 Good morning everybody. Aloha. This is Mark Schlauwe. I'm the host of Law Across the Sea and in Hawaii we have lots of attorneys, lots of good attorneys, lots of attorneys with experience all over the world. And we can draw on that experience to help Hawaii, help our community, help our state in progressing. And today we're going to be talking with a lawyer who spent a lot of time in China, especially in Shanghai. And the title of this program today is called Shanghai, and that's my attempt at humor I guess. But today our guest is Sarah Kose. Sarah, welcome. Thank you for having me. So thank you for being here. I really, really appreciate it. You know, right now you're the vice president legal counsel for Central Pacific Bank. You're not here on behalf of the bank today. You're just here to share your experiences and background in China. Yes. But your present position is probably different from what you've had in the past. And I want to learn a little bit about that. Before coming to Hawaii, I understand you lived in Shanghai for 11 years. You worked for a law firm and some maybe large, large companies. And I hope you'll tell us a little bit about that. Myself, from my own experience, my father was born in China. He was born in Harbin, China. Oh, wow. And so I've always been drawn to China. I've always wanted to learn about China and go to China. And I went to China about 10 years ago, a little more than that. I went to Shanghai. It's one of the most interesting historic cities in the world, in my opinion. I really, really enjoyed the experience and meeting the people. But I'd like to learn about yours and how you got there and how you developed your practice or how you became a lawyer there, where you worked. First of all, let's talk a little bit about your background. Where were you born? And where did you go to school and grew up? So I'm from upstate New York. I spent my entire childhood there, north of Albany, near Schenectady, Saratoga region. So I grew up there. And what type of environment? Suburban? Coase, C-O-E-S. That's not a Chinese name. No, it's not. My parents are both, their families are from Massachusetts. There's actually a Coase square in Worcester. I think there may be a highway where it used to be. There's at least a Coase pond there. But anyway, my father worked for General Electric for 40-something years and General Electric since it's connected in New York. So it's a suburban, rural-type community. It's very non-diverse, very different than other things. But it's also a great place to visit and grow up. And law school or college, where did you go? So college, I went to Columbia, which is in New York City. And at that point in time, in the early 90s, people from upstate New York did not go to New York City. So many people tried to talk me out of it. It was considered very dangerous. It's pre-Juliani, New York City. But I had a great time at Columbia, and I decided to stay and also went to law school there. I'm just curious. People tried to talk you out of going to downtown, New York. What made you say, no, I'm going to go there? I guess I had a rebellious part of it. A little bit rebellious, a little bit. The music I listened to, the kind of things I was into, I thought that New York City was a place where I was going to be exposed to a lot more types of people, culture, concerts, clubs, fun. Is that what you found to be the case? I did. I eventually had to focus on studying, but I had a little bit too much fun my first year of college, and then after that, I got into the books. At some point in time, you developed an interest in China. Were your parents involved in China? Are there any background there like my father? Not at all. Basically, in high school and then in college, I always studied German. I went on an exchange program to Germany in high school, and then in college, I actually went to Germany one summer and worked as a waitress. I had a desire to learn a second, I guess a third language, a second, second language. I was just thinking about what to learn, and I had narrowed it down to Korean or Chinese. I chose Chinese based on liking to watch Zhang Yimou movies. Nothing else. Never thought I'd go there. You're paying a lot of money to go to college. You're allowed to take up to something, 20-something credits a semester, and I had the view I should get my money's worth, so I took the maximum number of credits and took extra things. Why were you watching those Chinese movies? I really liked movies. My friend in college, still my good friend, we used to go to movies at least once a week. It was something we did. Okay, but not the typical movies perhaps, or maybe in that time it was, I'm not sure. Well, in New York City, there's a lot more of what you could consider art house type cinemas, so there's a lot to choose from, and so we often went to that type of movie, yeah. Okay, so I'm going to press you a little bit. What about China? You saw the movies and you wanted to learn a new language, so there's something there that touched you. I'm just going to touch me. It fascinated me because you listened to them talk, and at that point in time I couldn't make out anything. Normally if you listen to someone speak, you know, Spanish or French, you can make out some words. It might sound similar to English. It was just completely foreign to me and interested me because of that. It was a challenge. All right, so this was in college. Yes. And what was your next step in your progression towards China? How did you, you decided to learn the language, and then you decided, what, what next? So I took two years of Chinese, my junior and senior year of college, and then I applied to law school. I got into law school and I was suddenly faced with, I need to grow up now, I'm going to go to law school, you know, that this is my life. And I wasn't ready for that yet. So I was able to defer a year to go to law school. And so I requested to defer, and then I decided I wanted to go to either China or Taiwan for the year because I felt like it would help me understand the new culture, improve my language ability, just have a kind of a broad type of experience before getting on with my life. So I was, I decided this may be my May of my senior year. I was too late for any of the programs that send you to teach somewhere. This was before China was really on the internet. So I actually wrote, you know, actually type written letters and research at a library, addresses of universities in China and sent them out. And somebody called me up maybe a month later with a job. From China. From China. Wow. And where was that? So it's in Shanxi province. That's the province where Xi'an is. It's a city called Hanzhong. So if you're a China scholar, that was important in the Three Kingdoms period. Not really since. But it's a, they call it a prefecture. So it's kind of like a county with about 300,000 people, which is small for China. Very rural, very poor. And there was a teacher's college there. And I taught English to people who are going to be future high school English teachers. Okay. And what was the name of the school? You could call it Hanzhong Teachers College. Or sometimes they call it Hanzhong, normal college, normal. In Chinese, when they translate to English teachers, I don't know for some reason, teachers colleges, sometimes they're called normal university or college. I've heard that before too. Yeah. So, all right. So you took two years? Just one year. No, I'm sorry. Two years of Chinese college. Oh, yes. And you're staring at going to law school. Yes. And, well, why law school too? I mean, what the... So that wasn't very well thought out in my part. I love being a lawyer, but at that point in time, most everyone I went to college with ended up becoming an investment banker, a consultant, you know, Anderson Consulting, or going into the dot-com. I looked into those careers. I wasn't that interested. My backup was law school. Okay. That's... I've never heard of backup of law school, but, okay. That's... Yeah, I did just... It seemed like the best option. And I, you know, it always kind of appealed to me. I had a great aunt who was a lawyer in Boston, a criminal defense attorney, probably graduate from law school in the 30s, so one of very few women. And, you know, it always seemed kind of, I don't know, exciting and glamorous to me that she was a lawyer and had done that. Okay. And so you got... You just wrote kind of... Yes. Without knowing what would happen. And somebody said, sure. Mm-hmm. Come and you went. And, well, how did that transpire? What was the experience you had in that time? You mean my time in China? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it was very, very difficult for about the first six months in China. You know, it was very poor. It was a lot of culture shock. And I also got to China, and I didn't understand a word anyone was saying. And when I tried to speak to people, no one understood a word I was saying. It was just completely different than what I had learned in Chinese class. And, you know, it was also challenging that, you know, during the winter there we would only have electricity and water a few hours a day because there was a reservoir and only so much water had to last the winter. So it's just huge changes. And also I was very isolated because I was one of two foreigners in the town of 300,000 people. The other foreigner was much older than me, a man. I didn't get on that well with him, so I was just very much alone everywhere I went. People stared at me. There weren't that many foreigners in China then. You know, they followed me around. They took photos of me. It was still hard. You were like a brand new exhibit somewhere. Somewhere, yes. And so what happened? Eventually I became good friends with, you know, some... Because I was young. I was probably 22. There were students who were even older than me. I became friends with people. You know, I started finding people who... Chinese. Chinese people who, you know, my Chinese also at one point just suddenly clicked. Like I started being able to communicate with people quite freely. And I found people who wanted to, you know, spend time and be friends with me without any ulterior motive. There were a lot of people who wanted to be friends with me to impress their friend or this or that and... Maybe learn to speak English. Practice English, yes. So finally, you know, I found people that I got on with and I also got quite used to being alone and it no longer bothered me. Okay. And so the interesting thing is the friendship thing. And learning to make friends with foreigners, foreigners for us and you're their foreigner, I guess, is kind of something important that we should be doing. And in that respect, was it hard in China? I mean, did you find that these friendships were hard to develop or did it take a little bit of time? It sounds like it took a little bit of time and somehow there was something that worked. Some relationships that somehow worked. Yeah, I think... I mean, I don't think it's that as much this way probably anymore in China, but then, you know, the foreigners were very much the other then and so... And then there's also this probably a view of Americans is very rich and so whatever it's focusing on and the difference is, but I think over time, you know, people would see what's the same and sometimes doing things like, you know, working hard or helping out on something like you're everyone's equal, you know, the people finally saw that I am just like them, that I'm no different, you know, but, you know, they have to get past their preconceptions, I guess. And something you said, you know, to me, it really touches me and that is that you find things in common. Yeah. And all of a sudden, when you find things in common, even if you don't look alike and you don't speak the same language, somehow you're able to come together and that sounds like, to me, what happened. Yeah. What happened. Okay, I want to talk a little bit more about taking off from there and going into you becoming a lawyer and your continued contacts with China, but we're going to take a short break right now. Okay. Okay? Welcome to SaintTechHawaii.com. This is Johnson Choi, your host. The topic is Asia Reveal. We do it on a monthly basis on Thursday at 11 o'clock. Be sure to check the schedule. See you. Hi, I'm Donna Blanchard. I'm the host of Center Stage, which is on Wednesdays at 2 o'clock here on ThinkTech. On Center Stage, I talk with artists about not only what they do and how they do it, but the meat of the conversation for me is why they do it, why we go through this. A lot of us are not making our livings doing this and a lot of us would do this with our last dying breath if we had that choice. And that's what I love to talk to people about. I hope you enjoy watching it and I hope you get inspired because there's an artist inside G2. Join us on Center Stage at 2 o'clock on Wednesdays. Bye. Hi, my name is Aaron Wills. You are watching ThinkTechHawaii.com. I am the host of the show Rehabilitation Coming Soon. You can catch us live on ThinkTechHawaii.com at 11 a.m. on Tuesdays. I will see you there. Across the sea with Sarah Koh is talking with us about her life in China. And she worked for 11 years in Shanghai and now works for a bank here, Central Pacific Bank, in Hawaii, although she's not here on behalf of the bank today. But we'd like to, I'd like to lead up and find how she finally got here. So let's talk a little bit about that, Sarah. So you went to college. After college, before you went to law school, you think, I'm not ready for law school, so let's spend some time in China. And I still think there's something there that drew you to China. Maybe it was the movies, but I also think there's something more, in my mind, because you developed friendships and you learned the language. So what happened after your stay as a teacher in China? What happened with your career going forward? So I went back to law school. And then at law school I was, I guess, pleasantly surprised because there were a lot of major U.S. and international law firms at the time setting up offices in China. And there was a lot of work for foreign lawyers in China as far as developing major infrastructure projects. And so while in law school, I sought out internships for summer clerkships at law firms that had that sort of business in the thought that in the future that something I would be interested in doing, it would be an exciting thing to do as a lawyer. And in China, you kind of put the two together. So maybe that year, maybe that year was meant to be, that year teaching worked out for you. Yes, because I wouldn't have gone that direction otherwise if I hadn't spent the year first in China. Okay, so then what happened next with your career once you went through law school? So I actually decided to start my career in New York City after doing two summer clerkships in Asia. What I found is it may have changed, but at the time the offices in Asia were quite small and there wasn't as much of a training program for a young lawyer. So my goal to be a great lawyer who could work anywhere in the world, I didn't want to be just a China lawyer. So I decided to first work in New York City and get a few years' training, but work at a law firm where I would have the opportunity to transfer to a China office. And so I worked for a British law firm, well it's not truly British anymore, it's a European law firm you could say called Freshfields Brookhouse Daringer. I worked first in the New York office and then later I moved to their Shanghai office so I'm not sure about two, three years. In Freshfields when you applied for the job there was your China background something that they looked for or did they care about it or just you being a graduate of Columbia it's probably a good thing too. Well I had applied first actually for their Asia offices so they had a China practice which covered Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing and I'd done a summer clerkship there and they had given me an offer to go out to any of those offices after I graduated. Typically the new graduates at that time would go to Hong Kong, get training for a few years and then transferred either Beijing or Shanghai and I specifically requested them could I instead start in New York and they accommodated me. Okay and why was that? Just curious I can't help but... Why did I want to be in New York? I just really felt that I was going to be getting the training I needed in New York. Alright that makes sense. Okay so then what happened? So I was in New York in the interim I got married which we haven't touched on but my husband is Chinese I had met him when I was teaching English in China. So he had come to New York we were married my mother-in-law became ill and I was now a Chinese daughter-in-law and as a Chinese daughter-in-law if your family needs you you go. So we arranged for me to go to the Shanghai office so we could be closer to my husband's family. Okay where was he from? He's from Xi'an. Okay so he's from Xi'an and so there is a romantic part of this story that we haven't touched yet. Okay so then what happened? Then what happened with respect to your career and maybe we'll... So when I had been in New York I'd actually been doing mostly finance work project finance, structured finance when I got out to Shanghai the work was more M&A related I was put on having never done an M&A deal in charge of a $500 billion M&A deal I learned a lot I worked very hard the hours were much longer than New York hours the New York hours are very long but I had a great time and I did... I succeeded in closing that deal and many other deals and became a great M&A lawyer but then I had a child in the interim she was about a year old I never saw her I worked both days on the weekend and a friend called up a friend from law school who was working in Beijing at the time and told me that he had a friend working at Honeywell who was looking for an in-house council would I be interested and I did some research because if you're going to go in-house you want to go to the right place you don't want to be jumping around it seemed like a great place to work and so I decided to apply for the job I got it and that was in Shanghai Honeywell's Asia Pacific headquarters are in Shanghai so it covers, depending on the business different numbers of countries but up to 17 countries are being serviced mainly out of Shanghai and how long were you there? Honeywell I was there about 8 years and then what happened? then I kind of I guess based on by then I had three kids I felt that I needed to leave China for their education for their upbringing for clean air and we kind of thought long and hard about what do we want to do you know there were great job opportunities for me all over but we decided that we were going to decide based on what was best for our family and we said we wanted to live in Hawaii so I took the Hawaii bar and looked for a job so had you ever been to Hawaii before? yes so my husband and I had been after we got married so it was my first time I guess the honeymoon and then while in China to avoid becoming a Chinese tax resident which would mean they'd want to tax by income globally you leave China for 31 days every five years and both times we did those 31 days in Hawaii we ran into a house at Waimanalo and so I guess we all had this really great memory of you know so Hawaii actually came into play here as something that would attract you because of your honeymoon and this is a romantic story that I didn't know was part of this whole professional career also so would that be a true I don't know if it's romantic but it's definitely a very good place for a mixed family to live a culture you know that your kids fit right in and it's very international my kids go to public school here but there's students who are you know a lot of Japanese students but there's also Polish, Australian it's very international and the kids like it and the kids like it they're very happy okay and I gotta ask too you know you have three children yes so obviously you're not subject to the Chinese law yes one child or whatever it is now but at that time it was one child right and were you absolved from that rule because of the foreign because you were a foreigner so the law in China is enforced based on the woman and so if you have a Chinese passport as a woman when you want to give birth you need some sort of permission but I'm not a Chinese woman alright so you were free okay now while you worked in China did you have to pass any special law tests or laws that would allow you to work in China? no so I would never a Chinese lawyer I was always maintained at that time I was just a New York lawyer and maintained my New York bar certification you could look more that when you're in China as a foreign lawyer you're more of a legal consultant you might say but often the contracts you're working on you know they're not under Chinese law so I would never give a Chinese legal opinion and you usually try for your clients negotiate if you can under a US law or perhaps Hong Kong or Singapore law depending on what the contract is how do you compare working in China to working in the United States what are the pluses and minuses and what type of work atmosphere did you have and what type of business type relationships what was it like how do you compare it I don't know how you compare it it's not that different I would say in China both places I worked were very team oriented people were very friendly you became very close to the people you worked with you know very positive and then here also people I think it's kind of an influence of the same thing that you know people are also very friendly and team oriented and you know maybe in China it's a little bit more like if someone in your office in China gets married the entire office is invited and here in the US you can't afford to do that here in Hawaii but would you feel the same about New York I would say New York probably a little bit less friendly perhaps you know when I went on business trips in China often it was a group of us traveling people would always wait at the end of the jet bridge to walk together and meet together for breakfast and it was very nobody was left out it was very coordinated that you were doing everything together as a group and in the US when I traveled as a group you know we haven't interacted the same way I'm not saying one is better than the other but you know in China it's a very communal type society the way you do things it's a cultural thing now I want to ask you you I think there was a hand that moved you into the China direction and back to Hawaii also somehow circumstances maybe but what has your experience in China done for you what has it meant to you in your personal life your profession and just how you feel about yourself what is that what has China experience done for you this is a difficult question I think it's given me a more global outlook perhaps it lets me more easily understand other people's point of view I think as a communicator even though Chinese culturally are very indirect in the way they communicate living there has made me more of a direct communicator because I didn't want something to get lost in translation no matter what language I was speaking so I tried to learn how to communicate in a way that people were certain what I meant because I can't be as subtle when I'm speaking a second language okay alright and so you do and you speak Chinese you speak Mandarin right alright so let me ask you to say something for us let's pretend that I am a Chinese lawyer and what would you tell me about Hawaii and I'll ask you to translate it to what would you tell me about your experience in Hawaii to a Chinese to tell them about your life here in Mandarin okay hmm okay okay and what did that mean for me now back to being an American lawyer so I said it's very it's great to live in Hawaii you know it's beautiful and the air is very fresh and clean that's important to Chinese who live in pollution and I said to work here as a lawyer is also very good the people are very friendly and the quality of work is very interesting okay well thank you very much I appreciate your time shi shi that's as much as I can go with Chinese shi shi thank you very much