Sunday, March 21, 2010
Philippe Lefebvre Duquette @ CITYU, HK (from Montreal, Quebec, Canada)
Who am I?
My name is Philippe Lefebvre Duquette. I am a French Canadian who was raised and lives in the beautiful City of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. I am majoring in Finance in HEC Montreal business school which is affiliated to Universite de Montreal (University of Montreal). I celebrated my 21st birthday on January 13th in Hong Kong with other exchange students.
Why Hong Kong?
Four years ago, on my first trip to Asia China, I first landed in Hong Kong prior to visiting other Mainland Cities (Guilin, Xi’an, Shanghai and Beijing). I discovered a City that was quite special and much different from the other cities that I had visited up to then. My parents and I hired a tour guide and an “express tour” of the City over a period of four days. We went from borough to borough, discovering as many places as possible, given the short amount of time available.
My parents and I walked in Central seeing many office workers, bankers, accountants and lawyers in business attire walking at a brisk pace on elevated walkways between skyscrapers. Like any first timers to the City, we almost got lost in this maze of corridors and passageways which typically lead from a beautiful mall under an office tower to an even more spectacular one. This made me wonder how Hong Kong had come to have so much success in business with all its tall buildings and numerous large banks and major companies. How had the citizens of Hong Kong seemingly become so successful and apparently wealthier than people from other Asian Cities? What was Hong Kong’s edge in business ?
Of course, I took many pictures and enjoyed my visit. Even though we didn’t stay for long in Hong Kong, we saw a very busy City, full of contrasts, whose citizens are free to pursue and to achieve their personal goals and many of which are ostensibly very successful. Today, I am convinced that, nowhere else on Earth is individual entrepreneurship as important as in Hong Kong. In fact anywhere in HK, from the bustling ladies’ market in Mong Kok to amazing shopping malls in Central, one can feel how vibrant business is. I also have come to appreciate that clientele relationships really matter here. Business appears to be more of a pooling of mutual interests than a simple exchange of value as it tends to be North America. This made me curious to learn more about the extent to which Chinese culture and values shape the way business is carried on in this part of the World.
When I was asked last year where I wanted to go during my University exchange, I indicated that I was really intrigued to learn more about how business is carried on in Asia, particularly in Hong Kong and China, given how different it is from where I live. Furthermore, I wanted to live in Hong Kong to be able to answer all the previous questions I had asked myself after my trip to China.
Doing my major in Finance in Montreal, I felt it was important to get to know Hong Kong better as it is an important internationally-recognized financial hub. Moreover, with the recent economic turmoil in the Western world, economic power and worldwide attention are gradually shifting towards the BRIC, more precisely the latter two, i.e. India and China. All in all, there could hardly be a better time to study Asia Pacific Markets in Asia and take Basic Mandarin classes.
My first month in City U HK
Upon my arrival in Hong Kong on January 4th 2010, I felt I was coming back to renew ties with an old friend I had left too quickly four years earlier. Of course, I am talking about the City of Hong Kong!
I was very eager to start a new routine in City U and make new friends, both with locals and expats. Although I have my own apartment in Kowloon and don’t live within the City U grounds, I try to participate as much as possible in all the various activities on campus and enjoy the campus life.
Arriving from Canada, on my way from the airport, I was struck by how densely populated Hong Kong was and how much of a contrast with Canada’s vast spaces living in Hong Kong in a small apartment for almost 6 months would represent. In fact, where I am from in Montreal, it is much more common to have a detached house with a private lawn located close to downtown. In Hong Kong, by contrast, unless you live on the Peak or in the New Territories, your lifestle is quite different from Canada. In a single HK skyscraper, many families share vertical space over the same land area whereas in Montreal a lot of free land remains unoccupied. I also noticed that many Hong Kong residents work hard and don’t appear to have a lot of leisure time. By working hard on weekdays and Saturdays, they don’t appear to spend as much of their free time at home but instead go out to malls, restaurants, museums, attend exhibitions and shows and enjoy their Sundays with more intensity. Therefore Hong Kong’s pace of living strikes me as faster than back home. Rarely do I see someone walking slowly to work, who is not text messaging the office, multitasking or fighting his way into a full-packed rush hour MTR train.
Other than getting myself acquainted with AIMS, the On-line Blackboard and school policies, I have familiarized myself with the campus and quickly met a lot of people. Even though I am registered in most of my classes with my classmates from HEC Montreal, I already have developed a network of local and expat friends. I adapted myself more quickly than I would have thought to my new environment.
My courses are very interesting! I enjoy my Asia-Pacific Capital markets class in which I study how finance and business are carried on in Hong Kong and in neighbouring countries. In addition, I also enjoy how my classes are more participative than back home, especially in tutorials. For instance, in my Introduction to work Behaviour Class, our professor gave away M&M candies to make us learn positive behavioural reinforcement and always asks us for our opinion, which also makes us more attentive to his course. However, I have to explain that HEC Montreal courses typically do not include tutorials, which are more prevalent in the British tradition. Thus, we aren’t used to attend classes with as few as 10 students, in some cases.
I also noticed that, in Hong Kong, family and friendship are more important values than in the Western World. Even though everyday life seems like an individualistic race towards success, Asian Families and circles of friendship seem much less superficial than in North America, for instance. People in Hong Kong spend a lot of time with their friends. For example, sharing Dim Sum or going out to eat is in itself a social event and more than a simple meal. I’ve been told that to do business in China or even elsewhere in Asia it is of utmost importance to get to know the person you are dealing with first rather than discussing business right from the start. I understand that you have to build a close relationship with your client for him to be your friend, which isn’t a bad idea at all. Up to now, I am friends with people from all across the world and I enjoy seeing how different or similar we are in different contexts. At one point, around the table at a dinner in Macau, I counted 8 friends all holding different passports, yet enjoying each other’s company, we completely forgot we were all from different parts of the world.
I already have a the chance to visit many parts of Hong Kong as well as Macau, Lantau and Lamma Island by ferry and I have also travelled to Guangzhou by train. After the Chinese New Year celebrations in HK which I do not want to miss, I am planning a short trip to the Philippines during the New Year Holiday, and to Indochina during the Easter Break. If time and studies allow, I also would like to visit other Asian cities some week-ends to get an opportunity to discover other people, cultures and interesting places.
Up to now, except for my visits of Sham Shui Po and Mong Kok I wasn’t really confronted that much to exoticism and disorientation. Hong Kong is a very modern international City where it is easy to find staples from all over the world, including those associated with a “North American” lifestyle. For example, at Taste, Marks & Spencer or Three-sixty grocery stores, it is relatively easy to find many of the same food products as back home. I really like Asian food in general and all the different variants between regional cooking specialties, but once in a while it’s reassuring to know that, should you so desire, you could just have toasts with peanut butter or croissants for breakfast! It isn’t much different walking in Festival Walk than in any downtown mall back home because you can essentially find many of the same stores. However, I find that in Hong Kong, there are both a lot more of a high-class shops and many very inexpensive street markets and stores, whereas by contrast in North America, stores tend to catter more to a middle class clientele.
I have been exposed to different typical Hong Kong activities since the beginning of my stay in Hong Kong. Firstly, I learned to appreciate horse races. I was told that the proceeds of our gambling losses go directly to charity, which I find to be a very good idea. By reading the South China Morning Post’s section on the races on Wednesdays, I have now become familiar with the names of some of the horses ! With my friends, we also discovered Hong Kong’s nightlife in Wanchai and Lan Kwai Fong (LKF). We also discovered Hong Kong’s trendy SoHo neighbourhood which I hadn’t had a chance to see during my first visit to Hong Kong. I have grown to appreciate how much Hong Kong is indeed an international and trendy place. I have noted with some surprise however that some of the different venues of these boroughs were attended mostly by Westerners, a fact which somewhat puzzles me. In another interesting experience, I went to my first Karaoke Bar in Kowloon Bay last Friday with 15 other exchange students. We really had a lot of fun singing English, Spanish and Putonghua songs in such an original ambiance.
All in all, it really feels special to wake up in the morning and to realize that I’m living in Hong Kong. I am already used to my new routine and like it so much that sometimes I forget that, had it not been for the fact that I was selected to participate in the exchange program, I would be enjoying the worst of Montreal’s winter right now, with temperatures of -20 degrees Celsius. I know I am quite lucky to live and to study abroad and I am very grateful to HEC Montreal and to its International Bureau, City University of Hong Kong’s administration, MEAO and Exchange Students Club and my parents for supporting me during this tremendously exciting adventure. I would also like to thank Lorencio Hofar Mateo Schwarts of MEAO for all the help he is providing to my fellow students and I.
My name is Philippe Lefebvre Duquette. I am a French Canadian who was raised and lives in the beautiful City of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. I am majoring in Finance in HEC Montreal business school which is affiliated to Universite de Montreal (University of Montreal). I celebrated my 21st birthday on January 13th in Hong Kong with other exchange students.
Why Hong Kong?
Four years ago, on my first trip to Asia China, I first landed in Hong Kong prior to visiting other Mainland Cities (Guilin, Xi’an, Shanghai and Beijing). I discovered a City that was quite special and much different from the other cities that I had visited up to then. My parents and I hired a tour guide and an “express tour” of the City over a period of four days. We went from borough to borough, discovering as many places as possible, given the short amount of time available.
My parents and I walked in Central seeing many office workers, bankers, accountants and lawyers in business attire walking at a brisk pace on elevated walkways between skyscrapers. Like any first timers to the City, we almost got lost in this maze of corridors and passageways which typically lead from a beautiful mall under an office tower to an even more spectacular one. This made me wonder how Hong Kong had come to have so much success in business with all its tall buildings and numerous large banks and major companies. How had the citizens of Hong Kong seemingly become so successful and apparently wealthier than people from other Asian Cities? What was Hong Kong’s edge in business ?
Of course, I took many pictures and enjoyed my visit. Even though we didn’t stay for long in Hong Kong, we saw a very busy City, full of contrasts, whose citizens are free to pursue and to achieve their personal goals and many of which are ostensibly very successful. Today, I am convinced that, nowhere else on Earth is individual entrepreneurship as important as in Hong Kong. In fact anywhere in HK, from the bustling ladies’ market in Mong Kok to amazing shopping malls in Central, one can feel how vibrant business is. I also have come to appreciate that clientele relationships really matter here. Business appears to be more of a pooling of mutual interests than a simple exchange of value as it tends to be North America. This made me curious to learn more about the extent to which Chinese culture and values shape the way business is carried on in this part of the World.When I was asked last year where I wanted to go during my University exchange, I indicated that I was really intrigued to learn more about how business is carried on in Asia, particularly in Hong Kong and China, given how different it is from where I live. Furthermore, I wanted to live in Hong Kong to be able to answer all the previous questions I had asked myself after my trip to China.
Doing my major in Finance in Montreal, I felt it was important to get to know Hong Kong better as it is an important internationally-recognized financial hub. Moreover, with the recent economic turmoil in the Western world, economic power and worldwide attention are gradually shifting towards the BRIC, more precisely the latter two, i.e. India and China. All in all, there could hardly be a better time to study Asia Pacific Markets in Asia and take Basic Mandarin classes.
My first month in City U HK
Upon my arrival in Hong Kong on January 4th 2010, I felt I was coming back to renew ties with an old friend I had left too quickly four years earlier. Of course, I am talking about the City of Hong Kong!
I was very eager to start a new routine in City U and make new friends, both with locals and expats. Although I have my own apartment in Kowloon and don’t live within the City U grounds, I try to participate as much as possible in all the various activities on campus and enjoy the campus life.
Arriving from Canada, on my way from the airport, I was struck by how densely populated Hong Kong was and how much of a contrast with Canada’s vast spaces living in Hong Kong in a small apartment for almost 6 months would represent. In fact, where I am from in Montreal, it is much more common to have a detached house with a private lawn located close to downtown. In Hong Kong, by contrast, unless you live on the Peak or in the New Territories, your lifestle is quite different from Canada. In a single HK skyscraper, many families share vertical space over the same land area whereas in Montreal a lot of free land remains unoccupied. I also noticed that many Hong Kong residents work hard and don’t appear to have a lot of leisure time. By working hard on weekdays and Saturdays, they don’t appear to spend as much of their free time at home but instead go out to malls, restaurants, museums, attend exhibitions and shows and enjoy their Sundays with more intensity. Therefore Hong Kong’s pace of living strikes me as faster than back home. Rarely do I see someone walking slowly to work, who is not text messaging the office, multitasking or fighting his way into a full-packed rush hour MTR train.Other than getting myself acquainted with AIMS, the On-line Blackboard and school policies, I have familiarized myself with the campus and quickly met a lot of people. Even though I am registered in most of my classes with my classmates from HEC Montreal, I already have developed a network of local and expat friends. I adapted myself more quickly than I would have thought to my new environment.
My courses are very interesting! I enjoy my Asia-Pacific Capital markets class in which I study how finance and business are carried on in Hong Kong and in neighbouring countries. In addition, I also enjoy how my classes are more participative than back home, especially in tutorials. For instance, in my Introduction to work Behaviour Class, our professor gave away M&M candies to make us learn positive behavioural reinforcement and always asks us for our opinion, which also makes us more attentive to his course. However, I have to explain that HEC Montreal courses typically do not include tutorials, which are more prevalent in the British tradition. Thus, we aren’t used to attend classes with as few as 10 students, in some cases.
I also noticed that, in Hong Kong, family and friendship are more important values than in the Western World. Even though everyday life seems like an individualistic race towards success, Asian Families and circles of friendship seem much less superficial than in North America, for instance. People in Hong Kong spend a lot of time with their friends. For example, sharing Dim Sum or going out to eat is in itself a social event and more than a simple meal. I’ve been told that to do business in China or even elsewhere in Asia it is of utmost importance to get to know the person you are dealing with first rather than discussing business right from the start. I understand that you have to build a close relationship with your client for him to be your friend, which isn’t a bad idea at all. Up to now, I am friends with people from all across the world and I enjoy seeing how different or similar we are in different contexts. At one point, around the table at a dinner in Macau, I counted 8 friends all holding different passports, yet enjoying each other’s company, we completely forgot we were all from different parts of the world.
I already have a the chance to visit many parts of Hong Kong as well as Macau, Lantau and Lamma Island by ferry and I have also travelled to Guangzhou by train. After the Chinese New Year celebrations in HK which I do not want to miss, I am planning a short trip to the Philippines during the New Year Holiday, and to Indochina during the Easter Break. If time and studies allow, I also would like to visit other Asian cities some week-ends to get an opportunity to discover other people, cultures and interesting places.
Up to now, except for my visits of Sham Shui Po and Mong Kok I wasn’t really confronted that much to exoticism and disorientation. Hong Kong is a very modern international City where it is easy to find staples from all over the world, including those associated with a “North American” lifestyle. For example, at Taste, Marks & Spencer or Three-sixty grocery stores, it is relatively easy to find many of the same food products as back home. I really like Asian food in general and all the different variants between regional cooking specialties, but once in a while it’s reassuring to know that, should you so desire, you could just have toasts with peanut butter or croissants for breakfast! It isn’t much different walking in Festival Walk than in any downtown mall back home because you can essentially find many of the same stores. However, I find that in Hong Kong, there are both a lot more of a high-class shops and many very inexpensive street markets and stores, whereas by contrast in North America, stores tend to catter more to a middle class clientele.
I have been exposed to different typical Hong Kong activities since the beginning of my stay in Hong Kong. Firstly, I learned to appreciate horse races. I was told that the proceeds of our gambling losses go directly to charity, which I find to be a very good idea. By reading the South China Morning Post’s section on the races on Wednesdays, I have now become familiar with the names of some of the horses ! With my friends, we also discovered Hong Kong’s nightlife in Wanchai and Lan Kwai Fong (LKF). We also discovered Hong Kong’s trendy SoHo neighbourhood which I hadn’t had a chance to see during my first visit to Hong Kong. I have grown to appreciate how much Hong Kong is indeed an international and trendy place. I have noted with some surprise however that some of the different venues of these boroughs were attended mostly by Westerners, a fact which somewhat puzzles me. In another interesting experience, I went to my first Karaoke Bar in Kowloon Bay last Friday with 15 other exchange students. We really had a lot of fun singing English, Spanish and Putonghua songs in such an original ambiance.
All in all, it really feels special to wake up in the morning and to realize that I’m living in Hong Kong. I am already used to my new routine and like it so much that sometimes I forget that, had it not been for the fact that I was selected to participate in the exchange program, I would be enjoying the worst of Montreal’s winter right now, with temperatures of -20 degrees Celsius. I know I am quite lucky to live and to study abroad and I am very grateful to HEC Montreal and to its International Bureau, City University of Hong Kong’s administration, MEAO and Exchange Students Club and my parents for supporting me during this tremendously exciting adventure. I would also like to thank Lorencio Hofar Mateo Schwarts of MEAO for all the help he is providing to my fellow students and I.
Labels: 2009/2010 Semester B
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]