I always believed that one should not judge man by the color of his skin but by the color of his underwear. And so it is in Rio. Apparently the color of one’s underwear determines one’s wishes for the New Year here. Since standardizing my underwear (all gray, same brand), my New Year wishing is pretty limited. You would be surprised at how many seconds standardization saves me every morning.

On New Year’s eve, our mixed group of Brazilians, Turkish, Americans and token Singaporean made our way to join three million people at the Copacabana beach. Three million people and limited toilets make a bad mix. The people pissing into the beach and by the sides of hotel were a sight, but the prize goes to a Brazilian who pissed while dancing to the sounds of Funk. Perhaps this yearly ritual explains the saltiness of the oceans?

We found a spot to await the arrival of 2009 on the beach, not knowing that we had chosen a spot next to the gay section on Copacabana. The two male Asian-Americans with us took a while to realize that the friendly Brazilians around us buying them shots of Tequila had ulterior motives. Their suspicions kicked in after one Brazilian started fondling their hair and bottoms.

There was a Brazilian couple in our group. The girl in the couple wore thick red-rimmed glasses and read Manga – I shall henceforth refer to her as the “Sexy Librarian.” My unnamed Peruvian friend would have loved her geeky beauty. While all of us were dancing on the beach, Sexy Librarian contented herself with just rocking gently by the side. We thought she could not dance. However, after her boyfriend fell asleep, she brought out the moves: grinding, twisting and shaking in that incredibly sexy way so many Brazilians dance in.

But the highlight of the night for me was a Brazilian lady who saw me taking picturesof people celebrating the New Year. She called me over, pointed to her bottom and told me to take a picture. Bemused, I prepared to do so when she pulled down her pants and flashed her panties at me. She then turns and introduces me to her daughter and son who were standing next to her. I could only shake my head and explain it by saying its Rio.

The first thing I did in Rio was to watch “Cidade De Deus” – the City of Gods. The movie, named after one of Rio’s favelas (slums), portrays the culture of violence, corruption and drugs in the favela. Rio receives a bad rap for crime and watching the movie made me, for the first time in my travels, paranoid about security.

The presence of security in Rio is palpable. In Centro, the business district, Armored Personnel Vehicles (APVs) sat on every street corner, accompanied by buff towering private police wrapped in bulletproof vests carrying submachine guns. I half-expected robbers with AK47s to burst out at any moment.

And they are everywhere. The security personnel were outside shopping centers, in tunnels and by shops. At places where the richer neighborhoods joined the favelas near the hill, there were gates slicing up some paths, dividing Rio into the haves and have-nots.

I also noticed how on the bus and in many shops, servers were not allowed to handle money. Instead, there is a single person who handles all cash. In the shop, one gets a receipt from the casher and heads over to the cash-handler, who takes the money. Perhaps the lack of social capital leads to this division of labor. There is a trust deficit and a hanging paranoia in this superficially beautiful party town.

The hostel at Puerto Iguazu has a great model for extracting profits from its guest. It caters to a young and relatively rich yuppie party crowd. By creating a party atmosphere, the hostel encourages backpackers to stay longer. The backpackers end up not just seeing the sights, but spend a lot of time at the hostel itself – which leads them to spend a lot at the in-house bar and restaurant.

(Rio De Janiero, Brazil) Apprehensively optimistic?

Two years ago, I was in Hong Kong attending a Wharton Alumni Conference. I was working on a research paper on Chinese Corporate Responsibility (since published in the Journal of Business Ethics). Amidst the (sadly) bland discussions, I remembered a particularly memorable speech by the CEO of BHP Billiton, a global mining giant. The backdrop to this discussion was unprecedented economic growth worldwide, days sorely missed today, leading to commodity price inflation.

The CEO, Mr. Charles “Chip” Goodyear, delivered his views on how the Chinese housing bubble was driving up copper prices with humor. He lamented about his industry’s ability to attract talent. His children never understood his job, and they would tell their teacher that their dad’s job was to watch television all day. He added that one of them wanted to be a doctor and the other a lawyer, and naturally he had to punish the one who wanted to be a lawyer. He exhorted Wharton students among the crowd to consider the mining industry, a blasphemous thought for a school culture dedicated to finance and consulting.

Piqued by the content and the delivery of his talk, I went on stage after he finished and asked him if he could help me with my research. How would I have realized that two years later, this person would become the CEO of Temasek? I was surprised to see his name printed next to Ho Ching’s and Temasek this week in the Financial Times. I hope and believe that his financial acumen is as accurate as he is affable, and that he will see my family’s savings, and Singapore’s savings, through these difficult times. Mr. Goodyear offered to help me with my research, and although I never ended up using it, it makes me glad to see him become the next CEO of Temasek.

我今天讨论的是管理学组合形式，想提出三点：一，管理学研究是如何划分。二，说明管理学分支种类及提出我对哪一个管理学研究分支有兴趣。最后，我会介绍管理学近二十年的最重要理论发展而它对经济学的贡献。管理学的特点是它位于三个系的交界处。他的理论基础是奠定在经济学，心理学和社会学的交界处。调查方式虽然多样化，但管理学的边境划定在这领域想回答的问题及所寻求的答案。

管理学的分支是商业所关注的问题，包括商业策略，企业社会责任，可持续商业模式，人力，等等。 在这多样题目中，我对国际管理研究有特大的兴趣。或许我在三十国家以上研究，工作，和探望的过程中收得深刻的影响，自然而来就给我带来贯穿我全身命的兴趣。我力图想了解企业在新兴市场如何追求目标及实施策略，也想对企业发展如何与解困有相辅相成的关系有更深的了解。这研究分支被称为“金字塔的最底层”策略。

管理学理论近二十年迅速的发展，提出新的假说：企业想获得竞争优势必须拥有独一无二的资源。这个概念被简称为“RBV。” 管理学家希望能用RBV了解企业存在的现象，从而解释企业的大小和企业内所包括的活动范围。这个观点震动了经济学，因为经济学研究忽略企业的特殊性，把企业看为一群体。

The 20 hour overland route to Rio de Janiero from Foz du Iguazu took me over mountains and down into lush topical foliage that undulated up and down the hills. It was beautiful. The hours I had on this trip helped me realize why I travelled and why I seldom plan my travels. For some people, travelling is about seeing a series of sights. It is about a destination. For me, travelling is more about the journey. It is the process I relish. It is about the means through which I discover where I wish to visit (or more frequently, inadvertently end up) and the people I meet along the way. It is about discovery and defining a path.

Perhaps travelling is a microcosm of my life. A compressed version of the thought process I pour into living. Some people have a destination in mind. For me, life has become more open-ended than that. It is a journey by which I slowly uncover what I want to do in life. Perhaps I will never find out what that elusive destination will be and that life simply becomes one long journey where I continuously seek out the destination I should have in mind.

Arriving in Rio, I found out that the New Year celebrations meant skyrocketing prices for hostel and overbooked rooms. I was prepared to ask strangers on the street for a room if I could not find a reasonably-priced place to stay. Perhaps I should have planned this trip, but its all about the journey right?

There are things you had to do at least once in your life. With that reason, I found myself speaking to a Frenchman over the phone. “Ahh! You want to fly?” he said. I wanted to paraglide, not fly. “Flying” conjures up images of renaissance period jumpers with glued-on wings jumping off cliffs to certain death. Then again, that’s a pretty apt discussion of paragliding according to my schoolmate Lenka. 5 minutes later, I was booked on a paragliding trip over the sand dunes of Iquique in Chile – one of the best place in the world for paragliding. I leave the next morning.

Come morning, I found myself down with a viral flu. I persisted and dragged myself out of bed and headed into the cliffs where I would jump off into the sky, soar over the desert oasis of Iquique, and land by its beautiful coastal beaches to the sight of azure water and crashing waves. Hanging in the air for 30 minutes in the midst of a fever is strangely surreal: my phobia of heights did not kick in. Perhaps it was the fever, or maybe it was because I was sitting, or maybe drifting amidst the warm desert breeze, the mind suspends all logic and placed me not in the air but within some magical bubble floating away from Earth.

And then I vomited in mid-air. Paragliding + viral fly = vomiting in mid-air. I hope my co-pilot did not mind, and pray that no hapless beachgoer was sprayed by my vomit 400meters below.