Purposive without Foresight

It was not long ago. Dirk and I moved to Hildesheim and I started to seek job. Soon there was an interview invitation from Hannover. I printed off the “how to reach us” map from the company website and went to Hannover alone for the job interview.

At that time, the only subway station in Hannover I know was Kröpke. Kröpke is a big subway station with several different layers. At one layer, the information signs were a little bit confusing, I was waiting for line 3 or 7 at the platform that is for line 1, 2, and 8. I waited and waited, Line 3 or 7 never came. I asked an old lady beside me. Her outfit was elegant and she was wearing very fine makeups. She said I must go to another platform for Line 3 or 7. Then she asked where I wanted to go. I showed her the map from the company website. She said her home is very close to the company, she could show me how to get there. So we got into the next train to Listerplatz together and got off together.

She showed me different ways to get to the company from the subway station and told me a lot about the Bahlsen buildings, the past and the present. We walked together until she showed me the name sign of the company I wanted to visit. She wished me success and said: “If you get the job, maybe we will meet again!” Then we shaked hands and said goodbye.

The company we together walked to really became my employer. Maybe the old lady has forgotten me, but I would never forget her.

Tags: Germany, people

When I was studying in UAS Kaiserslautern campus Zweibrücken, I was too lazy to cook for myself and counted on the student restaurant for daily lunch and evening snack. Usually I ate a very heavy lunch and fetch a small salmon burger for dinner.

Before long, all employees in the student restaurant knew me. When I turned to the “take away” buffet and did not find any salmon burger, before I started to ask for it, someone would tell me “one moment please, we make a salmon burger for you!” They knew I like fish very much, often put a bigger piece of salmon slice into the burger that was reserved for me. Such kindness always made my day. Every noon was a happy hour for me, because the people in the student restaurant were always smiling and their friendly voices made me feel like home.

Most time of my last semester was spent outside the campus. I was working on the graduate thesis, only met my advisors once in a while. I ate at the student restaurant like always when I went back to Zweibrücken. I told the restaurant employees that I always missed their salmon burgers wherever I’d been, they said they missed me too. They were very interested in where I had been to and what my graduate project was about, I talked to them with the feeling of talking to my family.

The last day finally came. I gave in my IC card to the lady at cash desk. She realized it was my last visit and talked loudly to her colleagues at other desks: “She is leaving!” And everybody there said goodbye and good wishes to me. Suddenly I wanted to buy a last salmon burger from there, a lady made it for me quickly and said I may take one more paper bag for memory. My throat was sour, I could not say anything anymore. My tears came out and I ran away fast.

The paper bag is kept very well at my new home in Hildesheim. I remember everyone’s face and voice. Thank you so much, people in the student restaurant.

Tags: Germany, people

I’ve been living in Germany almost 1/4 of my life. I love this country and truly feel proud of it in many aspects, not too much less than I love my motherland China. “The Country” is a very abstract concept. Out of appreciation, I’d like to write down many ordinary German people, and ordinary happenings here in my life. Because I think when I’m old and look back, the ordinary days would be the most precious memory.

Several years ago, I wanted to fly back home for my summer vacation. The train ran from Kaiserslautern to Frankfurt airport, transfer at Bad Münster am Stein. The second train on my travel was canceled for some technical reasons. It was a Sunday and the next train to Frankfurt would come in two hours. The station at Bad Münster am Stein was small. I was the only one waiting at the platform at that day. After the announcement of the train defect, a man in a Deutsche Bahn uniform came to me and invited me to his office. He said it was too windy outside, the station is right beside a small river, the air was not dry, so I might catch a cold. I could have a cup of coffee with him during the two hours. My travel case was huge and heavy. He said I could leave it on the platform. All platforms could be well monitored from the office, he believed nobody would steal it. I went with him into the cozy room.

He was doing everything in that small station: cleaning the floor, water sink and dash board in the office, checking out the train timetables, talking to colleagues in other stations via telephone. And of course, made a coffee. He told me a long story of his life, his family and I told him a lot about my short life and my hometown in east China. The dash board in his office was quite old. But the steel surface was extremely clean and polished. I stared at it for a while and he started to tell me proudly, “It was made in 1970’s, but still works very well now.” There were a lot of small light diodes, they represent the traffic lights around the station. Also several small strings made with plastic were pasted on the dash board. They represent the rails. When a train is nearing the station, some diodes would flash in red. Among the ordinary German people with whom I’ve got a chance to talk to, it is common that they have strong political opinions and they’d like to talk about it. I’ve forgot which party he was for or against( CDU or SPD? ), but remember that he described his imagination about the communism party in China. I listened and listened while sipping my coffee. No, the talk was not offending at all. He has a very peaceful life there. I could see the satisfaction of his life in the small town, despite of one or two complaints toward SPD or CDU from him. Before long, the next train came, he demonstrated the technical devices on the dash board again, went out with me in a very cheerful mood. I thanked him a lot.

He carried my heavy case into the train and hopped out swiftly. Waved a goodbye to me and to the train driver in the chilly wind.

Programmers know that when a software system grows into a certain size, bugs are not avoidable. We write and run all kinds of tests for quality control. Still, error-free is extremely difficult to achieve. The only constant in the software business is “change”. We debug, we refactor, we rewrite a system from ground-up if affordable or had to.

At the moment, the political/cultural system in China is just like a software system whose codebase is worlds larger than any Linux kernel or Windows-whatever-version. There are all kinds of bugs and miserable architectural failures in this system: extreme difference of the financial situations between the rich and poor, abuse of people, lack of press freedom, the stupid great firewall, environment pollution, over-populated cities and under-populated villages … this list goes on and on, it reminds me the looooooong bug-list and todo-list of some FOSS projects that I personally involve in. Just like a software project team, the Chinese people and government do maintain an error-database. The challenges and miserable architecture failures are well persisted and constantly being checked. Debugging, patching, and refactoring are happening all the time.

If you are a programmer, you know you cannot change the codebase too much at once. Correct a bit, run tests, then correct another bit. When I just started to work in a software house, my managers kept kindly telling me how much risk there is to change a running system. Before I make any significant change to the legacy codebase, I must raise the
proposal to the whole team and the initiative would have to be discussed first. Risks must be evaluated by people that have a variety of interests, from very different perspectives. The size of my company is relatively compact. Nevertheless, this change-management process still takes time. The China-system is so incredibly complex. So many
components are half-baked, written by people who cannot program at all, or people with malicious intentions of spreading virus. There are so many different interests to balance out when a change-proposal is raised. If you are a programmer, you know how difficult it could be.

Democracy is a good thing. A well-designed, democratic system is much more reliable than brilliant and lovable personal qualities of one or twelve top leaders. Sometimes it might turn out inefficient if something has to be done, but when it comes to avoiding humanity disasters, it works worlds better than any other systems. The happiness, freedom and satisfaction of individuals are much, much more valuable than any skyscraper or stunning ceremonies, after all. Chinese people deserve democracy, the sooner, the better. However, while throwing away the old codebase all at once would just cost a lot of money for software projects, throwing away the legacy codebase of the China-system might mean decades of bloody regional-conflicts, tens of millions of people’s lives, might mean the setback of the macro
economy for decades. The risk is too huge, cost too heavy. Anyone who really cares about humanity won’t feel comfortable to say “let’s sacrifice this generation, xxx millions of people’s lives and enjoy the total freedom in 30 years in poverty.” So, the current option that the Chinese government is carrying out is refactor. Refactor deeply flawed architectures, component by component. So far they have done the presentation tier pretty well. Hopefully they are awaken enough to continue work hard on fixing the logic tier and the persistence tier. During the refactor, many tests will fail. Bugs will keep being exposed. As a software engineer I hope there will be a day when the component called democracy is seamlessly integrated. I hope there will be a day the China-system goes beyond a colourful and flashy Demo on the surface, but also has a beautifully engineered kernel. I hope there will be a day, most of the Chinese people can afford pursuing things that are beyond bread and money. For this day to come as soon as possible, Chinese people need to work hard, the government needs to be much nicer to the people than ever and much more strict to itself than ever.

Refactoring is going on, and milestones are kept being delivered. Stay tuned.

Dirk read my last entry and asked why I did not send that as email to ARD. First of all, I think it would not really work. The scream out of anger does not meet a standard that ARD would take seriously. I felt angry so I scream at my own place. If the readers do not like what I screamed about they do not have to read/listen, they have a choice (Days ago I had no other choice but had to listen to the ARD version of the comments, basically that’s what made me angry. I heard NBC’s version is the best quality out there, later maybe I’d buy a DVD).

Now to be fair, ARD and ZDF have sent their most popular moderators to Beijing for reporting the Olympic. They work hard in their own media studio in Beijing. Without ARD and ZDF’s hard work, it is much more difficult for us Chinese-living-in-Germany to watch the happenings in Beijing. Many of them are not used to the humid and hot Beijing summer, many of them are not used to the unnecessary interview license overhead. It is not an easy job for them in Beijing. They have made a lot of short films introducing Beijing to the German people. Whatever their perspective is, starting introduction of a real, modern China is better than ignoring at all. My appreciation and respect to the ARD and ZDF team. Xin1 Ku3 Le0, thank you! I sincerely wish you a lot of fun in Beijing.

Chinese people really should not be too nervous about what the Western media show about China. While we hope the Western would give us more time for achieving a higher level of democracy and more individual freedom, we should grant the Western a lot of time to understand our way of thinking, our proud, and to become sympathetic to our scars.

Today on slashdot.org I saw a hot discussion about the manipulated video of the firework during the ceremony. Here is my opinion. It is a bad ignorance of the typical Western psychology from the Chinese media. By the Chinese standard, in order to achieve a perfect effect on TV at the big day, pre-record of the firework is acceptable. Since there might be heavy rain, but many firework engineers and manufacturers had prepared for years for the show. But the Chinese side needs to know this will turn out like a scandal by typical Western standard. Respect does not have to be won from several seconds of the manipulated fireworks. And, the Western would not look down upon the organizers if the real fireworks are not perfect enough. This is a marketing research failure and public relation management failure from the Chinese side. However, it’s not the end of the world. All the pictures in my online gallery are more or less manipulated, at least the file sizes are reduced for optimal web presentation. And, I’m not the only one that reduces the file sizes for web galleries.

The Chinese people have done so much for the government. The glories belong to the people. The government has won so much trust from the people through the preparation of the Olympic. Now it’s slowly time for the government to show your confidence in your own people. IMHO, the great firewall is absolutely unnecessary. Chinese people living in foreign countries can read all kinds of negatives about China, the government should know that those extremely anti-government websites do not really work. Many of us trust the government, the government please reward us with your trust. Abolish the great firewall please. It’s a wall of shame. And please be nicer to the people. Creating possibilities for the poor people is much more important than creating fun for the rich people now. Last month I watched a documentation from ARD (well made, thanks to the film makers). In a west-China province, a 11-year old girl has to do all household chores at home and go to school, while her father sitting aside, does nothing. He said, since she’s a girl, the family cannot afford for her further education, she should marry early. This girl, does not look bitter at all, she just silently accept her fate and tries her best in the school and in the family. I was so touched by the girl. People such as this girl write the history of China. The government, please realize you have the nicest people in the world and be nice to them!!! I’m just an average employee in Germany and do not earn much. But if ARD can still reach that 11-year girl, by all means tell me how to contact her please. I can afford 100 euro per month for her further education. I hope I can earn more when she needs more for her college. Of course the best solution should be from the government. Especially people like her father should be brain-washed. Daughter is not servant. He should do something to help the household chore. I consider it a much better investment than in any equity/currency/immobile market.

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I feel sad for the warfare in Georgia, especially sad for the helpless women and children during the war. Visited drk.de but did not find any link for donation to the women and children in that region. I will donate if the German Red Cross adds the link.

Last Friday I went home four hours earlier to watch the 29th Olympic opening ceremony live on ARD ( the main German TV channel. It is publicly funded ).

I cried from the beginning to the end while I was watching the ceremony. The selfless contribution of tens of thousands actors and volunteers touched me deeply, the diligence, the strong will and the strong vitality of our people touched me deeply, the splendid culture of my motherland touched me deeply. I love the kind, diligent, and strong-willed Chinese people, I love my beautiful motherland, even though I hear the critiques, even vilification to Chinese government from the German national media ( publicly funded!!! ) day to day, I do not hate the government of my motherland at all, I firmly believe they are aware of the problems and doing everything they can to lead our country to a better future. Nobody is perfect, no government is perfect. Historical mistakes were already made, condemning the Chinese government at any given minute could not change what had happened in the past. Most Chinese people are practical and forward-looking with good and strong wills, thus most Chinese people are not against the government. Normally, I do not like to talk about politics in my blog. But I’ve had enough from what I’ve heard about China from the German media recently. My sense of morality urged me not to keep silent anymore. I cannot keep silent in front of the systematic nasty vilification and incitement of Sandra Maischberger.

ARD’s live program of the 29th Olympic was commented by Sandra Maischberger and Ralf Scholt. The gentleman Ralf Scholt did a good job, thank you very much! Sandra Maischberger is impossible. When I get time I’d like to dictate what she had said during the opening ceremony and translate it into English, so the whole world can see how impossible this woman is. It does not matter what she says about China and Chinese people at home or on her personal website, but it is too extremely bad if she malign the Chinese people in a national media ( publicly funded!!! ). In USA, if she dared to comment about China that way in public, I’m pretty sure she would be sued. China-born lawyers in USA pay attention please, get ready to sue her when she enters your state in USA next time. The link below is an article criticizing Maischberger’s comment written by a German:

Maischbergers unfreiwillig komischer Auftritt

I know this woman was very narrow-minded, ignorant on Chinese issues and jealous of China’s fast development in the past decades. So, her coldness and indifference to the happiness of the athletes and people from the whole world in the bird nest station was no surprise. What I did not expect was her very nasty insinuations even of the innocent children. (lawyers, sue her please!)

What she has said during the ceremony will be given later (I was too busy watching the sport events this weekend). Basically, the only thing she had expected during the ceremony was protest against the Chinese government and attack to the ceremony. She articulated her disappointment in the program again and again when these things did not happen. Her voice was the coldest in the world during the ceremony. She was bored when no attacker and no protester showed up. When the athletes of Poland entered, she said “Pay attention, this team might be the only one which could protest (against the Chinese government).” But what appeared on the screen were the cheerful and friendly faces of the Polish athletes. Her voice appeared very low. I interpret it as her disappointment. Again, whatever she personally think China is: a devil, a criminal, an idiot, a shit, whatever, does not matter. What I’m so angry about is that she kept making propaganda of her nasty prejudice and narrow mind on a publicly funded national channel. I do not like her attitude toward China. I do not like her unprofessionalism. I do not like her incompetence. As a funder of the ARD channel, I protest against what Sandra Maischberger had said during the ceremony. I do not want to pay Sandra Maischberger for what she had said. Fire Sandra Maischberger! ARD, do you hear what a funder say?

She made me so angry during the ceremony. I wondered whether all western medias showed their prejudice publicly during the ceremony, so I checked out websites such as BBC, CNN, NBC, wsj.com, ft.com, etc during and after ceremony. No. Among the major media that I had checked out, nobody else said anything that was remotely like what Maischberger had said.

Seriously, Maischbergers needs a psychologist to fix her extremely narrow mind and a lawyer to teach her what is appropriate in a publicly funded media and what is not.

At the end of the ceremony, Maischberger said “eine gigantische Propaganda-Show (a gigantic propaganda show)” in a very cold voice. From the beginning to the end, she showed no slightest appreciation or respect to the hard work of the organizers and actors, be it Chinese or non-Chinese (many foreign organizers from IOC worked very hard during the preparation too). Propaganda? Of course. This world does need propaganda of the mutual efforts for harmony between nature and people, harmony between people and people, harmony between nation and nation, harmony between different cultures. This world does need propaganda of love to the earth, the planet we live on. I for one, appreciate all people’s hard work and beautiful propaganda, in tears. Thank you, the diligent, strong-willed and creative Chinese people, I love you all. May your kindness and effort reach the hearts of many people. May people’s nice wishes come true.

After the ceremony, I also watched the Harald Schmidt’s comments and program. He praised the ceremony passionately and generously. That made me very happy. Thank you Harry, you never failed to make me happy! You also showed me not everybody working for German Media is as narrow-minded and sour as Sandra Maischberger, that really gives me hope.

Tags: China, Germany, Olympics 2008

I watch ARD’s Börse report (equity market report) at around 19:55 almost everyday. Today a gentleman in the program said, in countries like Sweden and the Netherlands, 30+% citizens hold stocks. In Germany, only around 5% citizens are shareholders. The gentleman said this is not a good sign, the Abgeltungssteuer (capital gain tax) for long-term investment has to be reduced. I cannot agree more. I hope the policy makers in the German government can also hear what he had said. Let’s prey hard for the reduction of the long-term capital gain tax!

Like I’ve said in my previous blog entries, German people should be educated to employ the capital market for fighting against the pension deficiency and inflation. The current situation is, people are used to count on the government and there lacks the motivation of individual effort. In a high-tax, high-welfare (the welfare in Germany is no longer that high) environment, people who work really hard and are really smart cannot get much more than average people. People who do not work merely out of laziness can always count on the other tax payers and still lead a happy life. Entrepreneurs have very heavy tax burden. Individuals have very little left for building wealth after the heavy tax.

The high tax policy in Germany might had worked out well in the past. But the world has changed. It has become more competitive than ever before. The government must wake up every individual’s inner drive, inner passion to keep the German economy from going ahead. Less tax please. If individuals have more net income, government providing less welfare does not hurt that much to individuals.

The other day I watched a talk show. A German lady said she does not understand why some schools in Germany do not provide free lunch, she thinks it’s government’s duty to feed pupils/students in schools. Well, here is my own story. In the middle/late 1980s when I was a primary school pupil, my parents together earned less than 40 euros per month. The lunch in my school was not free. It cost about 2 euros per month. And, all the other trainings I had outside the school during my childhood were not free. My parents had made it. Millions of parents in China had made it. I don’t understand why some people, already with the help of governmental Kindergeld, still cannot pay the lunch for their children and demanding more welfare. Instead of offering more cash, the government should invite them to lectures on personal money management.

Why you are poor written by Jason Kelly is an excellent demonstration of the sin of high tax. I mentioned Jason Kelly’s book in a previous entry. His English is amazingly expressive without too much fluff. Jason is surely highly talented in how to tell a thing. I read his blogs from time to time to learn English and writing, and investing of course.

Tags: finance, Germany, investment, tax

Disclaimer: the main purpose of this note is to help myself distill and internalize the information from the investment books, mags and websites I read. If you feel it’s informative, I’d be very glad. But please do not take it as your investment guide. People have different personalities, what appears very right to me, might be totally wrong to you. Please do your own research for your investment.

• Ellen’s FA study note 0: travel towards a wonderful world on trains
• Ellen’s FA study note 1: institutional investors and individual investors
• Ellen’s FA study note 2: emerging markets

Nobody and no expert system can always get in at the lowest of the market low and get out at the highest of the market high. Smartest people in the world have developed all kinds of mathematical models for timing the market as accurate as possible. It might work for institutional investors but you, as an individual small investor, cannot rely on timing too much. First of all, you are not as resourceful as the institutions. It’s overly demanding for you to

• develop a reasonably intelligent timing system,
• have the access of the insider information as the partners of institutions do

As a result, you might have to be a trend-follower of super institutions. Trend-following does not always work out well. You may often react too late and lose big.

Analysts of BNP Paribas recently say that this year is not the best time to get into the equity market, the bottom will appear next year. They may have a point or two. But for German people, the capital gain tax starts from Jan. 1st 2009 makes a big difference. German investors have to get in this year to avoid the tax. They are even forced to accept a bad timing.

Time is individual small investors’ best friend. Work hard on fundamental analysis, find out some good businesses, and hold for a long time, until the fundamentals of the companies change - the earning growth start to slow down. Let’s have a look at HSBC for an example. From year 1977 to 1997, its net profit margin grew at a rate of 19.3% per year. If you invested 10k euro on HSBC in 1977 and sit tight until 1997, you get 10k * 1.193^20 = 341k euro. During these 20 years, at least five bears had attacked Hong Kong, countless surges came and went. HSBC had always found a way out. HSBC’s strength, the 20-year epic and your EQ together created the 341k for you. So, your job for securing the next 341 k:

1. find next HSBC
2. befriend time
3. train your EQ

Tags: finance, investing, investment

Disclaimer: the main purpose of this note is to help myself distill and internalize the information from the investment books, mags and websites I read. If you feel it’s informative, I’d be very glad. But please do not take it as your investment guide. People have different personalities, what appears very right to me, might be totally wrong to you. Please do your own research for your investment.

• Ellen’s FA study note 0: travel towards a wonderful world on trains
• Ellen’s FA study note 1: institutional investors and individual investors

Long-term (5 years to 10 years) investment principle No. 1: Find a good emerging market. Find a fast-growing industry in this good emerging market. Find a company with wide economic moat in this industry. You take care of the business, capital will take care of itself.

When established economies such as Germany is in a good economic cycle, people would happily say “This year’s GDP growth is 3%, how fabulous!” Companies such as Volkswagen would celebrate hard if their profit-attributable-to-shareholders grow at a rate of 15% annually. In emerging economies such as China, when things go really bad (such as this year, a variety of natural disasters attacked one after another), the GDP growth still exceeds 10%. Companies such as China Mobil, China Life have the growth of profit-attributable-to-shareholders at 30+%. You see the difference yourself.

From year 1977 to 1997, the Heng Seng index of Hong Kong grew 31.2x, averagely at 21.5% per year. Now the similar golden 20-years is happening in China mainland. Basically you cannot afford not to invest in any emerging market. Deutsche Bank knows it. You should know it too. They are aggressively expanding their business in China. You cannot build your own “Deutsche Bank Tower” in Beijing, but you can buy and hold H and/or B shares of Chinese enterprises in Germany.

People talk about political risk. But the “political risk” does not only exist in emerging economies. Look at the recent subprime credit crisis in USA and look at the high tax rates in Europe. You do not shield yourself from political risks by avoiding emerging markets.

High volatility, yes. But in the long run (let’s say, in a time interval from 5 to 30 years), the stock price reflects the quality of the company truthfully. In short term, anything could happen. There are so many super institutional investors nowadays, many of them are able to buy any company in the world. If they happen to have the same idea at the same time, they could largely affect a stock’s price. Do not get too nervous for the daily market price (but always remember to closely monitor the businesses you own). Capture the major uptrend, not the small ones.

Emerging markets will not be “emerging” forever. Sooner or later they would be emerged and the growth will slow down. So you cannot wait until everything is perfectly stabilized and matured in the now-emerging markets. Get in now and enjoy the fast growth. In the coming study notes, we will have a look at the principle of when to get in and when to get out with some concrete examples.

Tags: finance, investing, investment

I heard that Shanghai is going to build yet another Disneyland which would cost around 4 billion euros. And, an artificial lake which costs 50 million euros is already being built in Shanghai, seems the main purpose is to boost the price of real estates around the lake.

I don’t feel happy to hear these news. What if these investments were used to help more people get out of poverty in middle and west China? What if these investments were used to help children get better education? What if these investments were used to control the air/water pollution in China?

There are already more than enough fun places for people in Shanghai and nearby regions. Less flashy temptation and more concentration on technology/economy/science is better for children. We don’t need such an expensive Disneyland in China, at least for now.

It’s understandable that the local government and some investors want high ROI from such projects in the near future. And fun places like these do create many new jobs. I only hope the government could value more on the long-term return to our nation, to our people, when considering an investment. In my opinion, the highest priority should be

1. create possibilities for extremely-low income people: people from less-developed provinces in middle and west China did great contribution to the modernization of the east provinces. We’ve sacrificed a whole generation. The whole nation owe them. It’s time to create possibilities for them and their children. Now.
2. improve education: We need more intelligent and diligent people to sustain a long-term prosperousness, but not more fun-oriented and pleasure-driven people.

Tags: China, economy, politics