She happens to be from a Hong Kong family but went to boarding school and Oxford in the U.K. Just your average highly educated, multilingual, insanely hardworking and intelligent, delicate lotus blossom of the East. Yeah.

My officemate (who worked for another UK firm her second summer but took a job with this one because this one offered her free housing with the job) told me today that on average she works from 9 am to 9 or 10 pm. A really easy day is when she leaves at 6 pm. A really bad day is when she leaves at 12 or 1 am. A really, really bad day is leaving at 3 am, or working the entire night.

Really bad days can last for weeks.

She said her first year here was a little like the first year of law school -- overwhelming, and inevitably leading to a breaking point, where you don't know how to deal with the amount of work and stress. But after that, she said, you don't get fazed anymore. You know you can handle it.

It's a glamourous life, working on international business deals in this, the cosmopolitan crossroads of the Pacific Rim. But as I told my partner mentor the last day at Mighty Big Firm, it doesn't seem like a good life.

But it is pretty damn glam.
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Notes: I did a little work today: some grunt work and some research that was rather interesting. A good day, all in all. Now, if only I could stop eating my weight in food every meal I have, I'd be perfectly peachy.

Tomorrow the 'rents arrive. It's funny to be able to offer them a bedroom to stay in, with nice sheets and a little apartment attached. May not be able to update for a few days, though -- they're here til Sat. morning.