My Vote as an Immigrant American

In the early days after arriving in the US, I was often asked when I would go back. Not all of the inquiries were unwelcoming, but I understood that not everyone would like to have immigrants in their country.

It was not easy to stay in America. After graduation, it is difficult for a foreign student to work in the US legally unless you can find an employer that sponsors the H-1 visa. I was very fortunate to receive the permanent residency, a green card, through the national interest waiver program because of my research work and gracious support from many colleagues. The road to citizenship took seven years after I received the green card.

I have chosen to stay because I love America. I left China after the 1989 student movement. I saw on TV how a government sent tanks to crush peaceful student protests. I realized how important that people should have voices in deciding their leaders. It was here that I cast my first vote as a citizen in the general election in 2012. My own vote, which I do not take for granted, is the most important right that I treasure as being an American.

I love American workplace. After finishing school, I found a scientist position with a medical device company. Before long, I started to work on a product that can help millions of people with sleep apnea, a chronic condition that affects sleep and causes heart problems. America has the most competitive medical device companies in the world. I am always proud to tell people here and abroad about my work because we have the most innovative products to help improve and extend lives around the world.

I love America because of its generosity. My graduate education and research were funded by government grants. I am happy to see taxes I pay and so do many others make possible these federal programs, such as the national institutes of health and national science foundation. I appreciate my local city and state governments are obsessive about keeping the roads free of pot holes after each long winter of Minnesota. 

When I cast my vote this time, I reflected on my journey as a Chinese American. I benefited from an immigration policy that allowed me to use my talent to work on medical devices that can help millions. I understand the struggle of immigrants, and their desire to improve the life of their families. I love the non-profit organization Children's HeartLink, which I volunteer my time. Its mission to improve access to congenital heart disease care helps countless families and fosters friendships in partner sites in China, India, Brazil and Vietnam. What I have learned from the experience is that it is richly rewarding from collaboration and help others. I appreciate my teachers, neighbors, and friends who showed me how to value diversity, respect the environment and treasure our independence. These are the values that I have based on to cast my vote this year. And this is why I am proud to vote for Hillary Clinton.

Indian Leadership in American Business

A friend shared several articles on the rise of Indian in large US companies on Wechat, a popular social media in China. Sundar Pichai at Google and Satya Nadella at Microsoft are impressive successes of Indian immigrants in America. The rising wave also includes the recent appointed dean of Harvard Business School (Nitin Nohria), University of Chicago Booth School of Business (Sunil Kumar), and several other large US corporations and institution.

These articles from the Chinese media consider the following factors:

1. Strong network within the community: many Indians help each other in the workplace, such as job interviews, promotions etc.
2. Focused on relationship in leadership: the tradition of apprenticeship makes Indian leaders more likely to participate and build strong relationship and loyalty with subordinates.
   
3. Others: IIT as the ultimate elite school has produced half of the top Indian leadership; strong language skills; and early exposure to the American culture.

Some of these summaries came from the vantage point of comparing with the experience with recent Chinese immigrants in America. Indeed, the background of these Indian leaders are very similar to mine, and many of the technical immigrants from China in their mid-career. We grew up in places were poorly developed, went to good universities, came to the US to pursue postgraduate education, and stayed.

The focus on relationship in their leadership was an interesting observation, but makes sense after thinking about my own experience with friends and coworkers from India. My own observation to add:

1. Continue to pursue the next career goal: I know more Indian co workers than Chinese who completed an MBA in early career. I attribute this to the Chinese philosophy of “Zhi Zhu Chang Lie”, knowing having enough makes one happy. Many Chinese become technical expert and stop. My Indian friends more often have eyes on the top spot of the company
   
2. Strong family and community: this observation is very superficial, but it is often breathtaking to participate in the Indian family and friend gathering, weddings and other ceremonies. Community is a salient part of the Indian culture. My most awe experience is the best table tennis club in the US is not by Chinese, who dominate the sport, but hosted by the Indian Community Center in the bay area (http://www.indiacc.org/tabletennis). These communities can often serve as the backbone for strong leadership. The individual pursuit of excellence or happiness is different from taking everyone with you to pursue a common goal.
   

Alas, I congratulate my Indian friends for their rise in American Businesses, the diversity will be good for all.

A Mobile Health Case Study - Shruti Program

The Shruti Program is a good case study of a low-cost solution for early detection of ear infection to prevent hearing loss using mobile health technology.

It is a partnership among Medtronic, ClickMedix, international partnership for innovative healthcare delivery and partner sites in India.

The key components of this program include:

1. Addresses a clearly defined unmet need of early detection of ear infection in areas that are lack of direct access to diagnostic facilities
2. Provides a cost-effective technical solution with a cellphone-based otoscope that enable local screening by trained health workers and remote consultation by specialists
3. Builds an eco-system of community-based screening clinic, standardized screening, and patient care coordination after screening.

This model can work for many other prevalent conditions such as congenital heart diseases, retinopathy, and obstructive sleep apnea.

It is always important for these models that aimed for providing community-based screening to examine its validity for both sensitivity and impact of false positives in the early stage of development.

They are the solutions to serve the bottom of pyramid.

Future of China, Part III

I just spent two weeks in China visiting with families and friends. Mom and Dad took a trip with us to Hangzhou, Shaoxing and Thousand Islands. They are going strong.

The country is going strong as well. In Suzhou, the new subway connects east and west from the Industrial Park to the New Park through the heart of the old city. For a city with more than 2,500 years of recorded history, this sure is a milestone. Shanghai remains as one of the best connected cities I have visited. The transit at Hongchao connects airline, high speed train and subways, running as efficient as Amsterdam, Frankfurt or any other global hubs today. In Nanjing, construction cranes have disappeared from the skyline, and replaced are blue sky which were invisible in the last twenty years.

I also had opportunities to meet several friends who have returned from America to pursue their China Dream. Everyone of them were upbeat, and excited about new opportunities in the marketplace and in their careers. In healthcare, “the needs are so vast, you could almost work on anything and be successful!”, marveled by one, who is in venture investing. What most needed are talents. What a contrast with the medical device field in the US today.

The dissatisfactions were from friends never left the country. It is very difficult to conduct business without falling into the “gray zone”, where rules of law may not apply. The recent GSK scandal illustrated exactly the dilemma faced by virtually every business in China, multinational or local. This seems to me a classic example of the Game Theory. In a very competitive environment, if you follow the rules when your competitors do not, you are guaranteed to lose. When the law is not strictly enforced, everyone will be cheating. In China today, law enforcement is where power, interests and corruption convolute. The entire country seems to be screaming for the rules of law.

The future of China, a bright future of China, will come from institutions that can establish,  monitor and enforce the rules of law, which is the fundamental pillar of a democratic society. An early and an easy step is to establish the freedom of press. Microblogs and WeChat are making a difference already today. This will be a small step that will not destroy the stability of the country today, but free press will be a big step towards reducing corruption, a focal point for future concern. A next step is to seek independence of the judiciary system. The rules of law must be above anyone and any party. There is no replacement for the Chinese Community Party today. Many one party systems and countries have done well in the eastern culture. Having an independent judiciary system will help maintain the stability of the country, and lead to a better transition from an authoritarian state to a democratic state.

Future of China, Part II

We are near the 24th anniversary of June 4th student movement in 1989, and I almost feels that it happened yesterday.

It is the event defines my generation for our youth. When thinking about the future of China today, I still have a lot of reflections from thinking about June 4th.

There were many social drivers for the event in 1989. The country just begun a trajectory for dramatic improvement of living standard and productivity at the time; there were a lot of hope for better life in the future. What also begun at the time was the recognition of the unfair system associated with the one party system and the authoritarian state. Government corruption became a big concern, especially among students who began to compare China with other democratic societies that seemed to promote fairness and freedom for basic rights.

China has changed much since 1989. The Economist this morning reported that the country pulled 680 million people out of extreme poverty, and reduced its rate from 84% in 1980 to 10% now, accounted for three quarters of the world wide achievement over the period. Obviously a proud accomplishment for the Chinese people and the government.

Government corruption is still the focus of the Chinese microblogs today. The new Chinese government led by Xi also identified corruption control as the key for its long-term party’s ruling. The only difference on corruption from 1989 is that now it is everywhere. China’s last premier was reported with family wealth exceeded billion dollars. Environment pollution has reached the hazardous level that people dare the government officials to drink the water they regulate. Inequality has created new poverty issue that was different from when 80% people were poor versus many felt being leave behind by the system today.

Is this the time for Asian Spring?

In 1989, as a student, freedom and democracy were something to die for. 

Today, I think democracy is a tool for better society. Democracy, by itself, is not a goal for a revolution to throw a government away.

The recent changes in Egypt, Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria all told a lesson that the most important government function is to establish order. There could be far more damage come from lack of governance than from government corruption. Not having drinking water is very difference from having corrupted officials take money from water distribution, as untolerable as it sounds.

We all have experience when strong leaders are need to set direction and make decision for everyone to follow. That actually happens in businesses everywhere. Very few companies run on a democratic system, even though many employee may feel unfair treatment. We work in these entities because we agree that they align with our best interests. 

There are also decisions and choices should only be made through a democratic process. We don't want any one individual to decide on gun rights or gay rights. 

Comparing all government systems we have experienced collectively as a specie, democratic systems seem to yield the better outcome to minimize corruption, which is an inevitable byproduct from every power structure.

Is China ready for a democratic system today?

Future of China, Part I

Future of China, Part I

Witnessing changes over the Arab Spring and current affairs in Syria, I wonder what will be in the future of China.

In 1989, I was a college student in Shanghai. What happened during the student movement in China and what followed in Eastern Europe had many assemblance with the student protest in Tunisia, the transformation in Egypt, the collapse of the Gaddafi government in Libya, and the ongoing civil war in Syria.

It has been a wonder in the past 25 years in China for the unprecedented growth and the dramatic improvement in people’s life. Many wonder how could this happen in an authoritarian state. There have been suggestions that maybe an authoritarian state could be more efficient than a democratic one, maybe the state owned enterprises could be better aligned with long-term strategy than the short-term focus of western multinationals. Look at the chaos in the Middle East today, maybe the authoritarian state is better for today and tomorrow’s China.

I certainly hope tomorrow’s China is not the one governed by a party which does not recognize freedom for individual and democracy for all.

The recent reform in China began in 1978 with farmers wanted ownership of their land and reward based on their work. As a kid in the early 70’s, I remember almost everything was on a quota system due to short of supply. Our family of 6 had a monthly quota for 3 pounds of meat (I later heard it was good for the environment, which is fine, but it also explains why it is so hard to turn a middle aged Chinese into a vegetarian today no matter what the health benefit there is). By the middle 80s, the farmers markets were full of vegetables, chickens (without H5N1 or H1N7) and produces --- this came from the hard work of hundreds of millions of farmers simply making an honest living and a reasonable leader (Deng) who recognized that the government just needed to stay out of the way and gave back farmers their freedom to be owners of their land.

The Made in China status of manufacturer of the world started in regions that countless entrepreneurs took risks of leaving their jobs and put everything they had in new ventures that addressed every opportunity and need in the market --- every success story in Shenzhen, Suzhou, and Dongguan came from millions of migrant workers’ willingness to put in so much to improve their lives and a government willing to let market force to drive growth and development.

Aspiration for freedom and democracy has proven to be fundamental needs for every modern society, and it will be the future in China.

How will China transform from an authoritarian state to a democratic society without falling into the chaos in Syria today?

I want to imagine that in Part II of future of China.

Facebook Home

Facebook announced Home this week. I see this as another regression in social network driven by technology and marketing.

From the home screen of your mobile phone, Facebook “putting people first instead of apps”. We will be surrounded by friends in our social network as we listen to Thrift Shop, or watch the Final Four on a screen tonight..

This, indeed, represents a trend in the social network and media, what Ricky Van Veen called the identity creation. The motivation from experience first and documentation later (by picture and video) now evolves into documentation first lead to an experience in the social network later or in real time. On another word, we have finally caught up with Japanese tourists or Chinese tourists today, we must take a picture of everything for sharing.

The world through our friends’ len is a comforting one. We listened to Money for Nothing for the first time together. We speak the same set of languages and read books from similar authors. We did not experience any wars like our parents did, life is about personal fulfillment and career aspirations. We enhance these by sharing similar experience with our friends on facebook, reading tweets, blogs, and updates from the people we carefully select and follow.

We won’t be bothered by people cling to guns and religion, we won’t be upset by lyrics from Snoop Dogg, and we don’t have to think about lives for people spend less than one dollar a day..  

The world through our friends’ len is also a skewed one.

What we might miss, is the ability to make connection with people who do not speak the same language, and to seek out those connections in every new place we go. What we might miss, is to have a moment for just ourselves when we are truly touched by beauty, kindness, and peace.    

There is a Home, it is the place I want to return every day and to share with someone I love.