A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.
Experiences in China
Joy has been to Beijing
On China
Joy's first opportunity to go to Asia was in business school. She signed up for an elective class, which included a whirlwind tour of 15 companies in China and Japan through the International Management Experience in Asia Program. Joy and her MBA colleagues met with executives in several Asian cities, including Beijing, Nanjing, Guangzhou, Hong Kong and Tokyo.
After her first taste of the East, Joy has kept going back for more. Joy is fascinated with China's geopolitical landscape and history, and finds the Chinese to be a remarkably resourceful people. In her final semester of business school, Joy signed on for another elective course, which would return her to Beijing to deliver a presentation to senior management at China Consultants of Advisory and Financial Management (CCAFM).
Upon graduation from business school, Joy packed two suitcases and headed back to Beijing for the 3rd time with the plan to study Mandarin Chinese and secure a job there. A former colleague connected her with an executive at Chang An and soon she was helping the firm with a strategic international growth plan. While at Bei Wai, Joy also made good friends with a fellow student, Chuck, who went on to start his own business a few years later. Though Joy would end up staying in China for only a few months, Joy made it a goal to find a way to return for a longer stay within the next 5 years.
In just under 3 years, Joy was granted a 2-year expat assignment to work on the start-up team for Intel's first chipset factory in Dalian, China. She went on her first trip to Dalian in late 2008 to check out housing options. In 2009, when most companies were experiencing major cutbacks due to the economic downturn, the expat budget came under scrutiny and Joy had to return to Intel's headquarters in California. However, the people she met and experiences she had supporting the Dalian effort were invaluable.
Over the years, Joy has built strong ties to people in China. Like Joy, many hardworking people in China today are the first generation in their families to accumulate the sort of wealth that allows them to afford an apartment, a car, vacations, and invest in companies and causes around the world. She can relate. Many in that generation feel a strong obligation to support their parents and other elders who likely did not have the same opportunities. This first generation of highly successful and affluent people in China is squeezed at both ends, because they also invest heavily and have high expectations for the next generation, primarily made up of their only children. The fact that these 3 generations of Chinese people living today account for a staggering 1 out of every 4 people on Earth should demand the attention of even the most passive observer. The needs and desires of the Chinese people, by sheer numbers alone, are paramount in determining the types of goods and services the world generates, and this will become of increasing importance as economic conditions improve.