汪母娘娘遊世界

#TG

#TGM_Insights_Technology

【TGM - Experience of the World–Mu】

Q1. What is your current position/company/industry, and residence?

    Currently, I am living and working in the Netherlands as an international sales engineer with the company PROCENTEC which is engaged in industrial automation technology, such as Process Field Bus (PROFIBUS) and Process Field Net (PROFINET).

My role involves being In charge of the business development of the international market and maintenance of customer relationship. I participate in setting strategic projects of key accounts, coordinating with more than 20 distributors which weigh 40% of our global partners in 5 continents. In addition I am active in worldwide exhibitions such as Hanover Messe and SPS in Nuremburg.

Q2. What is your education and career path?

   Below is a summary of my education and career path. I have one year engineering work experience and five years of sales experience in display panel, passive component, synthetic rubber and industrial automation. Besides proven track record in realizing business opportunities and market information for clients my experience extends to financial trouble-shooting and developing long-term client relationships and trust.

2017-Present PROCENTEC – International Sales Engineer, Netherlands

2016-2017 PROCENTEC – Intern, Netherlands

2016-2017 Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (RSM)MBA, Netherlands

2007-2009 Ecolenationalesupérieure de chimie de Clermont-Ferrand (ENSCCF;法國克萊蒙費朗國立化工學校) –ChimieOrganique Fine et Industrielle, France

Q3. What is the biggest achievement in your career till now?

 I would say my biggest achievement is being co- founder of the TFG Marching band, Honor guard, Color guard Association. (社團法人北一女中樂儀旗隊永續發展協會), which was founded in 2009 and became an aggregate corporation in 2013. To mourn Mr. Yang Xianduo, the coach of the marching band, we spent two years publishing the book called Honor Guards of Taipei First Girls High School (北一女青春．儀). I was responsible for fundraising on Flying V, a crowdfunding platform, for the book and the running funds during the early period. It was not easy to gather past alumni of 30 years to agree to interviews which would highlight “OUR” youth memories.

Q4. What triggers you to study abroad and to work as an expat? (After finished her graduate degree, Mu worked in Taiwan till 2016 and then moved to the Netherlands for MBA.)

When preparing for admission to graduate school, I felt more attracted to studying in a foreign country and wanted to take the opportunity to practice and improve my French language skills. As such I applied and was accepted to a French graduate school. Upon graduation, I returned back to Taiwan and worked till 2016.

As to applying for the MBA Program, my priority was to establish strong networks then followed by work. Once I made the decision I succeeded during my studies to establish connections with many professional, knowledgeable, visionary, and influential international talents.

Now, as a business developer, I have even more opportunities to develop relationships with many individuals. In future, I will continue to take part in the sustainable development of TFG Marching band, Honor guard, Color guard Association, and bring it to the international stage. I want to engage in entertainment business development to bridge the bilateral interaction between Taiwanese artists–such as singers, designers, art performers, and so on with foreign artists, thus threading the different culture and music assets together. (Mu is the type of person who won’t persuade you of her belief, but she will persist in chasing her perfection.)

Q5. In total three years in France and the Netherlands experiences, what are the differences between your expectation and reality? If you can turn back time, what would you do to prepare well before you are abroad?

The reason I went abroad at the first time was to get a master degree, so it is quite different from the second time, which was an MBA program in order to know as many people as possible. Most of the people I met in my first abroad experience were students, and most of them were French.

 I acquired materially distinctive impressions from these two experiences. During the graduate studies, there are many distinct interpersonal circles in the class, even within the French, thus it is not easy to expand the relationship with others. Therefore, I was unable to have quite as much comprehensive and resonant interaction with other students as I would have liked.

During the second abroad experience, I had more intensive interaction with my classmates, since most of them were working professionals and have more constructive thoughts about their careers, and could also give thought-provoking advice and insights to each other. Thanks to the days in France, I adapted into the situation quickly in the second journey in NL. I was well-prepared for job hunting, making friends positively, and confirming my faith consistently. Some people prefered getting along with western students studiously and not interact with students who come from the home country; while others felt the limitations of making friends socially. You can also observe such a binary model of mindset from finding a job and even from dealing with daily trivialities.

Q6. How do you find out your career path and how do you start to plan and execute it? Do you have any advice to those who are at a lost now?

  I think the reason why we feel perplexed might because that we put too much attention on our own feeling, like people who are disappointed in a love incline to enlarge their perception. Thus, when I am lovelorn, listening to someone else’s stories give me a lot of inspiration. I will push myself to talk to others, especially strangers. By stepping out my comfort zone, I believe that interacting with people rather than working behind closed doors helps me to get out the predicament. Besides, reading various books, cultivating a habit of recording your life and thought, or compiling the feelings and emotions when you been through everything can also help you to know yourself better.

Q7. What’s the most different thing between Netherlands and Taiwan in the workplace?

  In Taiwan, clients are always right, their requirements are the most important things as sainted decrees, while in Netherlands, companies and their clients are equal. They are able to retort clients’ unreasonable complaints. When receiving the complaints from customers, they won't try to help customers to solve their problems, conversely, they blame the customers if they did not try to solve the problem by themselves. (This is just a case, maybe not every Dutchman is so.) Thus, it is not hard to explain, most of the Dutch are proponents of self-doctrine.

Q8. What is the most difficult part in your Dutch life?

  I would say that the Language is a huge obstacle in Netherlands. Since language is the part of life and culture, if you want to integrate into the community you live and be familiar with the residents, local language helps to reduce the sense of alienation.

Q9. What are the most impressive things in your career?

With the expansion of our vision, the more we can realize from life. For example, if I ask you “Have you ever heard the Republic of Suriname? Do you know anything about it?” The answer probably is “No.” The Republic of Suriname, located in South America, had previously been colonized by the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and its official language is Dutch, the only South American country which uses Dutch as their official language. You probably don’t know that Hakka is the legal language of the Republic of Suriname and it has the highest proportion of the population of Muslim population among American countries. There are countless things we don’t know, even the city we lived or ourselves, so we stay hungry for more information and learn from the world.

Q10. What are your suggestions to the Taiwanese who are pursuing the career in your specialized area and country?

Before you start, you can practice how to start a conversation with people and how to introduce yourself. Don’t be afraid of the conflict, articulate your notion appropriately and let people know that silence does not mean you have no idea. Listen to your own voice and open your mind to everyone is absolutely the most important thing before you start your adventure abroad.

You can try to make friends with foreigners, try to understand the reason why they come to Taiwan for work and how they feel about it. Because when you are abroad, you are completely a foreigner to them. How to recognise others’ identity and how to deal with your own self-identity. Remember to put your feet in others' shoes.

Q11. How to become a global mobile talent? What is your advice on the behavior and mentality before that?

  Ask yourself what’s the most important thing in your life. Focus on the priority of the to-do list of you. When your opinion is different from your peers or colleagues, articulate your ground and fight to push your viewpoints through. Don’t allow fear to hamper your personal development.

Q12. What is your motivation to engage in Taiwanese Global Mobility?

 I attended the event, held by “Careers in the Netherlands” and “Taiwan Global Mobility” for the solution of culture conflicts in the Dutch workplace