Finally and for the first-time, I took the high speed rail from Hong Kong into Shenzhen.
Despite the lunar new year festive period, the station didn't seem as crowded as I remembered it pre-COVID.
I got my tickets online from 12306.cn, the official site of China Railway for all rail passes in China. I collected the hard copies from one of the counters the day before to avoid any long queues on the day itself.
Once you pass through the gantry, numerous signboards will prompt you to fill up an online health and itinerary declaration form, which will generate a unique QR code for scanning at the border control points. While there are no swab or PCR tests at this point, you are required to obtain a negative PCR report within 48 hours before departure.
And that's it - this post is as short as the journey on the high speed rail.
After two years and given that it was the year end, I thought it was timely that I should spend some time to consolidate and reflect on the takeaways, the hits and the misses during this time. But nothing actually came to mind. So I spent the crossing-over to the new year in a relatively low key fashion. No celebration, not a lot of booze, no chugging of beers, no fanciful dinners or gatherings. All I did was head up to the open-air rooftop of my hotel at approximately 23:50 in anticipation of the fireworks overlooking the Hong Kong city skyline. Even after the clock struck 00:00, there was also no spectacular display of fireworks, not at least from where I stood.
Yet, this was how I enjoyed the new year crossing. The simple peace and serenity of taking in the cool 15 degrees outdoor air, the sensation of looking forward to a restful morning on the following day. And perhaps more importantly that the rest of the world only wakes up and starts to go to work two days later.
Some might even call it a short reprieve from the shitstorm of work awaiting in the first week of the new year.
During my investment banking analyst days, a VP once asked me what I did on weekends. I gave him the rhetoric of being too busy catching up on work to be able to plan for anything else.
It was true anyway.
Whenever anyone asked me about my banking days, I always told them that we worked seven day weeks, had after dinner drinks at 9pm, went back up to work around 11pm, got off past midnight and then back into the office the next day at 930am. that routine changed slightly as we grew into our jobs with travel increasingly becoming a part of it but the hours never really changed.
Aside from the mandatory 2-week compliance leave that we were entitled to, there was hardly any downtime, and hardly a moment to "switch off". This daily cycle can put a toll on you, both physically and mentally.
I recalled one of my colleagues popping pills to regulate this blood pressure because he was getting increasingly affected by the incessant badgering, the non-stop phone calls and the never-ending refreshing of pitchbooks and financial models.
"Regardless of how little time we have, one must learn how to block out work when it is time to rest. Otherwise, you would go crazy." - that was what the VP had said to me.
There is stress everywhere, in every blue-collar and white collar job, no matter how much you try to justify it using salary. It could take the form of overtime hours, a nasty boss, an unreasonable client, unhealthy working environment, etc. Everyone deals with the vicissitudes at work differently.
Some say this deprivation of normality over long periods of working in a high pressure environment leads to overcompensation through the splurging on the extravagant stuff. Despite what the rest of the world says and thinks, I think one of the biggest takeaways from doing investment banking wasn't really the money, but the fact that you can put yourself under tremendous pressure and yet pull off functioning as a normal person under any circumstance (at least for those of us who made it out sane).
Yet, there are those who seemingly made it out but never really left. You can of course leave an investment banking career and still stay rooted in a toxic mentality. These are the same people who continue to measure success through lofty titles, name dropping and the size of their pay checks. You can always sniff these people out by what they choose to talk about with you. Only just recently, I was re-connecting with an ex-colleague over WeChat. Much to my surprise, within a few text exchanges, he started asking where I was now, if it paid well and other stuff related to corporate hierarchies and knowing who's who. I did not write him again.
And so, there will always be nasty people to meet and unpleasant experiences, but there is also the mindset we take with us to deal with it.
We can continue to complain about working on weekends, how much of a pile of work awaits us on Mondays, how we are not commensurately comp-ed to our peers, how much we are sacrificing personal, social and family time for work, or how sucky the markets are. Endless worries.
Life will forever be a struggle, but to some extent, we are almost always in control of the decisions we make and always have the choice of deciding how we want to let the little things shape us and the way we move forward.
HKIA isn't what it used to be in the old days.
No crowds. Only a handful of shops open. Lounges are dead. HKIA used to be a humdrum of travelers, both business and leisure. I used to look forward to the lounges (the Cathay ones especially) as they usually served free flow warm food, drinks, snacks, etc. The Pier at HKIA was a favourite go-to for its refreshing hot showers and Aesop scented shampoo and body wash. After that, I would settle into a bowl of hot wanton noodles from the noodle bar, extra serving of chilli, paired with either champagne or a can of Asahi. At times I would have someone from the dessert counter give me a scoop of vanilla ice-cream, then head over to the coffee bar and ask for a double shot espresso and pour it over to make an affogato. Then I would either get to work on my laptop at the bar area or just get some shut-eye on the couch. I could spend an entire day in transit at HKIA - and people would think I am crazy. Occasionally, I would even travel out of the airport into the city to meet with friends. Macau was also accessible straight from HKIA via a one-hour or so ferry ride. This was the Hong Kong that I was familiar with, at least from the perspective of an airport commuter.
So you can understand why I was slightly sad and somewhat disappointed when I saw the nearly empty aisles along the departure gates at HK airport. Aside from the crowd, nothing much about the facade has changed except for some additional seating areas with charging points.
The city struggles having to deal with conforming to mainland policies (which is totally understandable), but at the same time, facing pressure to open up like the rest of the world, especially Singapore, its closest competitor. It is not an easy task. Every month, business and investor confidence in the city is diminishing. Whether it relates to the perceived lack of freedom, uncertainty around propaganda from Beijing or the draw of spacious living, companies can always find a reason to jettison Hong Kong for Singapore.
It is odd for me, speaking as a Singaporean but I actually am rooting for Hong Kong, in a healthy competitive way.
Hong Kong is probably the last frontier for China's position as an international gateway. Despite its current sovereign ownership, it's colonial legacy and history is what gives Hong Kong its uniqueness - the ability to harness the vast potential of the Chinese market and combine this with the best (or widely accepted) practices of the West. And if you think about it, this is actually very similar to Singapore.
Singapore surely has Southeast Asia as its playground, but Southeast Asia as a market dims in size significantly to China. Its diversity of language and cultures, unlike China, makes it more difficult to penetrate and navigate the ground. As big as China is, its socialist-driven economy incorporating standardization and uniformity is probably one of its biggest selling points. For example, you could hire a Chinese-speaking person, parachute him/her anywhere in China, and can be assured that he/she will be able to navigate the ground with relative ease.
But you can't do the same with Southeast Asia. To master the Indonesian market you need a native from Indonesia who understands not only the language but the customs. Likewise for Vietnam, the Philippines and Thailand. The ASEAN bloc as a whole works well together because we collectively thrive on regional common interests. But to succeed in each market independently, we need to dedicate resources specific to each country. Besides, to win in Southeast Asia, you can't afford to focus just on one country. Even the biggest and most successful startups in the region have expanded their footprint beyond their home country. After Indonesia, GoTo has set its sights on Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines. Despite making a name of itself in Malaysia, Grab has expanded into other key markets such as Singapore, Indonesia and Vietnam. Yet, even as successful as these startups go, Southeast Asia as a region still falls behind significantly in size to China. Over one billion people in China over the last few decades have been reading more, spending more, investing more, and consuming more. And in recent years, the flurry of venture capital and private equity money into Southeast Asia, lifting overall valuations, has just made it increasingly difficult to find a rich exit in a crowded market.
Everyone is waiting eagerly for COVID restrictions in China to open up and for trade flows to resume. Guess which city will be the biggest beneficiary of that? It is perhaps simply just all a matter of time.
Make Hong Kong great again.