Help me understand SG and HK parents
Might be a stupid question for some here. But the notorious Asian stereotype is that their parents hard push them to be either doctors, lawyers, or engineers. Or the other traditional professional fields. Nothing else.
Given that Hong Kong and Singapore are top financial centers, only after New York and London, why don't Hong Kong and Singaporean parents push their kids to be bankers/ HF managers?
Yes and no.
No: I went to arguably the top 1 prep high school in Singapore, and no one in my class explicitly stated that they wanted to pursue a career in finance. The brightest kids wanted to become doctors or politicians (politicians are well paid and highly respected in Singapore - the Prime Minister earns ~USD2-3 million/year).
Yes: When I applied to university 10 years ago, BBA at local universities is among the hardest degrees to get into, which required straight A's in the A-Level exams. Interestingly, CS and engineering had lower requirements. Most BBA students knew that they wanted to "work in business", but they didn't know what particular area of business to go into.
No: While Singapore is a 3-4 top global financial center, there is still a very large gap between SGP and NYC/London. IB/PE/IM jobs are few and far in between. A company like Credit Suisse may recruit like 4 IB Analysts per batch. And even then, local university grads have to compete with Ivy League/Oxbridge/LSE grads for those limited spots.
Please note that I left Singapore 10 years ago so I'm not sure about the current situation over there, but I doubt that a lot has changed since then.
Tl;dr: Most competitive (aka "kiasu" in local slang) Singaporean parents want their kids to become doctors and politicians, not bankers.
interesting
Is that because Singaporean parents don't know what bankers are?
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