At the Office past Midnight....

While feeling completely unjust about staying so late tonight, especially after having spent the weekend here, I just wanted to write down my immediate thoughts regarding the working culture in HK, while plotting out our site documents for my trip to Ninh Thuan, Vietnam tomorrow.

If there is a place in the world where workaholics fit in perfectly, it's here. Hong Kong is super modern, competitive and highly globalized for a reason. It's because the work ethics is sooo well ingrained into the culture, it's a way of life. It's the first time in my life I could not outlast my own peers in working long hours, and I don't intend to. Funny thing is that my department is by far the latest group to stay night after night. They actually jokingly call themselves the "Panda" crew because of the dark circles characteristic of pandas, symbolizing bags under their eyes. Staying late into the night apart from work is a time for bonding and socializing over dinner.

So the work ethics is very admirable and the work produced is at the utmost quality. People here take great pride in their work, you could even find yourself talking about work outside of the office. As the modo in China goes, "time is money," and money makes the world go around. "o yeu dor di chin!!," that is, "I want more money!" was my first phrase learned instead of "I need to go to the bathroom!"...It's all about capital flow, super free markets and super lucrative finance. People work long hours not only because they are profit driven but also because they enjoy being a part of the larger system; and it's a custom, a daily ritual. I think that it replaces family and religious traditions here.

So I couldn't have picked a better place to go all out and work my ass off. At least here, everyone else is working hard and barely complaining about it, so it almost feels habitual. Within 2 years time I will have probably gained 5 years experience. I'm confident that all this hard work will pay off in the long run, it's definitely a way of speeding up the process. Tomorrow I go to Vietnam to survey 5 different zones within Ninh Thuan province. We'll be working on 5 different masterplans in 4 month!!