The Email I sent out to Friends and Family

I know, it's been a while. Here is an update I sent out via email last week.
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I'd just like to send you a quick update on my time so far in Kuala Lumpur (KL), Malaysia. I have been here for a week and a half already, and thought it prudent to send some type of update! It took 25 hours of flights, and 34 hours total to make it here from door to door. We flew from New York JFK- Vancouver, BC - Hong Kong - to Kuala Lumpur. It was exhausting, but at least I slept for a good 4 hours on the flight! Being 12 hours ahead by time zone, we are the farthest traveling group.

I can pretty much sum up my experience so far in two words: awesome and lucky. Awesome because Malaysia is a very different country, and being in Asia, very unique to the rest of the world (more on it later). Lucky because I feel very lucky to have a job in banking, especially with recent events happening in the market, Standard Chartered is pretty insulated, and is actually growing faster, because of the challenging conditions in the global markets. I feel blessed!

I am in my second hotel, the Imperial Sheraton. I thought the first hotel was great, but this one is even better. I have a walk in closet and a jacuzzi in my bath tub! I feel like I'm on a luxury study abroad trip being spoiled. Every morning we get a breakfast buffet of foods from around the world. I stick to the eggs and bacon (not pork bacon)

The reason I am in KL is for an induction week for the International Graduate program that I am a part of. There are approximately 166 of us from around the world, with only me being 1 of 5 from America. It is truly a diverse group. Most of them, however, studied at a University either in the UK or in the US so their English proficiency for most is pretty much perfect. It makes it really easy to get along and converse, although a british accent tends to pop up from time to time it is great.

Everyone is really nice, and the people I hang out most are from Hong Kong, Singapore, and the UK. We go out to dinner and bars, etc... in KL. It is interesting hearing everyone's life stories as they are mostly from international schools starting in High School and College. It seems like our cultural differences aren't really present- a definite positive!
The induction program last week was all based on building teamwork skills, networking, different attractive aspects of the bank to work in upon graduation of the program, and developing and finding our strengths. Standard Chartered is a strengths based organization and once they realize your strong points, you have a quick expedited career path it seems as it is taught in our training. We did an amazing race style event across KL with my team coming in 4th place out of 21! We were pretty happy with the placement.
Senior management also are flown in from all over the world to give talks and meet with us. We are considered future leaders of the bank, so they want to make sure we feel we have access to them and understand their career paths, and any questions we may have now can be answered. Friday night, we had a costume party to represent our nationality, we came as movie stars- I was Indiana Jones. We were the hit of the event, with many pictures taken of the Americans! China did a presentation of singing and dancing that was pretty amazing, and then we wrapped up the evening by going out in KL. These next 5 weeks are academic training in Finance, so pretty much my past 4 years is being taught back to me it seems, only with the bank's spin on it!

Malaysia is an interesting experience, especially because it is a Muslim country. The women wear headscarves and there is no pork served anywhere, which is quite annoying but I'll live. Turkey bacon, chicken bacon, and beef bacon and other products that should be pork are not that appetizing! Other than that the food is pretty good, however, portions are small and it seems that I am always craving Applebees' fiesta lime chicken. We have eaten at California Pizza Kitchen and their is a Chili's and Ruby Tuesday's we'll be going to soon! There is a lot of oil money from the company Petronas, and it is evident in the very western shopping malls. Most of them I get lost in because they are so large and have so many stores! It is hard not to spend my first paycheck on everything.