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Considering enrolling in DONGBEI UNIVERSITY OF FINANCE&ECONOMICS
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Date: July 11th, 2012 10:28 AM
I am taking Mandarin lessons, weekly, and studying daily, but the program I'd initially enroll in is English language: http://english.dufe.edu.cn/admissions/undergraduate/english/ I would do the BSc in International Business Management.
Add'l considerations
*Tuition and living expenses are incredibly cheap and I already have enough money in the bank to do this without incurring any debt.
*I want to work in commodities and Dalian is the center of the commodity trade in Northeast China (has the Dailan Commodities Exchange, tons of businesses that operate out of the port, shipping/logistics center).
*I want to work in Asia, in agricultural commodities/physical commodities, long-term, and wish to cultivate connections there ASAP.
Any thoughts?? TYIA. |
Date: July 11th, 2012 10:30 AM |
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Date: July 11th, 2012 10:34 AM
I would love to work for a physical commodity trading house now that does a lot of business in emerging markets, specifically in Asia and Africa. |
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Date: July 11th, 2012 10:39 AM
Edit: It would seem cool to plant a few crops in South America or Asia, and just sell it off to middle men and use futures to protect against a loss. My firm has a client in S.America that has a ton of coffee crops. He has a pretty credited life. |
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Date: July 11th, 2012 10:46 AM
1) soft commodities (on the trading side), like agricultural products (corn, oats, rice, rapeseed, cotton, sugar), palm oil.
2) investing in arable land, working farmland and water.
That said, I'm open and opportunistic. I like metals, am big on precious metals personally, and find base metals trading to be interesting.
China just introduced petrochemical futures to their commodities exchanges a few years ago - that could be cool. And there are still a lot of high volume, relatively liquid physical commods that are not traded on any exchange (e.g. flowers, tomatoes, grapes, pine oil) that might be one day. |
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Date: July 11th, 2012 11:04 AM
Do you have any real background in these industries (other than your economic know-how)? So, in other words, have you ever planted any crops? Worked on a farm? |
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Date: July 11th, 2012 11:08 AM
I would prefer to do business outside of the United States, but I am not averse to any domestic opportunity that should arise provided it is still international in nature.
No background whatsoever. Never worked on a farm. |
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Date: July 11th, 2012 11:15 AM
You may find some of the information on there useful, if you are considering taking the path you are talking about. It is only applicable in the US, but it does have some useful materials. Most buyers and sellers of physical commodities are required to comply with NFGA. So, a corn farmer in Ohio that sells his corn to an ethanol plant will be (more than likely) subject to NFGA rules, regulations, and oversight.
Some of the concerns that US parties may have, may be applicable to your future foreign business (e.g., margin, etc.). |
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Date: July 11th, 2012 11:17 AM |
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Date: July 11th, 2012 10:50 AM |
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Date: July 11th, 2012 10:53 AM |
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Date: July 11th, 2012 11:02 AM |
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Date: July 11th, 2012 11:40 AM |
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Date: July 11th, 2012 11:44 AM I'm not trying to be a jackass here I would love it if you could do this because I like seeing people get what they want: Why would an employer recruiting out of Dongbei opt to hire a monolingual (or at least not bilingually literate) when there are presumably an assload of Chinese+English bilingual and literate people there? Is your value add a HYPSM degree or something? |
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Date: July 11th, 2012 11:58 AM
For me, the experience wouldn't be for the purpose of securing a job. That said, it would be a vital part of the "journey". It would be more about having a platform to actually cultivate connections (through school, internships, networking) that could, in theory, land me a job - but more important and relevant to my interests, come in handy in an entrepreneurial capacity down the road.
I want to do business in Asia. I want to work in commodities. I don't know what better thing I can do than earn a degree from a Chinese university, make connections there, achieve fluency in the language and break into the business in any capacity.
A certain level of tenacity is required for this but I think my business experience and soft skills will come in handy. In the interim, I would plan on developing contacts with ex-pats, specifically Americas and English folk, living in Dalian, almost certainly working in finance and commodities.
Jim Rogers was quoted as saying that, if were young and mobile today, he would do that. Move to Northeast China, where living and education is very cheap, business is growing rapidly and start establishing roots, while maintaining his American citizenship. He actually said that he would try and get a job at the Dalian Commodity Exchange "even mopping the floors... do what you have to do, go drink beers with the guys after work."
That's appealing to me. Throughout history, successful people have always moved to where the capital is. Where the assets are. That isn't the west anymore, we're seeing that now. The trend will only continue as population growth exponentially increases in Asia, Africa and other frontier/emerging markets, and capital flows there, their middle class grows to 9 figures and they continue to save $$$ and grow as the world's biggest creditors while we continue the trend of being the world's biggest debtors. |
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Date: July 11th, 2012 12:07 PM Brother, I think you have a better head on your shoulders than nearly everyone on XO. I say go for it if you won't incur debt and don't have a baller job right now. Worst case scenario is you end up back at square one, 0 debt, 0 savings, but are at least fluent in Chinese and can return to the US as one of the few white people who speak Chinese. I can affirm that skill in Chinese/Japanese/Korean is a very valuable asset for a white person in the US to have, even if it's just a soft skill that impresses employers but is not required for the job. People will just want to talk to you if you can speak one. Opens up so many doors. Plus you'll find when you're introduced to a new professional in the US, the introduction will almost invariably be something like "this is NYC Don, he does such and such, he's so smart he SPEAKS CHINESE." As someone who has lived in Asia, let me tell you the worst part about your plan is probably that if you spend all day in English classes with English-speaking people, there's about a 95% chance you'll hang out with them outside of class, continuing to speak English, and you won't learn Chinese at all. Your best bet is to get the FUCK off campus ASAP every day and be forced to speak Chinese. Go to bars, join clubs (uni and off-campus). Do whatever it takes to be in real situations with real people. Also, eventually you're likely going to hit a wall where your (lack of) literacy is what holds back your progress in the language. So from day 1, you need to be working your ass off learning as many hanzi as possible. Don't worry: it does get easier after the first 1000. I remember around 1500 it got really easy for me. Anki (a flashcarding program that is hands down the best ever) will be your friend. |
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Date: July 11th, 2012 12:15 PM
Part of what is making the decision so hard for me is that I do have an OK job. I'm a headhunter for Wall St. firms and am just edging into six figure territory now, sans college degree and 24 years old. That makes this decision a little bit more difficult, but like you said the worst case scenario is that I am back to square one, which wouldn't be so bad.
Did you enjoy your time in Asia? What brought you back here? (Assume you are in the States) |
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Date: July 11th, 2012 12:32 PM Anki uses "spaced learning repetition," which basically is this: Instead of going "did you get it right or wrong?" and re-sorting based on that, it asks you to select how hard you found it to answer the card (instantaneous, thought a few seconds, thought quite a while, got it wrong) and re-shuffles based on that. The next time you see the card is a function of your past performance on the card (e.g., if it was easy the past four times you saw it, you probably won't see the card again for a year, but if you got it wrong last time, you'll see it again pretty soon, like maybe before you even stop the current session). It works incredibly. I focused hard on just reading (who the fuck cares about handwriting that shit when a computer does it all for you?) and went from struggling through simple shit to reading full-blown literary essays pretty quickly before I even moved to Asia. Re your job, if you go abroad for a four-year degree, you're giving up 400K of pre-tax income plus all your savings that go to tuition. Say a total of half a mil. Are you really prepared to give that up? Is the upside that big when factoring in risk? Most of the time I think bschool is overrated for this same reason. People tryna cop dat preftigious sheepskin to the detriment of retirement savings often. Re my time in Asia, fucking yes brother, it was awesome. I came back because I'm an American and love America. I was over there for university years ago. I am in the states now, married to a hot surgeon from a politically prominent Asian family, am GC of a tech startup, and live within three hours of almost all my family. I made the right decision. I don't know what your right decision is, but you're clearly thinking hard about this and not just being a retard. GL brother! |
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Date: July 11th, 2012 1:21 PM
Yeah, the opportunity cost is what makes my decision so hard. It's a risk with reward that is not quite tangible, but still there and I believe in it.
Sounds like you've got it great here. Think you'll ever move back? |
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Date: July 11th, 2012 3:17 PM I studied for two years in formal classes before going. Moved to Asia and was already conversant and semi-literate. After two more years I was coppin dat literary shittt. TBF I have a knack for languages due to who knows what, my musical training or being exposed to Spanish, French, and German at a very young age through family? I will never move back to Asia unless my wife's hands become deformed and she can't be a surgeon anymore or unless the US economy becomes so bad that even a lawyer and doctor can't hack it here. I would consider a temporary posting in any of China, Japan, or Korea if I worked for a company that needed me there for a year or two, though. I agree with you about my fortunes here. I never really think about it, but I was at my HS reunion a few weeks back, and talking to the couple other successful people I knew back then, I realized how truly blessed I am. |
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Date: July 11th, 2012 1:25 PM
I am also thinking long-term and that I like Jim Rogers' school of thought ("if you were smart in 1807, you went to London, if you were smart in 1907, you went to New York, and if you are smart in 2007, you go to Asia.") Dude moved his wife and daughters there because he wants his daughters to grow up in a society that is motivated, hopeful for the future, building and the collective consciousness is anticipation for long-term growth and global ascension. Basically everything that America was in the 20th century and England was in the 19th century.
Would be pretty cool to have my kids (Americans) speaking fluent Mandarin and living between two worlds like that. |
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Date: July 11th, 2012 3:19 PM Oh yeah brother, my kids are def growing up speaking multiple globally important languages. Between my wife and I, we speak a few. |
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Date: July 11th, 2012 12:01 PM |
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Date: July 11th, 2012 12:25 PM |
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Date: July 11th, 2012 12:33 PM Asia is the future. I believe China will rule the world in our lifetime. I think there will be some setbacks along the way, but their global supremacy is inevitable. Anytime in history where you have a nation or region accumulating assets while the prevailing powers-that-be are incurring debt, a shift occurs. I believe we are in the midst of that transference of wealth now, where all of the creditor countries (those without external debt) are growing, building, expanding and having increased immigration and capital investment. The debtor countries, like the US, Western European countries, UK, Australia - will be OK, but we won't be running things anymore, we won't have the largest middle class and we won't have the dominant global currency, which I believe will be the renminbi by default because... let's face it, what other currency is as viable? |
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Date: July 11th, 2012 12:38 PM
even if china becomes the superpower, whatever prestige or economic benefits that might confer to the individual will surely be offset by your status as a foreigner (which will weigh more and more against you, ironically, as china grows). |
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Date: July 11th, 2012 1:18 PM |
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Date: July 11th, 2012 3:21 PM FWIW this is probably right. I have a super flameout friend from UG who went to a TTT LS. He moved to China on a whim when he couldn't cop JERB thanks to ITE. He's now rolling in the dough as an associate over there at a boutique firm where his status as American helps. Married a Chinese girl, too, so he can even penetrate the culture, too. |
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Date: July 11th, 2012 4:35 PM
of course chinese is still the best language to learn due the very fact that china is obviously going to have the biggest economy pretty soon. but people who suggest there will be another america style overwhelmingly dominant economic superpower are full of shit and just throwing out soundbytes--we were lucky enough to benefit from the rest of the world being in ruins . i seriously doubt china will be so fortunate as to sit back and have everyone blow themselves up in WWIII |
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Date: July 11th, 2012 1:06 PM |
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Date: July 11th, 2012 4:24 PM |
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Date: July 11th, 2012 5:19 PM |
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Date: July 11th, 2012 5:39 PM |
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Date: July 12th, 2012 12:44 AM |
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Date: July 12th, 2012 8:57 AM
Also tough to leave my girlfriend and family. I may have to have them move with me. |
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Date: July 12th, 2012 10:26 AM |
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Date: July 12th, 2012 12:19 PM
And we are not even talking quality of education/network yet... |