Daily Lesson from Life 19 February 2009

No headline from newspapers as I made my way back to Singapore after a satisfying break in Beijing to meet up with an old friend, Yan Lai, who flown in from San Francisco!

I also get to meet a lot of old friends whom I met when I was working in Motorola China and living in Beijing in 1994/95 and 1998. Most of them have done very well in their career as well as in their personal lives.

As I lived and worked in Shanghai for 3-years from 2002-2005, some of my friends tend to ask me which city do I like better in China. I always say that I am greedy and I like both cities equally. The key reason being: I have made friends there. Without friends, any great city is just another city. Honestly! Don't you agreed? ;-)

Of course, Beijing has changed a lot too physically. The resounding success of 2008 Beijing Olympic brought with it a lot physical infrastructure like the Birdnest, the WaterCube, the International Press Center, the Olympic Park, etc. However, some of the people's behaviors are still lagging behind the leaps and bounds recorded in the physical improvement. This is a greater challenge.

Lessons for me are:

1. friends are what made a place truly memorable. Not the physical features. Not the people in general;

2. changing the physical feature of a place is easy while molding and changing the attitudes and hence the behaviors of the people of a place is much more challenging. It takes a concerted and prolonged effort. It take a persistent leader or leaders to continuously preach the new mindset required and to demonstrate the behaviors that reflect the new values expounded!;

3. while we may feel small and ineffective to help change the old mindset and form new behaviors, it is true going to the basic, through going one-on-one, and one-by-one will the change eventually take place. It is like a initial wave of a ripple expanding and expanding and building up momentum and boom - a huge wave is formed!

I will treasure this trip and the wonderful friendship with Yan, CT, Albert, Nelson, Allan, Bob, Kristy, etc... I am very fortunate to have friends in different places!