Wandering around the city . . .

Sometimes I feel like just walking . . . wandering about with no particular destination, going in whichever direction seems right at the moment . . . carefree, with nothing but my curiosity leading the way.

Maybe that is why I love this city and why it will be so hard to leave it behind. No more being able to walk around downtown and look at the tourists, pick up a carne asada taco on the way to Yerba Buena, get a glass of wine at bacar and listen to the jazz band. No more film festivals, late night Korean BBQ runs or cheap sushi rolls at Kiki’s or sushi house. No more driving down to San Mateo for Santa ramen.
I will miss San Francisco.

Getting cold feet?

I am experiencing something that I imagine those with marriage jitters must feel . . . I am getting cold feet about moving to Hanover, NH.

Maybe its because I have been abroad for a while and it feels good to be back in a familiar place; maybe its because another one of my good friends, Dave will be staying here; or maybe its just because I feel at home here. There is definitely a level of peace I feel just being in SF that I do not feel in quite the same way anywhere else.

I am starting to think seriously about pursuing UC Davis. So far, I have been waitlisted there and I do not think it would be a far stretch for them to offer me a place if I was persistent and really wanted to go.

The big reason really is the location. I am really at home in California and when shit hits the fan in med school, my friends and family here in the bay area are who I will look to for solace, advice and understanding. In Hanover, I just don’t have the same connection with the location or the people.

What’s holding me back is my curiosity and desire to explore someplace new, meet new people, engage new issues and challenges. From my experience with each schoo, I feel that DMS students imagine the world as a bigger place than just Northern California and are generally more intellectually curious. In addition there are some of the smaller things that DMS has to offer like the brand name of going to an Ivy, the MD/MBA program, lots of money and better opportunities to do other things in medicine such as microfinance or venture capital.

Ultimately, I know I will get a good education at both places. Most people tell me that I can’t go wrong with either place. Yet I can’t help asking myself what there is to gain at the expense of my own happiness.

On the vital role of stability

Is Paul Kagame, the President of Rwanda a saviour, a murderer or both?

Kagame was the leader of the Rwandan rebel army in exile that finally ended the Hutu led genocide and secured the country. According to Deo, he even executed his own troops for seeking revenge against the Hutus and prevented a reverse genocide. However, the Rwandan army, under the guise of protecting displaced Tutsi refugees in the Congo from the Interhamwe (Hutu militia), has also taken control over the diamond and precious mineral assets of the Congo which has subsequently led to the displacement of more refugees, continued violence and instability in the region.

I do not blame Kagame, as the leader of his people, he must do what he can to feed them and maintain stability in his country as it tries to recover from the genocide. But the reality is that even heroes must be pragmatic, lives must be sacrificed for stability.

The prerequisite for microfinance or any type of intervention for that matter really comes down to stability. Without it, any type of intervention would be an exercise in futility.

Rwanda and the Heart of Darkness

Deo and I talked today about Rwanda today. Deogratias is a first year student at DMS who I met last year when I came to interview. He escaped from the genocide in Rwanda 1994, lived in refugee camps and came to the US and has been involved in public health fighting AIDs in Africa since then. We have become fast friends and he is one of the big reasons I am coming to DMS.

We talked about the war and its aftermath. Deo showed me a Nightline special about the aftermath of Rwanda now playing itself out in the Congo where people have been dying at a rate of 0.5 million a year from ongoing fighting, disease and lack of food. The final episode in the series talked about coltan, the precious conductive metal used in cell phones that has led to SEVEN different guerilla armies fighting in the Congo displacing millions of refugees. The commentary about the Congo, the diamond and coltan minerals feeding the rich while starving the poor really makes you sick.

Watching this made it apparent to me that it is critical to come up with solutions to counteract both the poverty and disease that are killing people. We gotta get working on implementing microfinance in these areas . . .

Some websites about the ongoing conflict and the DVD . . .

Congo War and the Role of Coltan

NIGHTLINE: HEART OF DARKNESS SERIES DVD

Home on the Plane?

As I was responding to Marvin’s latest weblog entry about Japan and China, I realized something about identity that I wanted to get down.

I absolutely agree with Marvin that China has overtaken Japan as the modern economic superstar. Japanese these days are rushing to learn Chinese, taking business trips to China and Japan is increasingly relying on China’s growth. There are plenty of optimistic young people in Japan (Saya included) who might even decide to move to China to live and work.

However, I was reminded during my trip to Japan and China that language and location are important factors in creating and maintaining one’s personal identity. My friend Yasu, who went to high school in Taipei with me, speaks Mandarin, Japanese and English. Yasu told me this trip that despite the business opportunities in China, he wants to stay in Japan because he can truly BE himself there. He can express himself in Japanese language and among Japanese people in ways that he cannot in English or Mandarin despite being fluent in both languages.

At the end of the day, I think that there is a place for every person where they can feel most comfortable being themselves. The right environment somehow brings out the best and truest aspects of one’s personality. Hence, when I think about my own struggles with identity having lived in between two cultures, I come to the conclusion that home for me is really the confluence of friends, family and people living around me that allow me to best express who I am.

For this trip, the times I felt most comfortable were:
– introducing a local doctor to help my ailing grandfather in Shanghai
– meeting a useful business contact whom I liked personally in Shanghai
– eating with Saya and my family
– wandering around on my own in Japan
– writing new thoughts on my blog

I guess the only other thing I could have asked for from my trip would be to have more time to travel, read, think and write independently but I suppose I will get plenty of time to do that in South Africa

Unfortunately, sometimes the most comfortable “place” for me seems to be on an airplane going from one place to another.

Day 5: Its 2am in Chicago

Six cities in six days. Yep, I love traveling. This has been my schedule lately

4/30 HUANGSHAN – walking around in mysterious man-made grottoes near Huangshan, no one knows who made them and why

5/1 SHANGHAI – last day in China after a whirlwind tour of Shanghai and Huangshan

5/2 TOKYO – stopover day, dinner and lunch at Ji Soo’s place in Akasaka, randomly saw a friend in the bay area and finally a nice long sleep

5/3 SF – moving boxes all day (thanks to Marvin and Ariel for storing my stuff and my bro for lending me his car)

5/4 CHICAGO – visiting friends from college, nice dinner at a local izakaya and watching Ali G on DVD

5/5 HANOVER, NH – going to DMS visiting days tomorrow!

memorias de viaje

Its so easy to get caught up in the “doing” that we forget sometimes about just “being”. Tonight I watched a couple of guys in their element, playing music simply because they love it. There is something special about that.

As I was driving home, I thought of a moment from my own life where I felt a brief respite from DOING and just WAS.

I was in Ecuador, on a bus with some friends bound for Banos (a little town in La Sierra where tourists go to take mineral baths, drink and dance). We were excited, it was our first weekend in Ecuador and everyone felt adventurous. Upon leaving the bus station in Quito, the bus made several stops to fill up with passengers. By the time we left the city limits, people were standing in the aisles. About halfway to our destination, we picked up an old indigena couple. They silently made their way to the back of the bus and not having anywhere to stand, the two of them squeezed into a small luggage compartment at the very back of the bus, adjacent to where I was sitting.

I had brought my dinner onboard, a chicken sandwich from KFC of all places. The meal cost about $1.50. A few minutes after the couple situated themselves next to me, I felt a pang of hunger and took out my sandwich to eat it. As I was about to take the first bite, I saw out of the corner of my eye the old indigena looking at the sandwich. I turned towards her and asked her if she was hungry. She nodded without speaking. I asked if she wanted half of my sandwich. Another nod. Without hesitation, I tore my sandwich in two and gave the larger half to her. She then split her half with her husband (pressed in the corner next to her). I ate slowly, taking notice of how quickly the indigenas wolfed down what little I had to offer. They really were hungry.

About an hour later (some rural area north of Banos), the indigenas got up to leave. As they began making their way forward, the old woman put her hand on my shoulder and smiled at me.

I felt . . . I WAS great.

Happy Bday to Me!

Doing what I love to do

Staying involved in business while being in medicine is not a bad thing. Its kind of like playing poker, you read people make moves, take risks and build a reputation as a certain kind of player.

Today, I realized how fascinating business can be and how vital it is to have a great reputation. Presented a deal to one of our existing investors today who proceeded to spend the meeting chastising us about how lousy a deal it was that we were bidding for, how we had botched our approach and how defocused we are to even pursue such a deal. He even threatened to report to his superiors that we were not doing our jobs. After the meeting, I had a serious conversation with our boss about abandoning this deal for these reasons.

Upon reporting this to our team members in Singapore, I found out that the investor we met with was not credible, tended to “panic” and that we should proceed with our current approach. They further reassured us of a very simple idea, pursuing a large business opportunity ($$$) should never be abandoned at the first sight of trouble.

I guess its true what they say, “it takes (at least) two to tell the truth”. In this case, I think I side with the viewpoint of our teammates whose incentives are aligned with ours and whose reputation is stronger. Anyway, I guess these kind of interesting arguments and counterarguments, the poker strategies and analyses are very interesting to me. Life would be pretty good if I could spend some of my time doing this while helping the sick or the poor. For instance specializing in some branch of medicine (ie Internal Med, Infectious disease) and being established in that field as a practitioner, then also sitting on the boards of some exciting life science technology companies (as a venture partner) which would allow me to travel between China, US, Japan and also managing a clinic/microfinance operation in Africa, Latin America or China.

Last sunny day in SF?

Perfect day today. Sunny, bright and breezy. Spent it at the ballpark with Dan, Jenny, Dave and Sophia. Got sick on garlic fries.

Dan told me today that he’s gonna wait to raise a fund with me when I graduate from med school. That meant a lot, I would love to work with friends whom I respect and admire.

I have great friends in San Francisco. I think that is what I will miss the most about leaving.