We
visited France again last week after 25 years. 25 years is a long time and many
things got to have significantly changed! Our son has grown up from a toddler
when we first brought him to Pairs to a mature young man now. Last time when we
were here, he often sat on my shoulder when we walked around but nowadays, he
is moving around the globe without the need of our support anymore. He is
currently studying his MBA at the famous INSEAD located in the beautiful small
town, Fontainebleau (枫丹白露，what
a beautiful Chinese name!)
So we came here to visit him but he was so busy with
his study and exams that we actually only got a chance to have a dinner
together. On the day of our departure back home, he was leaving to Lebanon/Beirut for
a short visit with friends after the exam. One beauty of attending the
extremely international INSEAD is a great networking power. They have 500
students this year from over 80 countries. Given the prestige of the school and
not so cheap tuition and living expenses involved, even those coming from the
underdeveloped countries are generally those with very good family background
with a lot of local network. In this case, their two Lebanon students are
organizing everything for over 50 schoolmates to visit their country for a
week. Without good network there, it’s hard to imagine they can easily do that!
After that, he will fly to Singapore for two months of study at the INSEAD
Singapore campus there and then doing his summer interim back in Paris. So if
your kids are thinking to study MBA, I’d highly recommend this INSEAD. It is
not only more efficient and productive with just one year term (still not cheap
though), it has a lot more networking power useful for their career! My
personal bias of course!
After this digress, France has changed a lot in
many aspects. Over 25 years ago, there was no mobile facility and everything
was still organized by hardware-based systems. Nowadays, virtually everything
is reachable with just a few clicks on your mobile phones. One very notable
change I have felt with is the attitude of French people towards English. Back
then, French people were notoriously stubborn to avoid English at all cost.
Even if they apparently could speak English, they would just talk in French to
you. After all, they were so proud of French and afraid of the English invasion
that they refused to use English to the max possibility. So back then, without
knowing French, it was not easy to move around, especially when there was no
online information to help. But not this time. I’d even say astonishingly
nowadays how easy to communicate with French people with English! I guess the
young generation in the past two decades have grown up in a world that is more
open to the outside world and apparently they are happy to share information in
English now. A big happy surprise!
But even though we
have seen so many things that have changed since our last visit, one thing is
still remaining the same, smoking! If you don’t know, French people are famous
for smoking and it is especially true for young ladies, which may be viewed as
a fashion there. After living here for so long, we are used to a world without
much smoking smell around. But not in Paris! Still you smell the smoke
everywhere in the public. For sure more and more people are smoking via vapor
now but still you smell easily wherever you go. This is exactly why cigarette
companies are so resilient and long lasting regardless how the entire world has
changed with new life styles. But addiction is addiction, which is powerful and
not easily to change. That’s why I don’t think much will change and probably
will never change for the cigarette companies in terms of their business
continuity. Of course they will adjust their business model due to the changing
smoking habits, e.g. more e-cig or coming cannabis-based products, but their
profitability is virtually guaranteed forever as long as people are still
addicted to their products! While I’m not promoting smoking in any sense here,
I do like the reliable income stream from the cig-stocks like MO or PM. Their
stock prices may fluctuate, their dividend will continue to rise over time. The
observation in France has reinforced my view on this. This is one type of safe
stocks that you can safely keep in hedging against the inevitable financial
crisis we are going to face down the road!
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