A Bicultural Professional: 
Divided Loyalty or Best of both Worlds?  (Part 1 of 3)

By George Koo

Despite recent tragic events, we are lucky to be living in America.  This 
is a country of generosity, in space and in spirit.  This is a country 
that has room for everyone and anyone.  Anyone with the desire and the 
drive has the opportunity to succeed here in America.  As previous 
speakers have already recounted, nowhere exemplifies this fact more than 
here in Silicon Valley.

According to latest U.S. census figures, more than one out of four persons 
living in Santa Clara County is an Asian American and one out of every 
fourteen is a Chinese American.  Walk through any high tech company in 
Silicon Valley, and one would meet engineers, managers and executives from 
all over the world.  If America is the land of opportunity, then Silicon 
Valley is the source where opportunities originate. 

Silicon Valley is the living proof that diversity is the strength of 
America.  All of us that live and work in Silicon Valley have become to 
varying degrees multicultural professionals.  We have to develop 
multicultural sensitivities in order to communicate with each other, to 
work as effective teams and therefore to be successful.  Tragically, it is 
the lack of diversity and cultural sensitivity that kept our intelligence 
gathering agencies from detecting and preventing the recent acts of 
terrorism but that's a topic of discussion for another day.

Today however, I would like to talk about the merit of being a bicultural 
professional rather than multi-cultural.  More specifically, I would like 
to talk about being a professional person that takes advantage of being a 
Chinese and at the same time being an American. 

In 1978, more than twenty years ago, I joined Chase Manhattan Bank to help 
American corporations do business in China, thus making use of my Chinese 
background as well as my consulting experience and my technical education. 

At that time, China was just opening its doors to the west and I took the 
job with Chase Bank with a sense of adventure and it did not occur to me 
that being bicultural could serve as a basis for a professional career. In 
fact, many people I met in China and not a few in the U.S. had trouble 
understanding what a person with a doctorate degree in polymer science was 
doing in an intermediary role of uncertain calling.

Today is very different.  China has become the sixth largest economy in 
the world, the only major trillion-dollar economy expected to double 
within ten years, and has become a major trading partner of the U.S. and 
of California.  Today opportunities abound for those who can move 
comfortably and get things done on both sides of the Pacific and who can 
function as a bridge between the east and west. For the twenty some odd 
years that I have been going back and forth to China, I find certain 
practices and ways of doing of things essential to a successful career. 

One is that I take careful notes.  Basically it is never a good idea to 
rely solely on one's memory on important matters, such as your wedding 
anniversary, but it is even more important when you know you are jet 
lagged.  When you are jet-lagged, it is amazing as to how easy it is to 
get order of events, people seen, nature of discussion and decisions made 
all mixed up just a few weeks after it all took place.

Another important characteristic is careful and active listening, or 
listening with empathy.  This means listening in such a way that the 
speaker feels assured that he/she is being understood, not feeling the 
pressure from a listener who is anxious to interrupt and get a word in. An 
active listener is learning from the conversation and meeting, absorbing 
and digesting and understanding.  Most of us leave a lot on the table 
because we have never paid enough attention to becoming a good listener. 
Active listening is a part of effective communication.

(About the author: Born in China, George P. Koo immigrated to Seattle, 
WA as a child.  He
has BS and MS degrees from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a 
ScD from Stevens Institue of Technology and a MBA. from Santa Clara 
University.  Dr. Koo is the Deputy Director of Pacific Rim Services 
at Deloitte & Touche in San Jose, CA, and is a board member of the 
Chinese American Forum, Inc., a non-profit corporation which publishes 
the Chinese American Forum, a cultural and educational quarterly magazine.)