11/10 Friday

I went out for a sushi dinner with Lac, Terry, Caroline, and a guy named Ali from Germany. Very good sushi for 5 people was, in total, a little over $60. And that is considered expensive.
We went to a bar called Browns until around midnight. The crowd there is really weird, consisting of older white men, and mid-thirties Chinese women.

It was too late for me to return to my dormitory, so I went and stayed at Lac’s apartment. His place has two bedrooms and is really nice.

I stayed up late talking with him and have come to really respect what he’s done with his life.

He is 26 years old, and is opening a consulting firm in China as soon as the government gives him a permit. Right now he is running a consulting firm but it’s pretty much under the counter. He is completely self built, and started his company a year and a half ago by using the money he made off of renting out an online server and going in on e-commerce. From there he now has several employees, a business partner in Africa, and a number of clients.

He was born in Vietnam, but his family was kicked out and sent to a refugee camp in Hong Kong when he was young. They moved to Canada, and he went through the public school system there. His main language is French. He got 2 masters degrees at Canadian Colleges, and didn’t go to grad school.

All this, however, isn’t what impressed me the most. Lac has been traveling ever since he got out of college. He has gone to every country in Europe except 3, and has also been to countries in South America, Africa, and much of Asia. He has been allowed to do this through his e-commerce business (all he needs is an internet connection), and through the money he makes off of it. He has traveled much of the world, and plans to do more soon, as soon as his firm is up and running. He is leading a very simple life right now, and will soon be working entirely for himself. He is not interested in how much money he makes, just so much as he’s making something. And just so much as he’s making a service in the business world.

Lac also has a great taste for film, and showed me his small but astoundingly good looking set of foreign films (as in, foreign from Hollywood).