Finding Malaysia
Malaysia is an elusive country.
It has so many layers of culture, customs, people that sometimes, even Malaysian find it hard to pin point what Malaysia is.
With this in mind, my wife just started a blog to (re) discover her Malaysian roots.
As she is the better writer, here is an extract of her blog:
I’ve spent my whole life traveling. I am the result of a lifetime of exposure and immersion in a variety of countries and cultures around the world. At most, I’ve only spent about a fifth of this time in Malaysia; yet, I am Malaysian.
I started this blog to find out more about my roots. They say, to know where you’re going, you must understand where you come from. And even though I can’t quite explain it, I feel there is hidden and simmering bond between this country, culture and me.
This blog is a bit of an experiment really…I hope to find out more about this place through all the questions I encounter which I don’t already have the answers to. This knowledge I seek revolves around questions and musings about the past, the present and the future. Some are quite deep; others a bit more trivial. I’ve already been surprised by how much I thought I knew.
Go check it out – Finding Malaysia.
Finding Motivation !
With the recent Wall Street melt down, the “bonus” system is being revised and many are starting to listen to what economists have found out over the past few years. Contrary to common belief, rewards for top performers lead them to worse performance; instead, organizations should let staff/volunteers/people a free rein and let them work on projects they care about.
Dan Pink says (and present) it better than I in the following video 
The German Healthcare System
Seventh in my series on National Healthcare System is the German Healthcare System.
It just went live on the Lighthouse website a few weeks back, and we got good feedback from our German clients. As with many universal insurance system, overall health care expenditures rose to more than 10% of GDP in recent years. German legislators are trying hard to contain costs, and with the ever-ageing German population, they will have to double their efforts in the future.
A little teaser to entice you to follow the here above link.
You will discover that the German system:
- is very decentralized ;
- is the oldest universal health care system in the World;
- lets individuals choose among the statutory funds in their region;
Trailing Spouses’ Career
When couples migrate, they are usually doing it for the benefit of the husband’s career. There are exceptions of course (yours truly is one of them) but most expatriates still are men. For the sake of simplicity and grammar, I will assume trailing spouse to be the wife here. They accept to give up their job, network, and family so their significant other can realize his true career and financial potential.
While some may chose to take a career break, most would prefer to find a job and keep their career buzzing. Unfortunately, this is not an easy feat to achieve, especially when moving to a new country. A 2009 study from the Permit foundation found that while almost 90% of spouses and partners were employed before expatriation, this figure fell to 35% during expatriation, and 75% of those who are not working want to work – especially among the younger age groups, men, graduates and unmarried partners.
The reason is that trailing spouses face many hurdles when looking for a job in their new country of residence.
- Visa - obtaining a work visa may be difficult.
- Language – how to interact with other when one do not master their language?
- Local network – cut from friends and support network, it takes time and a lot of efforts to find opportunities.
- Children structure – kindergarten and other childcare facilities may not be available.
- Local opportunities – developing country offer less opportunities for qualified job.
- Cultural differences – the working culture can vary greatly among countries, scaring employers away from expatriates applying to manager positions.
As a result, most spouses are forced to take a break. Very unfortunate as 46% of trailing spouse have a Masters or PhD, and 79% speak two or more languages. This qualified work force could be a boon for companies and developing countries in many ways. Unfortunately, companies prefer to recruit and send expats from their HQ, and developing countries have a tendency to create hurdles for protectionists’ reasons.
The Malaysian prime minister and his opposition recently had tea with The Economist and answered a few questions. Some of which were incisive !