Four years after it all began

I'm re-reading the blogs from the years past and it's so interesting to hear what my thought process was like when I was younger. This desire for preservation of thought, coupled with a desire to become a better writer has fed my desire to want to restart blogging. While I have my own private journal, those have served and I think will continue to serve as a place where I do a stream-of-consciousness thought process but a desire to create a secondary, and slightly more polished versions of what's going on in my life will help me keep a "high-level" view of where things are and where I want things to go. 

I'm also hoping that by continuing to read books and blogging about then, it'll create this natural sense of practicing summarizing salient pieces of information and highlighting thoughts that I think are relevant/salient. 

I'm hoping that the first book I write about will be about The Circle by Dave Eggars, who is one of my all time favorite writers. His first book, Heart Breaking Work by a Staggering Young Artist inspired my college essay to Penn. This book I think is even better and hits on all of my favorite things - 

P.S. I'm blogging from a bakery/cafe outside of the Seoul apt and there is a homeless/drunken man at the front asking for help. He says he's looking for a saw to cut some chains with and the attitude that the store people are taking is actually quite funny - they are waiting for him to get tired and walk away on his own. They do not acknowledge him and he does not enter the store. There's a tangible level of discomfort in the store, but like Koreans do we look away from discomfort and hope that it goes away. 

Corporate Social Responsibility

The summer of my sophomore year, I split by time between speaking with representatives from conglomerates about corporate social responsibility and working at a social impact venture capital firm. This was all in an effort to better understand CSR in South Korea. I walked away rather frustrated with the fact that no one seemed to really know what it was. There was very little literature on it, and the little literature there was on it seemed to point to the fact that it wasn't a very developed concept in Korea. So I attempted to add to the body of the literature to help understand why it hadn't developed to it fullest potential for the most-part. I used that to understand why social enterprises, which came after a more complete thought process of the "triple bottom line" in the US, arose when it seemed as though Korea had not run out its resources on other fronts. The result was the CSR in Korea was unresponsive to what the public believed were the needs of society. Social Enterprises, which function without the millions of dollars a conglomerate pours into its CSR programs, needed to be more adaptive. At this point, I still wasn't able to form an opinion about what CSR's role should be or how we might go about encouraging more if it at home and abroad.

The semester following this paper, I spent the semester in Copenhagen, with my classes focused on those very things with a cultural twist: Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility, CSR in Scandinavia, and Social Entrepreneurship. I learned a lot but I still had the same qualms and questions; is it possible to convince companies to look at long-term profit maximization? What even was the social responsibilities of businesses? At the end of the day, is it all just a marketing stunt? I hadn't revisited these thoughts until recently, when I came across an article shared by a friend from the Harvard Business Review.

The article was about Novo Nordisk, a Scandinavian Pharmaceutical company which produces insulin for diabetes patients. It is a highly profitable company also well-known for its outstanding corporate social responsibility. I had actually heard and even spoken to representatives from Novo Nordisk through my Strategic CSR class at the Copenhagen Business School and remember being puzzled and skeptical that they would pour resources into finding a cure for diabetes as a part of its CSR initiatives. I thought, "A cure to diabetes would destroy your company; you must be lying."

Months later, I realize she wasn't lying; in Sorenson's, the company CEO's words, "I tell my employees, 'If we wind up curing diabetes, and it destroys a big part of our business, we can be proud, and you can get a job anywhere. We’ll have worked on the greatest social service of any pharmaceutical company, and that would be a phenomenal thing." This sent chills up my spine. I can't imagine how different the healthcare industry would look if we all took on this attitude. But more so, I realized through the concepts I learned through my emerging economies class at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, that the reframing of Sorenson's interview precisely answers what I think many of us ask ourselves: what can we do as a society, government and other actors to encourage corporations to take on corporate social responsibility. Not the "slap some money on" band-aids but really encourage them to own its programs?

I believe that the solution is to build institutions to ensure the interest of the company along with its excutives and other stakeholders that do not conflict with each other. At the core of this belief is an additional belief that we all want to do good in the world; no one imagines their legacy to the world and imagines it to be value-destroying. If you will allow me, I would like to think our "legacy" is the "relationship" we would like to building with the people around us, including the individual people but also the concept of community at large. But you cannot building this relationship without building the institutions that allow the companies and its executives to do so.

Sorensen states that he understands that it is hard for US CEO's to overcome shareholder pressure because it is hard to convince shareholders to not sell their stocks with the promise that the company will maximize long-term profit over the next 15 years, rather than the next two. There are two institutions that allows Sorensen to have this opportunity; first, it is that Novo Nordisk, as well as many Scandinavian companies, are owned by foundations and trusts that are focused on long-term profit maximization. Block ownership such as this keeps CEOs a little more immune to unpopular decisions in the short-run that may help in the long-run. Second, there are not as many institutional investors such as pension funds that pressure Novo Nordisk into performing in the short-run. Sorensen proposes that in order to help companies see long-term goals, rules and behaviors for pension funds need to change. This requires both a change in appropriateness and law.

But Sorensen's suggestions are not all up to the government; flatter pay structures between CEOs and employees leads to higher levels of trust within the organization as employees see the pay structure as "fair." While many may think of this as motivational, it is rather an opportunity for the CEO to show that the system works. Particularly, this means that everyone will be compensated for their hard work and will be given a share of the growth of the company.

The challenge, then for the US, is to create the right institutions that will lead to particular behaviors that will allow for companies to think about the long run. US is known for its innovation but if the US, with its trillions of debt, now needs corporations to pick up the slack in what it cannot provide, the issue of creating the structure to lead to desired relationships between a corporation and its stakeholder may be more pressing than we had ever imagined.

Argentina Half-Way! -- part dos

Round two of what happens here. I'm getting a little better with the language so it gets a little easier to get around. This isn't all of what happened but some of the highlights!

On a Wednesday, when the tickets were half-price, some members of the group headed over to El Teatro Presidente Alvear, not too far from where I lived for a two-hour live tango show. It was almost a cross between a musical and a ballet, with "tango" as the type of music and dance. People didn't speak (which meant I understood as much as the next person) but there was music, some with lyrics. Overall, I was entranced by most of it, and I think the intimacy and spurts of passion tango exemplified has a place in my heart.

Closing of Chantecler Tango

One of the first weekends we were here, we went to an Estancia, a form of rural tourism that has developed in Argentina for tourists to get a taste of the traditional life. Tried asado for the first time (thought not the last time for sure!) here and spent a day riding horses. A restful and beautiful day! 

View from the balcony

yes, the horse is lying down but it's alive and safe...

One of the mini-trips the group took was to El Tigre. We didn't have much luck with the weather but it was a cute little town an hour or so train ride away from the city. It was great just being able to drown out the noise in the city for a cute little boat ride down the river. 

the crew

On the long weekend, I took an 18 hour bus ride (it was so much better than it sounds) to Iguazu Falls to see this one of seven natural wonders of the world! Fortunately, we got to see a lot of it before it really started to pour the high water meant we couldn't so see the San Martin Islands. However, the rain and the overall water turbulence made the boat ride right into the mouth of the devil's mouth one of the most accelerating thing of my life! i swear to got the boat was going to tip over and/or crash at one point or another!

Catarata de Iguazu!

last note. my friend brittney and I have become incredibly obsessed with a type of chocolate here called Coflers, especially the one with white chocolate outside and a mousse inside. we visited 9 kioscos, which are essentially convenience stores with only snacks and chocolates to find these the day we discovered how amazing they were. in case i every visit again, mental reminder to buy a whole box of these and oreo alfajores. life rocks.

i could marry these

and maybe the next post i'll actually write about a book...

Argentina Half-Way Point!-- part uno

Still haven't finished the book and haven't written updated posts about Argentina. I know, I'm a terrible person. But I do have some exciting updates since I last posted. It's officially now my third week here and I am half way done with the program. I've gotten a lot more used to it here, but I think a lot of it has to do with accepting; accepting that I will always look, sound, and act like a foreigner, accepting that some people act superior just because they speak a language better (I speak four languages, thanks), and accepting that I  can improve when I put in the effort.

Mostly, that's been the difference from the first day to today. I make more of an effort to go out and about to explore because I want to see as much of the city as I can for myself, not for the sake of other people and showing off on facebook. But, enough ranting, here's what did happen. I had to break it into two post so here is part one.

The first weekend here, I managed to go to San Telmo Fair, a rather touristy affair with an entire street for 20 or so blocks just blocked up with stalls lining the sidewalk. I had to go back to a pretty little cafe called tea connection to study for my test the next day, and so didn't see all of it, but was pretty cool. But what I loved more was a traditional market further in San Telmo that sold a lot of hand made goods at lower prices than the fair I saw at Plaza Francia. I ended up buying a rather cute and very warm sweater, the price for which I managed to haggle down a full 50 pesos! haha

Where I was studying in Tea Connection 

Just for kicks I also visited three different malls here on a holiday because nothing else was open: Patio Bullrich, Galeria Pacifico, and Shopping Abasto. They are all in historic building that were absolutely beautiful! Patio Bullrich was in an old auction house and had the most beautiful lamposts and clock tower. Galeria Pacifio had a fountain and high ceilings with murals on them. Shopping Abasto was more impressive from the outside than in but loved it none the less. I wonder why they put shopping malls in such beautiful buildings.

Galeria Pacifico with my friend

One of the coolest things I've done yet is go on a sunday night to a Pena on Sarmiento called Catedral. It was a very local affair and I'm pretty sure we were the only foreigners there. The building was in an old warehouse but was decorated beautifully. I took a short one hour class before everyone else joined in. I have two left feet and the lady kept trying to work with me, but it didn't work out. It was still one of the coolest places I got to visit in Buenos Aires so far.

Dance floor of Catedral

Hopefully next post will be in the next 24 hours! 

Until then, 

Argentina Arrival!

It's taken me a really long time to get around to writing this post, mostly because I haven't been able to make very good use of my time here yet. Mostly, I've been sleeping and going to classes because after trying to speak and understand Spanish all day, I'm just tired out. But the last couple of days have proved more eventful, so I thought I would share.

Unfortunately, I don't have a photographer taking my pictures for this trip so I'll just take it off the web though I have a couple from a friend's camera. In terms of places visited (well, the touristy ones) were mostly from the tour of the the barrio (neighborhood). We went to Plaza de Mayo and saw La Casa Rosa, where the president works and Caminita in La Boca as well. It was in Caminita that I had my first alfajores, a chocolate covered dulche de leche sandwich between crackers. I almost died. Speaking of dying, we also visited a cemetery where Eva Peron is buried. They had beautiful carved tomb houses made up of granite, marble, stone, among other materials.

Caminita, La Boca

Casa Rosada 

with cemetery cats

I also had a chance to get to know some of the food here. Dinner here is at 9 or 9:30 PM which I normally eat with my host family. So far I've had Milanesa (breaded meat) or some other type of meat or pasta. Home food hasn't been super interesting by any means but I had Milanesa Napoliana, which was what I had at home topped with tomato sauce, cheese and ham. 

absolutely fantastic

The cafe culture is really big here but so far I've only been to the local cafes really close to my house to work. I still have tried medialunes, a sweet version of croissants, and submarinos, which is hot chocolate except better. They warm up the milk for you and give you a piece of chocolate to melt it in. It really is to die for! I also had a chance to try mate, a traditional tea that perks you up without caffeine. It is very bitter and I didn't have sugar on hand, so I'm definitely down for trying it again but this time with the suger. There is a lot of pastry shops around and today I grabbed a piece of cake for breakfast tomorrow. I'll write about how that goes. 

mate with straw usually with a thermos

Another super interesting thing I've noticed about the culture so far is like "kioscos" that are like convenience stores except they really only sell drinks and chocolates. They are everywhere! My host sister's boyfriend on multiple occasions have run down to one at the end of the block for a chocolate dessert. So far I've tried a Milka bar that has white chocolate on the inside and white chocolate on the outside, Marsco, a better version of Reese's Pieces, and Bocadito, a dulche de leche filled chocolate. I think Argentines are super into sweet things which I absolutely have not objections about what so ever. 

What is difficult about being the few asian people here, traveling with a friend who is black is being stared at pretty often, and being easy target for pick-pocketing, random honking, and stares, among other things. But honestly, we do the same thing in Korea so I'm learning to not let it bother me. 

Hopefully, I can get around finishing that book... 

Until then,

And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini

Some of the books that have me cringe and cry enough to close a book, only to gather up enough courage to read the rest have been Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns. When I saw in the Philippines that a new book had come out, I knew I had to get my hands on it.

And the Mountains Echoed has a very approach I became familiar with by reading Jodi Picoult. She likes to take the voice of different audiences to create her story. Similarly, Hosseini has used both different characters' voices and flashbacks to keep the reader constantly working out the storyline and on the edge of their seats to know the ending. In a way, it was infuriating to have the story cut midway, scrambling to figure out what happened, but in hindsight it could only mirror what it must have felt for Pari who must try to piece together a life she barely remembers. Set in 1952 Afghanistan, the book begins with a bedtime story Abdullah is told by his father Saboor; it is a story that contains so much of the rest of the book including a Sophie's choice, the gift of oblivion, and emptiness we can never seem to fill.

 Saboor and his youngest daughter, Pari, set out to Kabul to meet Nabi who is his brother in-law who has promised Saboor a job building an addition to Nabir's employer's, Mr. Wahdati's, house. But it turns out the trip is to trade Pari, who will be adopted as part of the Wahdati house, for money to feed the family through the winter. As the story is pieced together through the eyes of different people, it turns out Pari lives a life of luxury, being well-fed and well-educated in France after Nila (formerly Mr. Wahdati) left the paralyzed Mr. Wahdati for Nabi to take care of. In the meanwhile, Abduallah, Parwana, Iqbal (Parwana and Saboor's youngest son), and Saboor leave for refugee camp in Pakistan when the war breaks out. We find out Abudullah leaves for the US with his wife and settles down, running a restaurant of his own. Iqbal goes back to Afghanistan during the US occupancy to reclaim the house they all grew up, only to see a wealthy army general who had been part of the jihad had built an enormous mansion for his family there. Angered, Iqbal attacks the house and is assumably killed. Pari and Abdullah are finally united through tragically so as Abdullah suffers from Alzheimers and cannot recognize that the women standing in front of him is the little sister he had so longed to find.

As usual, book cover

There is a shift for Hosseini in writing style and character development, compared to his previous books. In Kite Runner characters are almost purely good or bad, while in A Thousand Splendid Suns Hosseini manages to develop the characters towards the end. But characters are much more human with greater depth in this novel as they are forced to fight for their livelihood. I still haven't decided if the introduction and integration of so many characters into the story line has helped the story line or dilute it. The middle-end section focusing on the foreign aid worker and his early life in Tinos did not seem to add to the overall colorfulness Hosseini tries to recreate for the authors. 

Undoubtedly, Hosseini's relies on his melodramatic and theatrical senses to bring the story home. At the very end of the book as Pari receives the tin box full of the feathers her brothers had once collected for her and she sheds tears before fading away in her sleep, I could almost here the cue. cut. of the director who would make this movie. This also meant that there was a lack of subtlety-- Hosseini felt the need to spell out key aspects of the book for the readers, rather than letting the readers do the work for him. 

I also think that an author's best works are often based off the experience he or she once had. As what I believe to be Hosseini's best work, And the Mountains Echoed contains characters with whom Hosseini could only too well empathize. Having born in Kabul but then moving to the US in 1980s well before the rise of the Taliban, Hosseini returns to Afghanistan for mixed motives, most likely. He sees a country that has changed so much compared to his childhood memories and ends up writing stories about his homeland, rocketing him to fame as one of the most riveting authors of our time. This can't be that much more different than the two cousins who have returned only to reclaim what belongs to their family or more directly Nila who went to Nabi's hometown, saw the poor state and misery people lived in, only to go back to her bubble of security and write about its horrors for some applause at a party. I've made a lot of assumptions in this part of the blog and I can't help but wonder  how much of it is true. 

Overall, an amazing read that kept me glued to my tablet. I wanted to read Sophie's Choice and watch the movie on the way to Argentina, but I'll upload something when I get the chance. Next time I blog, it will be in a different continent! 

Until then, 

Outliers by Malcom Gladwell

Because I can't haul all my books to Argentina and Korea, my older sister has graciously lent me her tablet to use for the rest of the summer. Instead of reading Sophie's World, I ended up reading Outliers by Malcom Gladwell on the tablet on the Kindle app. 

A review on the tablet, first of all. I LOVE it. While I've seen people say they are easily distracted by the features, I felt more engrossed in the book then when I am reading on paper. This is pretty interesting considering that normally I found reading on the screen very annoying and difficult. I also have not felt any strain on the eyes, but then again, this is only the first time and it might just be the novelty of the situation that has allowed me to rip through this book in record time. 

What the app icon looks like

Outliers is mostly about how our past, including experiences, opportunities, and cultural inheritance shape our successes and failures in the world. The first section is mostly about opportunities. He goes through a list of high successful people in the world and how specific experiences, regardless of how they presented themselves at the time, led a specialization in a skill that was highly demanded when the world changed. It is a combination of opportunities and being born when those experiences were being valued that led to success, not necessarily individual merit or intelligence. It is not to say that these people were not hard-working and passionate. Grit is why they succeeded over others who had similar background. I saw most of this as incredibly true; you need grit and passion to harness the opportunities you have been given, but so much of it is being ready when luck comes around. There really might not be such thing as innate talent and genius. 

The second was focused on cultural legacies. This refers to a set of tendencies and preferences that were once necessary for survival in a region that are passed on through generations, even when the need for it has disappeared. It also includes just plain old cultural tendencies that make some cultures better suited for certain professions over other cultures. There were uncomfortable sections to digest, one part which rather bluntly stated that some cultures (he was using Korean Air in his example) are unsuited to the world of aviation because of a hierarchy system that prevented "subordinates" from using direct language in urgent situations that prompt action. The solution was not the common "work within the frames of the culture" but to insist in implementing alternatives, in this case using Western training methods and using English as the primary language. Looks pretty close to cultural imperialism? Well, in hindsight I think that's stretching it a little too far. Circumstances can demand we consciously make an effort to step out of the cultural legacies that we've been born with in order to be successful in certain fields. 

He also delved into how society views breaks and eduction. I've always thought that the reason why Korean students work hard is because parents viewed education as the only way for upward mobility. But Outliers suggests there is more. It has to do with what type of crops our ancestors farmed. In Korea, as in many Asian countries, most farmers had rice paddies that were labor intensive and benefited from having multiple rotations of crops in a year. This meant there was very short periods when the fields were idle. The more you worked, the greater your reward come harvest. The school system reflects this past, having as much as 60 extra school days compared to the US that planted crops like wheat and corn that required that lands be at idle for extended periods of time to replenish itself. Thus, the ingrained belief that there must be rest and idleness in order to learn. 

Cool book cover! 

The writing technique throughout this book were quite effective. He first told the condensed version of the story with many crucial details missing. He goes back and retells the story, filling in the necessary blanks. The first time around, I had my own share of reasons why that person was successful, primarily dedication and passion. But as my preconceptions were broken, I took on this new paradigm he offered so that by the end, I was making my own relatively accurate conjectures. 

Outliers had very similar undercurrents as certain parts of give and take when it came to its fundamental view on education as Give and Take. It isn't that people are innately smarter than others; it is a combination of expectations, set by parents and teachers that can stimulate students to achieve. There were some other sections that reminded me of Grant's work but can't recall all of them now... oops. It's so frustrating when I make the connections and when I try to write them down, I can't remember... 

I think I'll start on some of James Joyce's work that I was supposed to read in high school, but I change my mind too often to write it down. haha. 

Until then,