China through Linda's eyes -- Part 2
- Linda Chen
- Dec 10, 2018
- 9 min read
TSINGHUA UNIVERSITY?
Many people from other countries have never heard of Tsinghua University. Therefore, to make things simpler, I often say, it is like the Harvard of China. The truth is Tsinghua to the local student is MUCH harder than Americans to Harvard.
People who are in Tsinghua are either the No. 1 and luckily No. 2 in their province (PROVINCE!!), taking into account the Chinese population. If you were the No.3? you have 0 chance to get in.
I once had a talk with a first-year student who just got into Tsinghua management. I asked what his high-school life was like. He looked at me and seemed like did not know where to start. Then he started by saying that: “you know, the total time that we had for eating every day was 10 minutes.” He also told me that most of his classmates only shower once a month when they go home because they simply did not have the time to spare from the study.
I looked at him without knowing what to say. Sometimes I wonder what these people are standing in front of me. The world must be so different in their mind compare to mine or someone who grew up in North America.
Do they have time to be curious about the stars, to care for the planet, to enjoy the mountain and the ocean? How do they look at the world? what are their beliefs of those who grew up in a system that only use grades to measure people?
I asked him what he believed that experience has taught him. He thought for some time and said: “talent is very important”. He said he had seen too many hard-working people, but they were just not as good as some others because they lacked the talent.
I did not know what to say again. I also knew I would be categorized as “lack of talent”/ “can never be at the top” if I stayed in China. What if most of the people who went through that experience came to this conclusion: talent is very important, without realizing that it was because they used “grades” as the only measurement to life or to people’s talent.
Many people also knew about the famous psychology experiment “learned helplessness”. What if… some people are just not good at studying and good at other things but became “learned helplessness” due to the system.
Do they know that many social studies have shown that goal is what matters the most of a person’s achievement in life rather than ability or talent? However, I felt like this society does not care anyway.
THE CRAZINESS OF TSINGHUA UNIVERSITY
The craziest thing about Tsinghua University is the resources. My finance professor is someone who co-taught a class with Peter Thiel, my entrepreneur class was actually taught by top VCs in China, and my professor of Chinese philosophy class was the first person in this nation who get to look at and study the Mawangdui Silk Texts (the oldest copy of Chinese philosophy books that discovered in tomb); not to mentioned my logic professor, who is also a Stanford professor, is one of the founding father of dynamic logic. In the past not even 3 months, I met Jim Beyer, I met the CEO of Coco-Cola, of Coursera, and of Taobao, and I met the former UN secretary.
Unlike the students in other major, MBA students or master business students in Tsinghua are different stories. They might not be the ones who got the highest mark in their province, but they might the son or daughter of someone who is really rich or powerful in China. For example, one guy that I met just bought a helicopter for himself. Another MBA student whom my friend know personally is the niece of the former Chief Executive of Macao.
Wow...
However, if you asked me what I learned from the hanging out with these people all the time? I would say: do not take everyone’s advice. Everyone got their own life.
For example, Jim Breyer said he encourages young people to read. So, I asked him what book he is reading recently and what would the top 3 books that he would recommend from this year. He seemed a bit awkward and said he is a big fan of art, so he has been reading books on art history. And in general, he read all kinds of books. And he said he met his wife at MOMA and etc.
Hmm.. I wish I got time for that and still do not need to worry about money. I thought to myself.
I think my favorite among all these big famous people is the CEO of Coco-Cola, James Quincey. I want to share with you three things that he said in the talk, the name of the talk was: Mind Reset.
1) He shared the story when he was the head of the Argentina division and the Argentina economy clashed in 2008. No money was willing to come in and the inflation was scary. He faced a decision whether to leave Argentina like many other big companies did or how to survive.
He decided to stay and instead of using one-time Coco-Cola bottle package, he restarted the old-school reusable glass bottle. Because reusable glass bottle is labor intensive but not capital intensive.
Mind Reset, right here.
2) I asked him a question. I said for such a huge organization, you might be able to stay innovative due to your R&D capability but how can you stay flexible? He showed the consulting side of him by answering this question perfectly and in an organized manner.
Three points:
- The leader needs to stay curious and know what is going on in the world.
- The leader needs to empower its employees and let them make the decision.
- Do not try to be perfect. In today’s world, you need to fulfill the customer’s need quickly and then take your time to improve them with version 2, 3 4 etc. (I heard this advice from more once. Should ring a bell to all perfectionist out there!)
3) What is your advice for young people?
He said it was to know what we want, understand the underlying cost and benefit of every decision and have the courage to take both sides of the consequences. For example, some jobs that people would like to pursue just do not pay much. If you really like those jobs, understand the consequences and take the consequence. Another example is some job requires lots of hard work even though they pay you a lot.
He said in today’s world where everyone is talking about “work-life” balance, they should understand this is not an absolute score. This “work-life” balance is the balance relative to each different types of jobs. Some job just does not give you much personal life and if that is what we want to do, then we need to understand that and be prepared for it.
I thought this answer got some balls to say and was very sincere.
He also brought his whole executive team to China because he said: “you gotta see it for yourself.” I believe only people who have some degree of sensitive will say such things.
STUDENTS AT TSINGHUA UNIVERSITY
The majority of the Tsinghua students are not those crazy rich Asians… but in fact, are the “crazy smart Asians” that people would normally think of. Except, rather than the “Ivey type of smart”, they actually study nuclear bomb, modeling and making human brains, automatic driving, and all the cool and important stuff that you can imagine from watching a superhero movie.
Their internship would be actually designing a hydro-power plant, nuclear plant or aircraft. One of my classmates works in the defense department of China, another one already had three patents in energy when she was in bachelor, and one 2nd year undergrad student in computer science told me that AI algorithm was too rudimentary.
I often felt intimidated to tell people that I study business… it almost sounds like… I am a moron.
Students at Tsinghua ride bikes around the campus every day; no one drives. Most of the girls have no make-up on, no one dresses up, and people normally only eat at the canteens which are more than 50% cheaper than eating outside. They live a very simple life.
BUREAUCRACY STARTS EARLY
One interesting thing I found about the students by joining the graduate student union is that the bureaucratic culture is not better among young students if not worse. For example, I heard the president of the Graduate Student Union once came to our department to have a meeting with the VPs and all the executives.
When the president was about to leave, the two VPs immediately stood up to show respect and the rest of the executive team also immediately stood up as they saw the two VPs stood up.
There was another time when my department had a meeting and after the meeting, we had a schedule and deadlines for what we need to accomplish for the following week. One thing on the schedule was on Tuesday, my VP is supposed to deliver something to the team so that the rest of the team can work on it.
Tuesday, nothing happened… Wednesday, nothing happened… and no one said a thing the group chat. I wanted to ask but I felt like I should not stand out. Thursday, nothing happened… and Friday, I could not stand this anymore.
I knew the rules well enough to know that I should PM the VP instead of asking in the group (to save face). And I did that. Nonetheless, from the VP’s reaction, I can sense he was still quite shocked by the fact that his subordinate coming to tell him to work…
It was also very common for VPs to call a same-day meeting, to have meetings at 9PM, or to ask you to do something right away, literally. How people stand that? I do not know. I quit after a month.
You might be also wondering in China, what are young people’s attitude toward the system, toward freedom… toward the human right?
There was one time when I was chatting with 3 other Chinese students who study political science at Tsinghua, one undergrad, one master, and another Ph.D. I told them that I have a friend who used to want to become the Education Minister of China but now he graduated from the gender study of Oxford and are fighting for the LGBT’s right in China.
I shared this story because I wanted to say that there are lots of ways to contribute to society, to make the society better, and having power was not the only path. I was very proud of him that he did not chase after power, he is actually making a chance. However, I received immediate laugh from them and one of them said: He is not even inside the system.
The system… ok.
I understood what they were trying to say was you need to be the top player in the game in order to make changes to the rules of the game or make any impact. Logically it makes sense, but practically? I don't know. Do you need to be rich to give? Do you need to be a superhero to save others?
Based on my conversations with the students, 90% of them will tell you that China needs the current system, China need to control the freedom of speech, China is different, or this is the best possible solution etc. etc. etc.
I never meant that China should follow the west and have a liberal system. I meant people need to be critical, need to recognize the possibility of having something better in order to actually come up with something better.
When I was studying in the U.S. which arguably has the best education system and resources in the world, I witnessed my professors dedicated a whole class and inspired all students to talk about how bad the U.S.’s education system was, and how to improve it. When I was studying political science in my first-year university, several of my classmates defended the Chinese system in a seminar and it was very common for people to have diverse opinions in Canada.
THE END.
I was extremely busy during my study at Tsinghua. So busy that I had very little time to read my list of books or to sleep or to catch up with friends, which is a shame. However, I took many interesting courses that I love love love other than the 4 CEMS courses.
I audited 2 logic classes, and I took Sustainable Energy Strategy, Family Business Management, Study of Chinese Philosophical History, and Identify Startup Opportunity as additional classes. In more than half of these additional classes, I was the only business student sitting in the class.
I learned many interesting things from these classes and met people from all different subject areas. Now my reading list is even longer and crosses subjects! And wish I have the time to write down the most mind-blowing thing I have learned from each class haha
By doing all these exchanges, meeting all kinds of people, these experiences have really shown me the meaning of “everyone looks at the world through their own lenses”. Some people look at the world through rosy lenses, some others look at the world through years of struggle, through war, through unloved, and through poverty.
No one has the right to tell anyone else life is not about this or that. Like the Koran said: the blind and the seeing are not equal. We are all blind to another person’s life.
Sometimes I thought how great it would be if we could make all our experiences into a pair of glasses. If I want to understand you and how you see the world, I just take off my glasses and wear yours.
I chose Tsinghua as CEMS exchange because I wanted to figure out if I should come back to China for work after I graduate. My answer now is: definitely not Beijing and probably not China. Sometimes I also wonder if I chose a wrong destination to do my exchange. Maybe I would be much happier if I exchanged to Europe or maybe I would have figured out where I want to live in the future if I was in Europe.
Nonetheless, I think I still do not regret this decision. Figuring out what you do not like, what you do not want is one big step toward knowing who yourself exactly is. Like the goldfish in the water, you need to be taken out of the water in order to realize that you cannot live without the water.
So maybe, just maybe, if I try enough of places, meet enough of people, one day I would be able to sketch out myself, sketch out my life.
-- Dec. 10th 2018 @dorm, Tsinghua University
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