The First Week
The reason I’m here in Hong Kong is to work an internship in
the Public Affairs section of the U.S. Consulate General Hong Kong and Macau.
For the last two years I’ve known that I was going to be doing an internship
overseas, but only in the last 6 months did I know where. I selected Hong Kong
as my number one preference and I was honored to get the gig. Housing is
famously scarce here right now as they are renovating some of the staff housing
units. Those of you who know me know that I have taken a keen interest in
US-China relations, but while I had been to 5 continents, Asia had eluded me
until now. Therefore, I was very excited to get to work.
As I mentioned in my previous dispatch, my body was done
sleeping at 2:30am Monday morning despite my best efforts to exhaust it the day
before. My sponsor and I had agreed that I would come to his apartment at 7:30
for the ride into work. So, I had lots of time to kill. I watched some TV and Skyped
with the family for a while. One of the hidden benefits of being 12 hours ahead
of the east coast is that, while it is 2am for you, it was the middle of Sunday
afternoon for the family, so we could chat for a while. I was excited to get
dressed for this particular workday because I considered it the first steps of
my diplomatic career. While I had worked in the Department last summer, this is
just a few months before I formally start my Foreign Service career and was my
first overseas work. To commemorate the occasion I decided to wear a pair of
cufflinks that once belonged to my grandfather, Z.H.K Bigirwenkya.
(Papa's Cufflinks)
He was a
Ugandan diplomat and statesman. He died when I was 10 years old and he and I
never talked about the work he did. I only learned about how distinguished his
career was once I got more interested in International Affairs as an adult.
“You know you grandfather was Secretary General of the East African Community?”
my grandmother would matter-of-factly state one day. “No”, I would reply, “tell
me more.” Turns out that he was a pretty
big deal. He represented his government in very significant capacities. He once
served as Foreign Minister of Uganda, the U.S. equivalent of Secretary of
State. Through his work he had the
opportunity to meet significant men of history like Mao Zedong, Haile Selassie
and President John F. Kennedy, to name a few.
(Papa and JFK)
Without his hard work and
distinguished service, I would not have the opportunities I do today. I would
also learn that I have an uncle on my father’s side of the family who served as
a diplomat doing consular work in Washington D.C., and I currently have a
cousin who is working at the UN. So, it turns out this diplomacy is a bit of a
family calling. I am honored to have the opportunity to carry the torch
forward.
(In addition to my grandfather’s cufflinks I was also wearing gifts
from other people: The shirt was a gift from my mother the watch, tie and tie clip
were a gift from my wife, and even my undershirt [not pictured] was from my
grandmother. I carried all of them with me with pride that day.)
The first day in any job is roughly the same; at least half
of it is taken with administrative tasks. Getting a badge, picking a desk,
getting logged in, taking the requisite security trainings, etc. It is a
strange time in the Public Affairs Section (PAS—everything in government work
has an acronym, get used to it) here in Hong Kong because everyone is transferring
out.
(my desk)
(Entrance to PAS under POTUS' watchful gaze)
(View from my work window)
The summer season in the Foreign Service is typically transfer season.
Most FSO jobs are 2-3 year tours and people like to change in the summers as
not to disrupt their kids’ school schedules. But this summer is exceptional
even by Foreign Service standards; even people who were slated to stay for
another year are leaving early for personal reasons. The PAS section here has
28 people in it, but only 4 of those people are Americans. American Embassies
and Consulates, it turns out, are predominately staffed by locally employed
staff (LES). These are native citizens of your host nation that give the
mission its institutional memory and enable it to function as a well-oiled
machine. A new group of Americans are then flown in every few years to sit atop
the organization and to represent the government, but without the LES, nothing
would get done. As anyone who has sat on the bottom of an organization’s totem
pole can tell you, the bottom is where the real work gets done. In our section
they translate articles, make contacts, set appointments and help their
American colleagues figure out the lay of the land. It is invaluable work. So,
of our 4 Americans, 3 are leaving this summer. So, it is a volatile time and I
was immediately thrown into the fire to help fill the gaps. By the end of my
first day I was editing articles for dissemination to Washington. One of our
responsibilities is helping DC to understand what is going on in the press at
post; Hong Kong and China have a lot going on at the moment and a lot is being
written about it. And while the LES do a great job translating those articles
into English, grammar, syntax and other pieces often get lost in translation.
That is why you, then, need a native English speaker to take a second pass at
the translations before they’re sent out. That is now one of my daily duties.
The second day of the week was my birthday. I had not
intended to mention this to anyone. You don’t want to be the guy that says “Hey, guys. I know you just met me yesterday,
but would you mind showering me with inordinate amounts of attention today?
That’d be great!” I had gotten my birthday song from the family already that
day in a Skype session, so I was set. But then it turned out that they had
selected this day for the office birthday party for all the June babies in the
section. Strangely, it turned out, this was the first time they had done this
in over 12 months. My sponsor, Tau, said he’d been here a year and had never
seen this done. So, what followed was the most inclusive birthday party you’ve
ever seen. Everyone went around the room saying when their birthday was and we
celebrated everyone.
("Happy birthday to...everyone!")
Tau was standing to my left as we were going
counter-clockwise around the room saying our birthdays. “It’s today,” he says.
Huh!? “Really??”, I retort. “Yeah,” he confirms. “Me too!”, I snap back. He
thinks I’m pulling his leg, but I assure him I am not. So we enjoy a good laugh
about this.
(Tau and I right as we discovered we're birthday twinsies)
It would be funny enough if you and your sponsor had the same
birthday, but Tau and I are the only black guys in the section and we’re both
Pickering Fellows. The LES got a great kick out of this coincidence. I later
told Tau that I was sure that they now think all black guys in America are born
on June 9th.
This coincidence was not the best part of the day, however.
That honor belongs to Jack. Not me, mind you. Jack is the son of our spokesman,
Scott. He happened to be in the office that day and he immediately fell in love
with me, for some reason. Maybe its because we’re name-sakes or some other
8-year old reason, but he couldn’t get enough of me that day. He kept peppering
me with questions: “What did you do before you came here? Where are you from?
Etc.” He’d then come and tell me random things about himself “I went on a navy
ship today”, he had gone on a tour of one of our ships with his dad that was in
port. “Cool,” I said, “tell me all about it!” And he did. I came back from
lunch to find he had drawn me a picture and left it on my desk. It was a
picture of me “Mr. Bisase” it was titled. I was really touched by this.
(Jack's drawing)
Being
away from my own kids, experiencing the love of this child was chicken soup for
the soul. Later, when Jack found out that it was my birthday, he drew me a
second picture. This one was of a giant birthday cake; it looked like something
you’d see in a Dr. Seuss book. It had candles on it that look like 4th
of July sparklers and they had caption bubbles above them “Pow!” they
exclaimed. By the end of the day he had made me a paper airplane (with
impressive symmetry) and also written his dad’s cell number onto a piece of
paper for me. As we talked we discovered that, after they leave Hong Kong in
August, his dad was going to be in DC for language training. In fact, Scott’s
first day in language training will be my first day in the Foreign Service.
We’ll be at the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) training at the same time. So,
I assured Jack we’d see each other again in DC. I look forward to him getting
to meet my kids. They’ll get along great. Jack definitely won the day for me.
(For my money, Jack is the coolest kid in Hong Kong)
Day three brought my first assignment for the Consul General
(CG). Since Hong Kong is not a capital city, we don’t have an Ambassador in
charge of our Consulate. The CG is, therefore, the Ambassadorial equivalent for
our mission. He has an event next week and PAS is tasked with typing up memos
for him to know what he needs to know for this meeting along with bios of the
people he’ll see there. The idea is that he can look at this memo in the car on
the way there and be up to speed once he arrives. Scott said he’d like me to
draft it. I was honored to get this job because they had no idea if I’d be good
at it or not. I was given a prior memo to look at as a template along with the
planning emails that went back and forth setting up the event and was then told
to go to work. The hardest thing to do is to figure out what in the emails the
CG needs to know and what you can toss. Also, I had a guess list of the other
attendees and had to find bios on all these people. This required a lot of Googling
to verify you’re talking about the right person. Some of these people aren’t
famous enough to have extensive Internet profiles, so it is easy to confuse
them with someone with the same name with a law practice somewhere. Once you
found the right bio, they also required editing because depending on where you
find the bio, the info might be useful or it may be just a list bragging about
projects they’ve done. I got that done on Friday and Scott told me I had done
excellent work, “however the CG may not be going to this event after all.”
Sigh… oh well, as long as I did my job well, right?
Wednesday also brought my first representational event. I
was asked to represent the consulate at a Jazz event. We had paid for a big
time Jazz musician to come to Hong Kong to conduct a master class and to do a
concert series to promote U.S. culture. I left the consulate at 6 but the show wasn't until 8, so I took the time to enjoy the Hong Kong skyline. I then noticed this crazy building (ICC Tower) that had a movie playing on it. Hong Kong, you've truly outdone yourselves!
( I took my own cell phone camera video of this, but this video is better)
The jazz event was at city hall and there is more than one venue in the building. I initially went to the wrong theater and
said I was there to represent the consulate. They quickly scanned the tickets
they had set aside for will call and didn’t see one for me. They then got a
spare ticket and were handing it to me as we discovered that I was in the wrong
place. I guess being with the Consulate carries some weight around this town,
even when you’re in the wrong place. The concert was a perfect way to cap the
most unique birthday in my 34 years.
(Taking in some Jazz for my country)
Thursday was a memorable day because it was the first time
I’ve ever watched the NBA Finals on my lunch break. A 9pm EST game goes into
the 4th quarter around lunchtime on this side of the world, so I
figured I go downstairs to see if LeBron could Superman his team to victory,
which he was able to do, much to my surprise. Despite his leaving the Heat, I
still have residual love for the man for the 4 great years he gave us.
Later that day I was then asked if I’d like to give a 30-45
minute talk to 75 high school students about the benefits of learning how to
code. “Sure!” I said. I had long ago resolved that I would take on any job I
was asked to do, no matter how crazy, difficult or menial it seemed. Ones
stripes must be earned. “I guess I have to learn something about coding now,” I
thought to myself. But I have 2 weeks to put my presentation together, and if
grad school taught me anything about myself, it’s that I am capable of learning
a lot in a very short period of time. Time to put those skills to the test. That
afternoon I had the opportunity to staff the finals of a contest PAS has been
running called the My American Dream Contest. Contestants submitted videos
describing why they wanted to visit the U.S. and what they would do if they got
to go. The consulate, then, partnered with corporate travel providers to get
flights, hotels and transportation to support the fulfillment of the dreams of
the winners. It is a great example of a public-private partnership and is a
great advertisement for American tourism here in Hong Kong. The winners will
then be asked to come back home and speak in the community about what they saw
and learned. The finalists were invited to our offices for interviews and I and
another intern provided logistical support and score tabulation services for
the judges.
Thursday night then brought my biggest screw up of the week.
Since we live in guarded, gated compound with nothing but American Diplomats,
locking doors is not a priority around here. My stuff has never been safer.
However, on this day I had a DVD player delivered to my apartment by our
management staff. And, although they found the door unlocked, they locked it
behind them when they left. As you’ve probably deduced at this point, I stopped
bringing my key with me and I was locked out when I got home. A mild inconvenience,
I thought. I’ll just go down to the guard shack and get a spare key. Surely
they have one…. Not so fast. While they do have a spare, they keep it in a
locked closet, and they guy with that key can’t be here for 3 hours. What!?
Ugh! I tried not to think about the absurdity of that situation for too long,
it just upset me. It is what it is and being mad won’t help me. It was my
mistake, after all. The good news was that Tau leaves his apartment open too,
so I was able to go sit there until the key showed up even though he wasn’t
home. The Hong Kong heat and humidity is unlike anything I’ve ever seen, and I
spent the better part of 3 decades in North Florida. The guard told me a funny
story of a lady in my same circumstance that didn’t have a friend’s apartment
to hide out in. She had to walk down to the grocery store and buy multiple ice
cream cones to try and stay cool. It’s a losing battle out here; nothing helps
keep you cool in this bog.
Friday was a special day because it was present day. Once I
arrived to Hong Kong as I was unpacking my bags I discovered that Steph had
hidden gifts in my luggage. I got one for each week I was gone. And today was
the first day I got to open one. She said they were intended to be just little
reminders of home. I snacked on this reminder all day long.
(Present day goodness!)
Another interesting thing about the day was that the LES
told me that it was Fridays are casual in this office. I had no intention of
partaking, however, since I was trying to build a reputation and I didn’t think
showing up to work in a t-shirt would help convey the seriousness I wanted to.
I thought about my grandfather “would he show up to work in jeans?” I doubt it.
Then I imagined the CG coming down the hall to meet me for the first time, “do
I want him to find me dressed down?” No, no, no. So, I suited up for they day.
(This famous clip sums up my feelings about Casual Friday nicely)
This turned out to be a good move as Tau was out for the day and there was an
appointment he was slated to take. They asked me to do it 30 minutes before the
meeting “Sure!” I quickly responded, without even knowing what it was or what
I’d be asked to do. “I’ll brief you in the car” they told me. 10 minutes later
I’m zipping across town for my first meeting outside the consulate. We met with
an art gallery owner who is looking for the support of the consulate in promoting
a show he will be doing in presenting the work of a famous American artist. It
was a great meeting and I actually was able to contribute to the discussion
quite a bit. My arts education served me well that day. As we drove away I was
grateful for the opportunity, the guy was really passionate and had a
stunningly fresh and unique gallery. Guys in t-shirts don’t get that chance…
On Saturday the families in our compound got together at the
community pool for a BBQ to send off all the folks who are rotating out. This
was a great time that enabled me to meet some of my colleagues and start to
build relationships with them. I found guys that are sports nuts like me and
another guy who noted my Coachella t-shirt I was wearing that enabled us to
geek out about bands we like for 20 minutes. It’s always refreshing to find
kindred spirits. Most of these guys have been in the service over a decade so I
was able to get great advice about smart ways to structure your career. I think
this Foreign Service thing is going to suit me just fine.
(The community pool. My apartment is the top floor of the building above)
One final lesson for the week: remember that humidity I was
telling you about? Well, I bought a case of Heineken for the pool party and I
was taking the empties to the recycle bin when they all suddenly fell out of
the bottom of the case and shattered all over the pool deck. I spent the next
25 minutes sweeping then hosing down the area as to make sure people’s kids
didn’t cut their feet up. I was then informed that anything cardboard in Hong
Kong gets soggy pretty quickly around here. “No more beers for me, then” I
said. Once of my colleagues responded, “just get cans next time.” Good idea,
buddy. Cans it is…
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