As the dust settles and the scores of the previous year are counted and tallied, new opportunities burst forth like flowers blooming in the light of spring. Recounting the steps I have taken in the past 2 months, the woes of yester-year seem a far cry away when contrasted against the fresh challenges of undiscovered new ground.

As the saying goes, never comment until you have experienced it yourself. Remember the days of discussions with peers back in my measly homeland, the illusions we conjured for ourselves about our China counterparts – It was all rubbish.

Coming to understand the people and lifestyle here, living and eating with them, almost topples all my previous assumptions. The general Singaporean mindset of China-men is both ill-informed and utterly naïve. Singaporeans, mostly through gossip and coffee-talk, have concluded the China-men to be unscrupulously street-smart creatures out to empty your wallets. That is not true.

In fact, whether it is China, Hong Kong, Malaysia or Singapore, sheep are sheep. They may speak in different languages, but their mentality will ever grow out of the simplicity that makes them what they are. There is no need to fear, for if you have the capability of flying above, black or white, they are but a portion of the moving landscape. You can only be lost if you choose walk as one of them.

Stepping out of Singapore could not have been a better decision. Though I may have been short-changed a little in the first few weeks, the takeaway in the long term from this endeavour totally justifies the initial loss. Though I hate to have to be judgmental, a look back also reveals the capabilities (or rather, lack of capability) of those I have come across back in Singapore.

While there are a few who I still respect and acknowledge, the majority are just idiots stuck in a small world, like guppies fighting for fish food in a tiny tank. Though I may have hated my current self in the past (As in what makes the people up there so great that they can’t spare a minute to talk), I now come to realize why the people down there don’t deserve the attention; Their topics and thought flow is so myopic it is almost suffocating to engage in conversation.

And then there comes the residual freebies of the Singaporean entrepreneurial craze – The young entrepreneur wannabes. Honestly, I have almost come to the point of hating the word “entrepreneur”, or rather, hating the way it has been awarded to so many undeserving fools with a business registration number and a freelance engagement. Seriously, I have neither interest in meeting these people nor sharing their ideas (less sharing my ideas with them, for they would not even understand).

Kiss the networking sessions goodbye. Tell those fools:

- I am not interested in a business plan that has no originality and unknown profitability.
- I am not interested in making a quick buck of a few thousand (I can visit the casino for that)
- I am not interested in new designs for old commodities. You are trying yourself in an almost perfect competition market which you have no idea of.
- I am not interested in part-time business owners, for if their heart is elsewhere, nothing will work.
- I am not interested in 50k seed investments, where the venture eventually becomes a replacement job for the person who will otherwise be unemployed.
- I am not interested in developing social networking sites, unless you have a model for market intelligence collection or revenue.
- I am totally not interested in student entrepreneurs!

Casting the old practices and mindsets behind, it is time to brace myself for the exciting ride ahead, where you leave nothing and take everything.