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

By George Koo

As a member of the Committee of 100, I am very proud to be part of the 
team who has been engaged in preparing and updating a position paper on 
the U.S. China relations, entitled "Seeking Common Grounds While 
Respecting Differences."  We've been issuing this paper about every two 
years and the intended audience for this paper is The White House and 
Congress.  In this paper we claim the advantage of bicultural perspective 
in pointing out that China is different from the U.S. in many ways.   We 
encourage frequent interactions between government leaders to promote 
understanding and mutual respect.  We argued that hectoring and lecturing 
and making highly public demands of China to modify their behavior to suit 
our American standard is not productive and not useful.  Every year, we 
organize a conference and part of the program is to promote greater 
understanding between our land of origin and our adopted country.  

As a bicultural person, I also devote efforts the other way, that is 
helping China better understand America.  In the days of the late 70s and 
early 80s, my efforts were mainly directed at trying to convince people in 
China that the streets of America are not paved with gold and that 
everybody works hard for the admittedly high standard of living.  The 
image of a matronly woman in fur walking down 5th Avenue of New York with 
a poodle wearing a cute cashmere sweater and dainty booties does not 
typify America.

Today, I don't have to do that anymore.  China has largely caught up and 
in general understands the U.S. better than the other way around.  Now, we 
talk about high tech development and ways of attracting foreign 
investments.  Everybody is interested in the secrets of Silicon Valley's 
success.  Every chance I get, I explain that Silicon Valley's success is 
in the people.  When they ask what should the government do to create 
another Silicon Valley, my answer is that the government should do nothing 
other than create an open environment.  How does one create a venture 
capital industry to breed successful high tech start-ups?  I say first get 
the stock market up to international standards, let the market conditions, 
rather the government, decide on who should go public and who should not 
and do not limit windfall profit a venture capital firm can make on a 
successful investment.  Of course, to really attract foreign capital and 
venture capitalists the Renminbit  needs to be freely convertible.

We Americans love to think that democracy is the best form of government 
and the right one for everybody.  I happen to think a democratic 
government is one that I would prefer to live under but I do not presume 
to think that it necessarily is the only form of government nor 
necessarily the best one under all circumstances.  In any case, I do not 
believe unsolicited lectures on the superiority of democracy is a very 
effective way of convincing anyone.  On the other hand, when appropriate I 
wouldn't mind explaining to my friends from China about the concept of 
democracy by using actual real life situations. 

Let me give you an example.  A few years ago, I was driving some visitors 
from China along route 280.  Suddenly, I had an idea and pulled into a 
rest area that featured a really ugly sculpture of Father Junipero Serra. 
"See this garden and flowers in this rest area," I said to my visitors, 
"That's the work of a homeless priest."  I then told them the story of 
this priest who was homeless and spent his time beautifying the rest area 
and sleeping there.  The authorities found out about it and wanted to 
evict him.  The public found out about what the authorities planned to do 
and raised uproar in sympathy with the homeless priest.  In face of the 
public pressure, the authorities relented and allowed the priest to stay. 
Somebody, I don't know who, even provided the priest with a small camper 
trailer so that he did not have to sleep in a tent anymore.  Today if you 
go by this rest area you will see even more elaborate gardens as well as 
the camper in the back.  End of a beautiful story.

Why did I tell the story?  Because of its human interest and because it is 
a good illustration of the benefits of a democracy where public opinion 
counts.  In my view, telling the story is a way of making some points 
without being obnoxious about it.Hopefully I have demonstrated and 
convinced you that in acting as a bridge between China and America, in 
speaking about China to help America better understand China, you do not 
have to defend China.  For sure, you should not feel any sense of divided 
loyalty.   

As a citizen of this country, you owe your allegiance to the 
United States.  Period.  This is not negotiable.  As we know well from the 
recent experiences of [Wen Ho Lee]t, there will be plenty of people that
will suspect you of divided loyalty 
anyway.  You must not give them cause and you must fight back when they 
discriminate and practice racial profiling. As I alluded to at the
beginning of my presentation, to be a bicultural 
person is to have the best of both worlds.  As China grows in preeminence 
on the world stage, there will be a growing need for people that can 
communicate, facilitate and motivate on both sides of the Pacific.  But 
the opportunities are even broader than just those that can go back and 
forth.

China is now actively recruiting those that have been trained and working 
in the U.S. to go back to China, much like Taiwan did about 10-15 years 
ago.  Why?  Because these people have the kind of training, experience, 
skill set and mindset, and network of contacts of value to China.  When 
China completes their reform of the securities market and open up the 
venture capital market and makes the Renminbi convertible, the trickle of 
people returning to China to live and work there would become a torrent.
Opportunities in Silicon Valley are also growing for the bicultural person 
as well.  Every new ethnic shopping center that opens means more jobs from 
chefs and waiters to clerks and shop owners to managers and small business 
operators. 

The venture capital (vc) industry used to be virtually an all white 
business.  Thanks to more and more high tech companies successfully 
started up by Chinese American and other Asian American entrepreneurs, the 
VC firms now realize that they are the ones missing out on deal flow if 
they do not have some partners who can interact with the Asian American 
founders.

Same with us here at Deloitte & Touche.  We recognize the opportunity to 
serve increasing number of companies founded by Chinese American 
entrepreneurs as well as companies coming to Silicon Valley from China, 
Hong Kong and Taiwan.  Thus we have formed Chinese Services Group with 
bi-lingual and bi-cultural members to provide an array of services. 
My friends, we are facing tough tough times right now.  When it's the 
gloomiest, it's most difficult to see the light at the end of the tunnel. 
But inevitably the economy will turn the corner.  The long-term future for 
Silicon Valley, for China and for those of us that can live and work in 
both environments is bright and exciting.  I wish all of you the best for 
the coming era, an era where multiculturalism and multilateralism will 
triumph.

(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.)