Last Saturday 10 of my primary school mates met in Shanghai. I have not seen most of them for 36 years. What a change! Most stayed in Shanghai during these entire 36 years. Only Mr. Huang and myself went abroad. You can tell that experience changes life forever.
Mr. Huang did not pass the entry test for the universities, but he was one of the Chinese who are eager to win and eager to reach the stars. So he went to Japan 20 years ago to study and financed his study himself with low level hard works he even did not want to mention. There are huge difference between the Chinese students in his generation and the generation today, where parents take care of their children abroad, paying a luxury student life.
Mr. Huang finished the study in Japan, worked for Toshiba and then he was sent to Singapore 10 years ago to develop Asia Pacific business. In Singapore he made some Chinese friends and suddenly realized that all Chinese in Singapore were doing some kind of business. So he quit the job at Toshiba and started his own trading business. Now he has one company in Japan, one in Singapore and one in China. Mr. Huang considered every day as Sunday, because he has no boss to report to and no working time to justify.
However, one element in life was not to his full satisfaction: he had almost no time to take care of building a family. Only recently, he married a young girl with age gap of 16 years. The young lady asked him to stay with him for another 50 years. He promised promptly. But back in his heart, he knows that it was a lie, not because he would be not loyal, but because he does not expect to live until age 98.
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