Anniversary of my family's Hong Kong trip and a year of change (Updated)

This weekend is sunny and warm. Spring is here.

I took my son out playing in the backyard. He is about to turn two, a big boy now. He loves outdoor, but has been staying inside all winter. The record-breaking snow storms are finally behind us. A harsh winter makes you appreciate spring so much more.

As he was roaming around, stepping on wet grass and melting snow-ice, making himself a big mess, I was watching him and reflecting on the year that has just passed.

It was exactly this first March weekend of last year that I took my two daughters on a trip to Hong Kong to join their mother, who was on the academic job market looking for her next postition. The stock market had hit a new and depressing low. U.S. was shedding jobs in the hundreds of thousands each month. The financial crisis was on its full swing and the entire Western financial system was crumbling. State universities were facing big budget cuts, private universities were not much better as their endowments took huge hits. Even the safest part of the academic job market was affected in a big way. Schools were cuting back. Some had withdrawn their positions. No position looked safe.

Universities in Asia seemed to be expanding. We were seriously considering moving our family back to Asia. Who knows, Wall Street as we knew it no longer existed; perhpas it was moving to Hong Kong. The thought of bringing up our kids in a more cosmopolitan multi-cultural environment suddently seemed so appealing. We really did not need to get stuck in the U.S. And after more than 20 years, it would not be so bad to lead our lives back in Asia.

We didn't want to go back to the mainland. We didn't think that we would fit in anymore. China has changed so much since we left in the 80s and early 90s of the last century. Every time I went back and visit Shanghai, Shenzhen or Guangzhou, I was amazed at the huge changes. Some of the changes were exciting, some we would rather not see.

We also din't think our children would be able to fit in easily. Even if they manage to, the single-minded academic study and education wasn't something we'd like them to have. Having gone through that intense process ourselves in our youth, we know that's not the best way to educate kids. The American system is not perfect, but we think it's much better for their development.

Hong Kong and Singapore are different. Their international schools offer many choices for kids like ours. And, we liked the fact that there is a good mix of Chinese teaching and English/American teaching. We do want our kids to have more exposure to the Chinese heritage.

My older daughter was 9, and the younger one was 4. They've never been to Hong Kong. My 9-yr old had classmates who had family ties in HK and had shared interesting experience with her. She was excited about the trip, which had also influenced the 4-yr old's mood in a positive way.

As it turned out, my 4-yr old didn't cause much trouble. Hong Kong was convenient and manageable. We were picked up by a minivan, and headed to HKUST which is situated on the hills over-looking the Clear Water Bay. It was about an hour away from the airport. It was a cloudy day, somewhat humid and cool. It's the climate very similar to Guangdong where I grew up.

As we were passing by the high rises, the driver was kind enough to point to us where the HK Island was and where the rich people live. We were headed to the east side of Kowloon which is a big stretch of pennisula north to HK Island but south to the New Territaries.

As a kid I heard many stories about HK as a land of opportunities. Back then the mainland was so poor that many young men from the villages would swim to HK to try to find a better life. Many of them were sent back, but some managed to stay. One of the middle school classmates took such a calculated risk in early 90s. He was caught and sent back to the mainland.

As we got closer to HKUST, the air became considerably more humid and wet. The university as built right next to a bay with beautiful views. But it's so humid all year round that you need a de-humidifier running at all times. When we arrived at the small on-campus hotel room, my wife told me that she had already collected a bucket full of water from the air since the day before.

Because of the humidity and the salt in the wet air, everything seems to rust quickly.

We spent a week there. While my wife was conducting her interviews, I took the kids to visit HK. We were also joined by my mother and my sister who took a bus from my home town. It was a 4-hour trip, and the first time for them. I learned that it's so much easier now to obtain a visit pass for mainlanders who want to visit HK. Swimming in the ocean was no longer required! In fact the financial crisis had hit HK so hard that it was relying on getting more mainland visitors to boost the economy. But that didn't seem work so well, as my mother later told me they were the only travelers on the entire bus which could take hundreds.

We visited many sites, we toured the Victoria Bay. I also took a couple of trips to HK's financial district in Central. Signs of international banks looked familiar. But no one was hiring, except for some mainland asset managers. One of my old colleagues at Berkeley who had joined Lehman Brothers at Tokyo had been transferred to HK after Lehman's Asian operation was bought by Nomura. (Lehman had collapsed only a few months before.) I had an appointment to meet him. Many yrs had passed since we met last time, so I was looking forward to chatting with him. But surprisingly I couldn't get through his cell. I felt that I was stonewalled. The guy clearly did not want to see me. I was a bit disappointed, but then I felt sorry for him.

Another friend who had just moved from NYC to HK to take up a senior position at Citi Group was a lot more honest in telling her experience. Her main point was that her new colleagues in HK were not pleasant to work with. They're not nearly as professional as people in NYC. She strongly advised against moving to HK/China based on her own experience of having actually done it.

From these various contacts, I had a feeling that perhaps HK wasn't ready for the prime time. I didn't have a feeling that Wall Street was moving there.

Headhunters have told me that financial companies had put off hiring... it looked like unless I wanted to work for a mainland outfit, it would be tough for me to find a suitable job in HK within a year after we relocate.

What really put me off is how hard and complicated it would be to arrange for schools for my kids. There are long waiting lists. The tuitions and fees for international schools are astronomical. Education expenses would be on par with housing expense with three kids. And they would have to be on school bus for quite a long trip (45 minutes or longer) from Kindergarten on... that's a big turnoff.

Singapore is not that much better. But some of their universities were willing to offer child education assistance, in addition to housing assistance.

An offer from SMU quickly came through for my wife. It was a good offer. She had a sense that the HK schools would not be able to match.

Going around in the subway system and on streets, we saw many people wearing masks. At first it seems a bit strange. But as we saw more and more dusty air and smog we understood why.

The weather turned bright on our last day. So we took a taxi all the way up to the Victoria peak. We saw the entire bay, and we had a good sense of how smoggy HK had become. Riding the bus down the winding narrow road from the peak, one thought clearly emerged: the richest people who live on the peak may have all the money and the view, but they can hardly escape the lousy air surrounding them.

We heard that Singapore's air is considerably better.

After the HK visit, we had become dis-illusioned. But we thought Singapore may work out for our family. But we didn't have time to visit Singapore. we headed back to the U.S. My wife had not given up on U.S. universities. In fact, we learned later that some schools she had applied to thought she would have better choices and thus did not invited her for visits initially. As she pursued these second opportunities mostly on the East Coast, her Singapore offer was actually quite helpful. By the end of March, she had decided to accept a position in Pennsylvania and I supported her.

We were not willing to give up on America just yet. Deep down, we still believe that U.S. will lead the world in innovations, no matter how hard it's been hit by the credit crisis. Consumers will learn from the crisis, so will the government and the businesses. U.S. will re-orient itself because of the crisis. But th struggle is likely to be difficult, especially for the middle class and the poor.

Where we choose to live is where we'll invest in our family's future. It was a big decision.

We've gone through a nice Summer, a beautiful Autumn, and an awful Winter since we moved to the East Coast. We're starting to enjoy the awakening Spring.