Nasi Lemak Lunch Talk: Navigating China With World Bank Lead Economist Chor Ching Goh. O-r, There Are Not Enough States In Malaysia. (Say what? Read on…)
Previously I mentioned the Malaysian Chamber of Commerce HK & Macau has regular Nasi Lemak Lunch Talk (NLLT)s where they invite guest speakers; here’s what an NLLT is like…
The speaker, Ms Chor Ching Goh, formerly from the Penang Chinese Girls’ High School (PCGHS), currently heads the economics unit for China, Mongolia and South Korea at the World Bank.
Ms Chor Ching Goh
(Fine, Ms – Dr – Goh graduated summa cum laude from Yale University with simultaneous BA and MA degrees and earned her PhD in Economics from Harvard University.)
Let me repeat that please: Penang Chinese Girls’ High School!! Seated with me, my friend and former RM from Deutsche Wealth Management days, who is also from PCGHS (they found out later she’s a year junior to Dr Goh at PCGHS), was so excited.
We might’ve lingered and selfie-d more comfortably at the end of the function, but it was an incredibly packed and substantial presentation and Q&A which had everyone riveted to their seats…… And then rushing to get back to work (or kids).
Anyway, Dr Goh went through considerable effort to stop over in Hong Kong, leaving 3 kids at home, to come and speak at this gathering:
Yes, not surprisingly this is a packed room, of……. how many?
I…. KNOW. They ran out of Malaysian States with which to name the tables.
See? There Are Not Enough States In Malaysia.
16 practically all-full tables that remained that way throughout, as far as I could see, even when the Q&A ran long. I was sitting at the back. I did not see anyone leave early. Not even after we finished our Nasi Lemak. Speaking of which…..
Dis is our Nasi Lemak.
Most but not everyone there was Malaysian. Bearing in mind the big, beautiful ballroom setting and the VIPs around, the Malaysians at our table were asked (very properly and rather formally), “So which dish should we start with, how do we eat this?”
To which we replied (very honestly and rather proudly) “Oh, this is a casual dish you can even eat with your fingers <make motion of eating rice with our hands>.”
<SILENCE>.
(At that point I think they weren’t sure if we were serious :D)
The drinks also authentic Malaysian ok… Including the water 😉
The Nasi Lemak was yummy to be sure, and happily my friend requested extra sambal.
The Q and A however, was more than adequately spice-y.
Blurry Action Shot of Q&A Session Moderator with Guest Speaker Onstage. These two kept everyone riveted to their seats.
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Hang on, cannot see our Q&A Session Moderator in my pic.
Is this better?
Dato’ Cheah: If you were to look back in 10, 20 or 30 yrs time, how would you gauge Xi JinPing‘s performance?
Dr Goh: I don’t want to be his friend already, ask me all the difficult questions.
I….. know. Watch out, Value Partners, World Bank. The Dato’-and-Dr Team ever get bored with their day jobs, they’re starting their own late night talk show.
Some others:
Dato’ Cheah: What can Malaysia learn from China’s successes and challenges?
Dr Goh:
Open mindedness;
Chinese population are risk takers (we could stand to take a few more risks)
Meritocracy
Adequate competition – for e.g. at universities; how are you going to get skilled labour without adequate competition?
Couple other gems thrown around the room:
“Is the meteoric rise in the stock market the government’s way of injecting funds and raising the people’s income?”
“At times, policy turns the highway into a parking lot.”
“You can’t drive in at certain hours for any price – say, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, only plate numbers ending in “2” and “4” can drive into the city, etc. So people end up buying 4 cars. My neighbour has 4 cars…..”
(Obviously these are not everything that was said in Q&A ok, not even close; I’m frantically trying to take it all down while speakers are rattling off at rapid fire speed and everyone is riveted… Someone want to correct me feel free to scream at me on email as usual.. (No, not really, I get very nice, polite and respectful emails usually from people who don’t want to post too much in the comments section 🙂 )
I finally decided not to paste all my notes here because I don’t have say, an actual transcript obviously. Usually when I quote bits and pieces (because blog readers are an impatient lot who don’t like to read the whole thing) I have the entire thing to skim and include a link or appendix where I put the whole thing in. That’s so in the event someone thinks my quote or summary doesn’t do the actual content justice, they can say something. Since I can’t easily do that here……………….
Some things, you just had to be there. And that’s my way of saying……….
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COME TO THE NEXT NLLT. SEE FOR YOURSELF 🙂
Epilogue:
By the end of this one, I overheard the same non-Malaysians at our table, who asked how to eat the Nasi Lemak, say they were going to hop over quickly to where Millennium staff were making the Ban Chang Kueh to see if they could grab one quickly before running back to the office.
So I handed them mine.
#Malaysianhospitality #bukanmain
pic from lifeistooshorttobesad.wordpress.com
