My Classmates

wondering

Dec. 10, 2006

I have 90+ classmates from all over the world, wherein about one third are IP students for this school is very strong in IP field. I haven't got to know each and every of them but I know many IP students as we are in same patent law class. I also know most of the Asians, except for Indians (I have difficulty to communicate with them. I don't understand their English). My classmates are lawyers, government officials, or in-house counsels like me. For example, we have patent examiner from Japanese Patent Office, prosecutors from South Korea, and CONGRESSMAN from Indonesia (he drives a brand new Mercedes-Benz to school everyday ).

The biggest group is probably German, next one is Indian, then perhaps Japanese. Chinese group is very small, only six if you also count Taiwan in. The tuition is high but people all manage to pay. German have money as they are inherently rich (maybe?); Indians are not rich but they all more or less get scholarship from this school (because they are smarter than others? I doubt); Japanese and Korean are not as rich as German and not as smart as Indian, but, they luckily all get sponsored by their government or company. Their employers cover not only their tuition but also their living expenses, and even more than that they still pay partial salary to these students every month! Then what comes to Chinese, we are not as rich as German, not as smart as Indian, and not as lucky as Japanese. We don't have money, don't have scholarship, and don't have employer to pay our tuition. We pay all these on our own. This explains why Chinese always take foods from home, and if have to eat out then most of time burger or sandwitch.

I'm maybe luckier in this Chinese group because I may get part of the tuition reimbursed from my company, and more importantly because I have a sweet money printer in Beijing who's printing money for me all day and all night

I don't envy Japanese and Korean. It is true that their employers are really nice to them. In the mean time, they also get extra pressure. Their employers pay for them to stay here for two years, one year for study and one year for work. But they all have specific requirements. Many of them are asked to sit the New York State Bar exam and PASS it (I don't think my company will dare to ask me to pass anything. This is not personal at all. They would at most just ask me to try, not to pass). One Japanese student is even asked to get admission to SJD program in this school (they only admit ONE student every year!). In addition to that, these students need to report their grades to their bosses, and they don't want to have C in the transcript. Their bosses want to see at least B. One student even said he may write to his professor and ask him a favor of not grading his exam paper to C so that he could show it to his boss. I feel lucky again because my money printer wouldn't mind a C in my transcript. Instead he wants me still mentally healthy after all this.

老火靓汤

i have a dream that someday i can own a sweet money printer like you owned.