Confessions of a Cat-holic (220)

I didn't really want to work in Hong Kong at that moment. That email to Sun Wei was just a friendly personal note to show that I cared about Asia, after all it was where I grew up. I really wanted the return offer, not necessarily for the fame or prestige, and not to show that I was not a criminal in the banking world. It was quite simple, I just wanted to stay with Eddie. I knew that once I returned to Hong Kong, there would be no way I could date him anymore. Partly because of the distance, partly because Hong Kong was a very competitive place for dating relationships. I grew up there, and I really could not see myself getting married in Hong Kong, because there were just so many unhappy married couples and girls who were too desperate to get married. The girls in my circle were fiercely aggressive; they could do anything to steal my boyfriend/husband. That was a good scenario; if they found out that my boyfriend was a loyal and loving one, the girls would be even more jealous to possibly harm me physically so that they could look better off. Considering that Eddie was good looking and fairly wealthy, and the fact that I possibly would not need to work after getting married, these facts combined could be lethal enough to get me assassinated. If not in New York, I guessed I would probably not even see Eddie again. But then I probably wouldn't want to marry the guys I knew in my circle either, they were either gay or bisexual or trans. The long distance thing was not so much a problem; it was that Eddie's package was too good compared to the profiles of local guys in Hong Kong. I didn't feel safe to date a guy like him; I felt threatened.

After spending a little bit more than two weeks at the securitized product group, Michael Sternberg asked me to transfer to another group, without giving me any reasons. This time, I didn't ask for the group transfer. He made the decision for my transfer. I guessed it was because the other intern, Rohit, was good enough for the group. They probably didn't need another junior there. I felt very upset and disappointed because he put me in DCM this time. DCM stood for debt capital markets; it was the department that communicated between corporate finance and sales and trading. The hours were somewhere in the middle too. I no longer needed to get into the office by 8. I could start a bit later at 9, but then I had to end some time at 10pm too. It was a stretch for me. I didn't like the hours; I needed an hour to commute to midtown from Water Street, so I was literally at work from 8 - 11; six days a week then it would be 90-100 hours, just marginally better than banking hours.

So after two to three weeks at securitized product group, I switched to DCM as requested by Michael Sternberg. I felt very insecure, this would be the third group I worked during my 10 week internship. If I still couldn't secure a return offer, I would have to go back to Hong Kong. That might mean that I would probably never see Eddie again. It was not about the communications channel; they had Skype and cell phones at the time already. It was just my gut feelings that I probably wouldn't want to date him in Hong Kong, because sometimes he looked a bit too good to be true. I would probably be stuck with Edmond, the brothel district scumbag man slut. I went to a fortune teller when I was in middle school. Vicki was there with me too; she listened to all the conversations between the feng shui master and me in South Horizons. The fortune teller warned me that I should not get married before 25 after reading my palm. I really believed what she said because I had a very unusual pattern on my right palm. My left palm looked normal but my right palm had some unusual lines. I noticed that as early as in elementary school. I was told that something bad would happen to me if I ever got married by 25. Vicki and Yvonne said that I was too superstitious; I should not listen to a fortune teller from 廟街 for my 人生大事. I thought otherwise. My friends thought that I was silly to dump Edmond because he looked like a good husband material, which I could never agree.