Gypsynan

I recently interviewed and hired a Chinese girl who has just completed her MBA from a leading B school here. What she said at the interview and later was really interesting. I asked her the usual questions. She had worked in a management position in Shanghai for a few years before doing her MBA here. I asked her why she did not want to go back given that the economy is booming. And she basically talked of sexual harassment and general discrimination against women.

Apparently she headed a team of engineers and when she went for meetings, the clients refused to talk to her because she was young. She also mentioned how most Chinese men expected some favours in return for a business deal. She got a little indignant and red faced as she described it. There is of course no coercion, but you know how it goes...


She was really articulate and bright and spoke great English with a near perfect upper class American accent. Elegantly put together. However, I realised that she is perhaps a hard working lower middle class, small town girl, ambitious, high achiever. Very similar to many Indian success stories these days. Its a bit scary to think that they are going to churn out kids like that by the hundreds of thousands in a few years time. Indians had better watch out. I am serious. Especially considering that I am part of that fast growing Indian diaspora - consultant/management types. I know what I am talking about.


Anyway, she also mentioned that she had to bribe the doctors to treat her dad when he was seriously ill. She said "you can start a major business in China now in a few days, and all the govt. people will help you, but if you are an ordinary person with ordinary problems, you have to be ver, very lucky". I gathered she was the only daughter (as is usual in China) and has to take care of both parents. But then she also tried to pull some B school bull shit. I asked her how her math was considering that she studies English at college and she said "well you know we Chinese and Indians are good at Math". Which annoyed me, don't pull that BS on me sistah! Of course I knew that having passed near the top of her class at Rotman she couldn't be completely bad, but that was the wrong answer. I mean we are not all good at math, its just that the bad at math are eliminated along the line.


More importantly, I found her description of sexual discrimination surprising - and not. Once at an exploratory interview for a position in Seoul, I was warned about Korean men - I passed on the offer. Its just that you never hear of Asian men harassing women on the roads, and Asian women dress American, while the harassment on Indian streets is absolutely the worst in the world. I have not been to Saudi but I guess we are on par or better - if that makes anyone feel better. And yet Asian women are supposed to face huge discrimination in the corporate world. Especially in highly developed Japan.

I have worked in India and have friends who do and this has never been an issue. I am sure it happens, if you are a helpless lower echelon type in a family business, but not at the corporate level - not much at least. Indian women are tough, no nonsense and extremely successful. How is that? Is it that the men we work with and study with are all a different group than the unemployed and angry mobs in the streets? Or do Indian men just misbehave with strangers? The latter can not be true as my favourite men/best friends in the world ARE Indian men. I would NEVER tell some foreigner that Indian men I know are bad(as opposed to those I don't know on the streets, who are), the way many Asian women casually talk about their men. This girl also told me this, "Chinese men are especially mean to the girls because the government tells them not to, so its almost like asserting their independence" . Ah that sounds familar, thwarted masculinity finding redemption in dominating women. That I can relate to, as can all women. Even the American women's rights are threatened these days, with a serious Christian initiative to pretty much ban abortions- and the fiasco over the morning after pill. OK that was a rambling post! What’s your perspective? Do I have a rosy picture of urban India that I left many years back and still miss? Or Indian guys we know are really the best?