I always have this thing about being a Citizen of the World. It all came to me at seven or eight reading a book on the history of the World. On the second page printed a fine line from some Ancient Greek Philosopher "Be a Citizen of the World". And it was like that, ever since then, being a Citizen of the World become the highest aspiration of my life.
When I grew up, I realized there's nothing like Citizen of the World, coz you have to have one specific and definite passport. While there's no World passport, an American passport, or for that matter, an Canadian or Australian passport, could be a proxy, in terms of geographical mobility.
However, I was never sure I like to be living in U.S., or Canada, or Australia. America is OK, but not really exciting, Canada is too cold and Australia too much sunlight for my skin. So I settled to be living in Shanghai, where I could watch Sexy and City almost simutaniously as it went on show in U.S., I bought books from Amazon, travel to Mediterranean Europe for vacation, play Dianna Krall and Leonard Cohen on my iPhone, read Wall Street Journal and Economist online and catch up with a few overseas friends on facebook. This would be my proxy of being a Citizen of the World I thought.
This worked for me until some time last year, I was suddenly ceased by a frenzie for a wild plan: immigration to Europe, where I find life's best of nature, arts, great cities and small towns. When it didn't work out, however, I began to see the folly of my plan, especially, how it goes against the global economic trend.
Accordingly to what I have been hearing allover, all the Western world is still recovering from the Credit Crisis, they are expecting zero or meagre growth in the foreseable future. And for Europe more specifically, they're right now trying to handle the Greece problem and may have more problem from Spain and Italy. Therefore, even if my plan had worked, the job perspective won't look necessarily pretty over the lovely continent. What surprised me most however, is that I came to realize the salary I could expect if my plan had worked, might not be significantly more than what I could earn in China. So all the advantages I would have, would be really only about purer air, purer water and less traffic.
I guess it's a common sense across cultures that if you go with the current, you'll get the go and if you go against it, you may well stuck. Therefore, the right HR now is from the developed countries to the BRIC countries, just like all the big MNCs are doing dispatching their people allover (upon which, the dispatched all can't wait to jump). While my plan of a reserse flow from China to Europe is stalled for good reason.
Last month, there was a corporate Mass Mailer from our U.S. Headquarter that there would be no salary increase this year. An hour later, China HR send out an email saying that actually for China, we still will have our increase because of the importance of this market and the growth we're targeting at. Bear this in mind, I am suddenly more tolerant of the construction site along the way coz I realized no matter how ugly the construction site looks and how noise it is, in the economics, it comes alongside with my 8.5% merit salary increase. And when there's absolute peace in the city as the Europeans have in their city, the merit increase will go too.
And who knows, with all the funny talks of "G2", with the expection of China economy become second largest in the world soon, perhaps I would, in some way, become a Citizen of the World just by sitting squre in my living room in Shanghai.
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