I finally met up with the German PhD from my school that I met last Monday at a professor's visit in the China Club (Yes, I had to get my HK600 worth somehow). He could not meet with me in my earlier invitation because he had a hangover then. So much for the punctual nature that one would expect from a German. We had lunch at a local Thai restaurant followed by tea/coffee/desert at Pacific Coffee.
He's a bit on the heavy side. I suppose that is better than being extremely skinny, at least as far as my preference goes. (Though I have to admit that I imagined what it would have been like if I actually got physically intimate with my thin Chinese coworker while being with the French guy this past weekend). Every guy serves a purpose, whether in determining qualities that I want or experimenting and deciding on traits that I would rather avoid in the future.
I suppose after an illustrious career in exotic trading he was politically outmaneuvered from a big bank and is now "in between jobs." I don't find him particularly attractive but find him hearty and easy to talk to. He told me that people die young here. They die young? Indeed. He knows three people under 35 personally who died in some kind of accidents or just dropped dead in the last couple of years. They all worked in the industry somehow. He described each person in detail. There was a broker who fell out of a building while trying to get in through his window. Another broker just dropped dead after coming home one day, maybe from overdrinking, overdosing... What a price to pay to live an insane life, with the promise of riches at the end of the tunnel. That would be the kind of atmosphere that I'd be subject to if I decide to jump to a more prominent shop - the little price and a little risk one pays and takes for that incremental pay. But all the bloodbath of those trying to make it to the top. What a bloodbath.
He told me he's studying Chinese history and has just gotten through the Tang and Song dynasty. He is also in the atheist society here in Hong Kong. Is that necessary? Isn't everyone in Asia an atheist or a skeptic? He does have exotic interest, like the fact that he spent all his money getting a pilot license in school that he had to drop out of his PhD program. His professor advisor also dropped dead afterwards. Are we really coming to this dire end in life so suddenly, so easily?? Anyway, for the proper side in me, he is not the most suitable. I would not get the kind of mental security from him just as I would not get the kind of physical security from the Frenchie.
In the afternoon I met up with a Shanghainese analyst that I met last Friday at a corporate event. He's not an immediately attractive guy. His face is somehow disproportional and cannot really be called attractive. He told me that he sings Italian in the Hong Kong opera. He also attended an emba program in Shanghai. All of that were not immediately ameliorating for the lack of physical and personality charms. In all the boasting, he also tried to approach me by saying that he's looking for someone to work for him covering stocks for him. I told him that I would not be interested in such a role, since it would not be exactly beneficial and step up from where I am currently. I did however offer to help him. I hooked him up with an ex-colleague who also graduated from the same mba program. Hopefully my kindness would bring me a business connection if not a personal one.
The third guy that popped up in my life was a Canto guy who I had lost touch with who used to work with me. He texted me in the afternoon out of the blue telling me that he just saw me on TVB. How could that be? I guess I did receive some telephone interview but somehow TVB had put my voice with whatever horrible picture they somehow found on air! I had no clue. I must have been rambling on about a stock unconsciously and somehow this gets broadcast in Hong Kong. I guess the good thing is that I have found this old connection that I had been wondering about in the past month. The guy had a lot of energy and grew up in New Zealand. That's a plus. I wouldn't mind getting reacquainted with him and asked him to lunch of tea after the Chinese New Year.
So three new guys today. Fairly out of the blue. No real possibility yet but then I should be open-minded in the surprises life throws at us.
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