Loving life

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Tang Chee Kin found his life partner in Denmark and is currently enjoying his work with the World Bank and life in Washington DC.

WORKING abroad has proved to be a fruitful venture for Tang Chee Kin. Topping the list was meeting his wife in 1997 in Copenhagen, Denmark, his first posting.

Tang, 40, married Niina, who is Finnish, less than a year after they met at an international church there. A staunch Christian, Tang believes it was divine intervention.

“I did not know at that time that Denmark was actually no more than a layover for me to ‘pick up my wife,’ not my long-term place of employment,” said Tang via e-mail.

The qualified chartered management accountant was initially supposed to spend three years in Denmark working with the East Asiatic Company (EAC) as financial controller in the plans and controls department.

However, his tenure was cut short.

Going with the flow: Washington DC-based Tang Chee Kin and his wife Niina have lived in Denmark, Switzerland and now the United States.

“Due to the Asian financial crisis in 1997, EAC decided to move its headquarters to Singapore. I had barely immersed myself into life in Denmark and therefore, not too keen to move back to the region I had come from seven months earlier,” said Tang, a certified public accountant and also qualified chartered accountant with the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.

“Desperately, I scrambled to look for work in Copenhagen but to no avail,” said Tang, who worked for two years as senior consultant in corporate finance with Coopers & Lybrand Malaysia (now PricewaterhouseCoopers) before joining EAC.

However, thanks to his MBA classmate in Switzerland, Tang secured a job as management consultant at IMG, a Swiss management consulting firm.

Tang, who holds an MBA from the Institut Superieur de Gestion in France, moved to Zurich in 1998, staying for about five years.

“It was a wonderful experience for my wife and me, and like Copenhagen, we grounded ourselves pretty quickly by being members of an international church with over 30 nationalities,” said Tang.

Working and living in the two European countries also meant learning about their intricacies.

“Everything one typically reads or knows about Switzerland and Denmark is probably true, but there is more to these countries than meets the eye.

"For example, many people don’t know that Copenhagen has numerous pizza stores, some barely large enough for more than five people to stand in, operated mainly by non-natives originally from the Middle East, North Africa and Eastern Europe.

“In Copenhagen, one could get almost anywhere on bicycle, with the majority of roads having separate lanes for cars, bicycles and pedestrians.

“In Zurich, one is never too far away from nature and Lake Zurich. The only problems we encountered were the lack of parking space in the city, the need to get new residence permits when moving from one canton (official region) to another and the clockwork efficiency of the authorities in handing out parking and speeding tickets!”

Despite his limited foreign language abilities, Tang felt at home in both countries, thoroughly enjoying his time there.

“For 200 Danish krone (RM138) per month, I could eat and drink as much as I wanted for lunch at the cafeteria in my office (in Denmark). That was one aspect of the welfare state I could live with!

“On a clear day, I could see Sweden from my office, which was incidentally located within minutes from the famous ‘Little Mermaid’ statue.

“No wonder the Danes claim to be the happiest people in the world according to a BBC survey,” said Tang, who would stroll along Strøget, the longest pedestrian shopping area in Europe, during the weekends,

Tang and his wife moved to Washington DC in 2002 after he “became a bit bored with management consulting”.

“I wanted to try my hand at working for a public sector or non-profit organisation instead. At the same time, the big pharmaceuticals were cutting back on consulting projects, and had I not left, IMG would have let me go in any case.”

Tang applied for the post of non-managerial officer in resource management at the World Bank and got the job.

“Each workplace has its own challenges, largely due to the nature of work more than the different cultures, in my opinion.

"The Bank is a large bureaucracy with all its attendant issues and challenges. Things tend to move slower here than in the private sector, yet its mission of eradicating poverty is a noble one and sufficiently inspiring for many to endure the frustrations of working in a bureaucracy.

“Without doubt, one of the best parts of the job is having colleagues from all over the world,” he said.

In terms of lifestyles in Europe and the United States, Tang feels in general, there are no major differences.

“We now live in one of the suburbs of DC, as opposed to in the city when we were in Copenhagen and Zurich. As a result, we rarely go into downtown Washington except for work and as tour guides when friends and relatives visit.

“In addition, I can now actually understand conversations that are going around me whenever I am in a crowd or riding the metro or train,” said Tang, who enjoys going to the movies with his wife.

Tang feels life working and living abroad is less stressful compared to Malaysia where he had to deal with the heat and traffic jam.

“There also appears to be a strong sense of community over here in the US which may be a surprise to some of us.

"Though the Barclays Premier League does not stop all forms of life here, I still enjoy banter with my local pharmacists who would not hesitate to remind me when Arsenal FC performs badly.

“Our long-term plan is to continue living here until God leads us to another place. We once thought that Switzerland was going to be permanent, but we ended up in the US. So it’s best not to hold our breath or place any bets but to enjoy the ride,” said Tang.