Finance English Competition

REMINDER: Write your blog posts more often and closer to when what you're writing about happens. Luckily, work is pretty easy this week so I have time to think and write blog posts (that's why this is my third post in two days). Before I went to Taipei, I was asked to judge an English competition for all the people who work for Midea's finance department. Audre was supposed to judge it with me, but she actually had to go to Hong Kong at the time. I was the only foreign person there, so that was cool, and I also met the VP of Midea and some other important people. I didn't sit alone, luckily, because the Director of Finance for Midea, Jimmy, sat next to me and we talked about the US and such... he lived in Texas for two years while working for our company, and also has a house there as an investment he says. The English competition was interesting to say the least. Basically, anyone who wanted to participate in it was able to, as long as they were part of the finance department in their division. I was one of the judges along with some other people who work for Midea Group who speak English pretty well. They left most of the questions at the end of the presentations up to me because I was the designated foreigner... hehehe. The only way I would participate in this competition if I were an employee was if I got a huge check if I won...and I'm pretty sure they got a good amount of money for Chinese standards, because I got money for judging it!

The competition went like this: Each person had an allotted amount of time to present something in English, not necessarily having to do with finance. I think about three people spoke on financial issues, three spoke about managing stress, and four spoke about Chinese Fever. When I first heard the presentation about Chinese Fever I was very confused... basically it was a lot of talking about why people are learning the Chinese language, are learning about China, visiting China etc etc. It was pretty straight-forward and conceited if you ask me, but then I realized that this will get that person high scores from the Chinese judges... Moreover, I realized I have Chinese fever! Well I did... just kidding! I am still very much interested in China and everything having to do with Chinese business, exporting and importing, culture, people, the language and so on and so forth. Besides, the girl who presented on this topic spoke English well and she was actually from my division (Dishwasher) and she drove me to the competition. She ended up winning first place, although I gave the highest score to this guy who later told me he studied in the US for a few years... and I guess I could sense it! I thought his English was great, but presentation wasn't so great. Kinda boring actually. Another person who spoke was really funny. He had just graduated college and was an intern at Midea. Oh poor little guy, his eyes were glazed and he had that naivety about him... it was adorable, but wait until he actually gets into the work force and reality hits. He spoke about how he loves Midea and will work so hard for it, and how this is his dream and paying back college loans...blah blah blah. At least he was entertaining and corny. I don't think people in the US would fall for this. Sadly, I think he was totally serious when he presented, but I thought it was just really funny and fake (if I had heard it in the US).

Many people spoke about how to handle stress at work, and how it should be a driving force as well (that should make the bosses happy AFTER people said work takes up so much time, is stressful, etc). I think the main reasoning for this stress talk was the Foxconn suicides. I didn't hear about this before the competition, as I have no TV or radio, but I just read more about it and it's actually kind of freaky. I have been speaking about Chinese workers working so much and being so diligent... so this was very close to home. I think I will have to do more research for myself about the work atmosphere in China and in big companies. To read more about this, google Foxconn suicides
Thus far, I have written in my blog about people working over time and spending many waking hours at work, but I have no idea how much stress and pressure people are under here. This is something I will have to conduct some interviews about. I'll ask my Chinese friends.