Day H2: Shifting into Abundance

January 17, 2025

For whatever reason, I woke up with a nasty dry cough that would continue for several days. Even before all this, I had caught some respiratory disease that lasted nearly two weeks. Was this really a strange new pandemic originating from China that nobody wanted to talk about? Or was this HPMV, or maybe that was a code name for a new secret covid disease? Or maybe something else entirely? Truth be told, we will never know. All I can say is that my body was entirely weakened and susceptible to any number of viruses.

After having got a decent sleep, it was such a simple matter to walk right out of the compound and get a taxi at the entrance. It was strategically located right by the highway to reach the South Railway Station in maybe 15 min. Along the way, the taxi driver said my excellent Chinese reminded him of another customer, this time an African Muslim who reportedly had 7 wives. One for every day of the week and not a lot of rest in between.

How's that for convenience, a Starbucks right beside my gate

A fast train whisked me to Shenzhen in just over 30 minutes. There was barely time to breathe before getting off. Then it was another subway ride to the Sea World where I had booked a fitness class. The class was of course quite difficult and the vibes were very good. The trainers and the other athletes were all friendly and I had an excellent chat with the owner who I know from before. We talked a lot about the declining economic situation in Shanghai and she said that it's the same in Hong Kong apparently. This kind of surprised me, as she was saying so many similar things: less nightlife than before, expats leaving, restaurants and bars closing, more restrictions, etc... Everything she said was also backed up by earlier ChatGPT conversations where this dynamic creates a 'perpetual pandemic syndrome'. Covid is long over with (or so we think), but when you see restaurants and bars closing nonstop due to economic decline, it's almost like you're still in the pandemic.

They had wicked sandwiches in the same building

The food break helped me start planning my next moves: try to book some hotels in Hong Kong, then realize how crazy expensive they were. After that, try to register for an upcoming job fair that I had completely forgotten about earlier. The whole thing was a mess, but thankfully my wife came to the rescue and was able to sort some of it out.

With things sort of getting back on track, I then hopped into another taxi to the Shenzhen Bay Checkpoint. It was there that a random tout came up and said, "You want to go to Hong Kong airport?" Well apparently I did actually. That's where my bank was located and there was an appointment lined up with my personal relationship manager. I asked the price for this minivan, it seemed legit, and he even had business cards and the company was semi-legal it seemed. Classic grey area, and the police weren't doing anything to stop this, so I figured what the hell let's get in the minvan.

As I was waiting for more people to join, a Chinese American woman introduced herself and said, "Is this minivan any reliable to get to the airport?" I told her, "Your guess is as good as mine, but it sure beats going through that immigration queue and trying to find a bus. Once you clear immigration, there is a maze of buses. If you want to go to Jordan (downtown HK) it's easy. They all go to Jordan, but as for the airport I haven't a clue which bus you take. If this guy says he'll go there direct in a minivan, might as well take it."

Much better to catch a van here than go through this checkpoint

She then said, "Alright we'll do this. We actually need to go to the Marriot Hotel as we're staying there before flying to the US the next day. We tried to book the ferry for twice the price of this minivan but it was all sold out." This ferry she was talking about is not the greatest deal. It will go directly from Shekou to HK Airport but if you're not flying then you can't get on it. What's more, as I learned from what Jill was saying, the flight has to be within a few hours of when the ferry leaves. So even they couldn't take it.

It was becoming obvious by now that we were in the thick of the Chinese New Year rush already. Once I figured this out, I became even angrier that my boss kept us working until the bitter end when we could have gotten a head start by at least a week to beat all these crowds. But now it didn't really matter. It still made much more sense to do my exit trip in stages, rather than just a direct flight to Thailand. Otherwise I would be exporting all my work toxicity to the Land of Smiles.

The husband all along was sitting with us and we got chatting some more, he lives near Seattle (not far from my hometown) and his wife had gotten a green card a long time ago. It was easy for her to go back and forth as she didn't have to worry about dual citizenship which China doesn't allow anyway. So all that was needed was her Chinese passport and the US green card to pass immigration. This led to us talking about how the husband managed to get a 10 year Chinese visa for 90 days per stay, and apparently I could get one too. We then talked about how I lived in China for nearly 20 years and Joe said, "That's incredible, and you don't have a long term visa after all that?" I said, "I don't. It's just work visas and the company renews them year by year. Honestly it makes no sense and it's like I wasted my life. 20 years in China and I have nothing to show for it. My other family members moved abroad to places like the UK and Japan and managed something, as for me it's just work visas" We then realized that trying to apply for the Chinese green card was not worth it either, and so this idea of a 10-year visa with multiple entries started sounding a lot more appealing.

After more chat, of course I had to sneak in a few comments about how my boss is a piece of trash and the declining economic situation in Shanghai was contributing to all of this. They were entirely sympathetic and they were the rights ones to talk about this to. Within no time we got to the airport but the driver refused to go to the Marriot. Jill leapt into action and scolded him. She said, "The first guy on the mainland side agreed this car goes to the Marriot and he didn't communicate this to you. But I'm telling you right now, you take us all to the Marriot or we aren't leaving the car!" After several times, the driver angrily relented and took off. I said, "Thanks to you, you're amazing. My wife would get along very well with you."

We all had a laugh, then I saw the minivan speed past the Regal Hotel where I was supposed to be. That is where the bank is. Given that my brain wasn't working properly (and why would it after all this stress), I had wrongly assumed the bank was at the Marriot Hotel where they were. At that point I told them this and they thought it was all funnier.

We exchanged contacts then it occured to me I had 10 minutes to try and make my way back to the airport terminal to make my bank appointment at the Regal Hotel. But there was just one problem: how? The entire way was a gigantic construction site and I had no money for any taxis or shuttles. Remember that once you cross out of mainland China into HK, that beloved phone payment intranet no longer works. It's back to the real world of cash, credit cards, and wallets.

The only thing I could think of was to walk then run through this zigzag maze of a construction site to the airport terminal. It got crazier and crazier the deeper I went, and people started yelling. Clearly this walk was illegal. At some point I spied a route that would work and ran across several lanes of traffic, hopped a few curbs, jumped a fence and found my way inside the terminal.

Once there I was late for my bank appointment but my personal relationship was all smiles. He saw me sweating and offered me water and coffee and just said sit down and relax, we'll take care of you. All I wanted was to inquire about how to transfer Thai Baht from my condo and open a money market fund for my harvested stock profits, but they had other ideas. Eric said, "My assistant will be with us to offer you a more diversified savings plan."

Sure enough, Kelly didn't waste any time to try and sell a variation of cash value whole life insurance. I couldn't believe this. Her sales pitch was carefully curated as they knew I despised cash value insurance. And it was very clever to think they could pull this off by seducing me with a pretty face. But no, that trick was not going to work. I would instead leverage this to my advantage. She went on many times to say, "I know you don't like insurance, but think of it this way. If you (touch wood) happen to die, then the face value plus your cash investment goes to your beneficiary. And it's not like that policy you had earlier where only the face value gets paid out. Think of this as a diversified safe investment. You pay the premium in three year installments and that's all. For example $50k one year, $50k the next, then the final $50k. After five years the policy starts to earn interest and within about 15 years you've doubled your money. It's also not like the one you had before where you need to actively manage funds in the market and you can lose money. This one is all managed by institutional investors and earns a steady 5-6%. When the market is up, they save the excess capital to cover the down market years"

The best bank ever. This is where the magic happens

To be fair, the product she's selling IS better than the previous piece of shit I had wasted 15 years on where I barely got back my investment and the premiums were paid every month. It seems like the fees are front-loaded in both cases which would explain why you have to wait 3-5 years to start earning any money (in both cases). But the difference is here you're paying 3 x $50k in three years instead of what works out to be $833 premiums every month for 15 years, or roughly the equivalent of what I paid with the previous policy.

What she's basically selling is a forced savings plan. Kelly also said, "As a teacher I'm sure you know that you need to repeat things several times to your students before they understand. Similarly, you've seen us present this insurance plan before and maybe now you're starting to understand it." I had to admit she was right, and the fact that she saw me starting to process all this and think of biting meant that she went even harder for the kill. As I understand it now, this forced savings plan accomplishes what the other one doesn't. But the major problem is this: you won't know what really happens until 15 years passes. And there is no way I can afford to wait that long again.

In the end I was polite and said, "I'm understanding this more now, but I don't think right now is the time for this policy" She finally relented and I told her, "You now what? Let's just go for a safe and boring unit trust. At least it's liquid and the money can go in and out. If I have to pay 1% for this I really don't care. You're saying it can earn up to 25% which means a bit more risk, but remember I told you that I trade stocks and I'm not kidding when I made 60% last year. And after we sort all this out, I'm going to a job fair tomorrow and trying to find work here." She totally lit up and said, "Excellent choice! You know, I think you would really like Hong Kong. It's a vibrant city, tons of fun, many foreigners, and they speak English. There's so much work here. You would like HK Island the most, that's where I think the city life is the best." Eric then went on to vouch for this and said it's a new chapter.

The meeting started to get further and further off the rails after that point. In the end it devolved into topics we can't discuss here, and Kelly being in shock that her colleague was talking the way he did. She said to me, "Watch out for this guy, he is an I.B.M. International Big Mouth. Don't be like him."

But the funny thing is after she excused herself to leave for something, we never saw Kelly again.

With that key piece of business sorted I then sat down, collected my thoughts and realized something: abundance was just around the corner. Now, finally, the worst was behind me.

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