(75) In Search of Excellence

The other day a group of us were talking about immigration. One couple was ready to fly to Canada to start their new life with three young children. Another outspoken man was saying that he would not go to a western country and be a second class citizen. The rest of us looked at each other, none of us felt much like  first class citizens in our beloved country! Well, perhaps there is less glass ceilings in terms of making money here compared to living in Canada, that is about all most of we can agree with.

In terms of equality and justice, I guess majority people all over the world usually have much to grouse about. I could complain too, but I chose not to. During my time, I was accepted by Estate Management in Singapore (NUS) with a S$3000 bursary. With special favor from God whom I was actively searching for but had not met yet, I was offered a 97% scholarship from a US liberal arts college. I accepted that with much gratitude and went with little money but much hope that somehow everything would work out. (Things did work out miraculously.) Looking back, it was blind faith because I wanted very much to leave my birth country that did not offer me any place in any of the  5 government universities. During that period of time, it was the norm. Five of my talented class mates who did better in the public examination was forced to register as article clerks and today they are all successful chartered accountants.

When I was in college second year, a faculty member asked me why every single student from my country throughout college history turned out to be exceptionally outstanding. After I was surprised with this question, I went to look at the list of award winners and found that this faculty member was being perceptive: it is true that every single compatriot from my country won at least one form of honor or award upon graduation. A few months later, I explained to her that my country women of Chinese and Indian origin have to work extra-ordinarily hard to overcome the quota system which favor the majority group. My parents had to save for many years to be able to afford a private college education for one of my siblings. The rest of us slaved throughout our academic career to win foreign scholarships. While I could concentrate on the unfair system, it is smarter to see that adversity breeds character. To overcome this in built bias, the only way out is to make sure one is excellent! It is the same with my children, apart from one who did not choose to attend college but went into elder care as a career, the rest excelled and overcome every obstacle to enter colleges locally.