A Networking Paradise

It was funny meeting the two high school youth leaders who crashed with Eric and I the first night we were at the youth retreat, before the rest of the kids came. One was from Singapore and one from Hong Kong, though they had lived most of their lives here in Shanghai. I just said hi and left the room soon after they arrived, but my buddy Eric hung out with them for a little awhile. When I came back, he was very excited—over the course of their conversation, he had learned that one of the guys would shortly be joining the Hong Kong national soccer team, and the other had recently scored a cool 2400 on his SAT.

Needless to say I was quite impressed as well, but not altogether surprised. I have to come to understand the Shanghai expat community is sort of a networking paradise; it seems like every other foreigner I meet has an unusually prestigious background. Within my bible study alone, I’ve recently met Oxford, Cambridge, Virginia Tech, and Princeton grads, as well as UC Berkley and Stanford students.  At church and at clubs I’ve had the opportunity to conversate with a few investment bankers and learn about the process of getting involved in the financial world here. When I mentioned this to the youth leader at our church over dinner, that there seemed to be a lot of smarties around here, she gave a very knowing nod. Generally, in order for Westerners to have been enticed enough to up and leave their lives back home and move to China, they must have been offered a pretty amazing opportunity; and usually those kinds of leadership roles are only given to smarties. Consequently, there is a noticeably disproportionate amount of intellectual elites in our church and within the expat community as a whole. Given this, it makes sense that their kids would be pretty talented as well. 

I guess this is another one of those things that I should have anticipated but didn't really. Either way, I know now there will many more opportunities to forge connections while over here, and I'm looking forward to seeking them out. And for my biz and econ friends ... come over! I think you'll like it ;)