1997: The Tragic Year

Besides my full-time sales manager work, I was also doing the translating work using a few hours before bed. One of the Malaysian newspaper had a web and wanted their top news to be translated in a few languages, and Japanese was one of them.

Of course I couldn't do it every night, so that I did this secret part-time job with another Japanese lady who was a full-time translator.

One night, I received the news article from the newspaper company by fax for the following morning top news.

It said Princess Diana died in the car crush.

I could not believe it as the news did not appear on TV or newspaper yet (of course it was going to be the following morning top news). I was hoping it was some kind of mistake, but it was true.

I also remember that I translated the currency crush news.

All Asian currencies crushed in July 1997, which put me in despair as all my life saving was in Malaysian Ringgit.

The Malaysian currency had been consistent with US dollars at 2.5 for all these years, but it fell up to 4.3 in 1997.

Besides sending money to my mother, I was saving from the translation work hoping to save enough to go back to the university in US one day. It was only two more years to finish off BA, and I intended to continue in the graduate school with scholarship.

But my savings worth 40% less now, and I did not know how long more it would take to save at least USD20,000 to apply the visa.

Following the currency market, the stock markets in Asia were hit by serious recessions. The hotel business was harshly hit as people cancelled the business trip and less Asians travelled for sightseeing that year and 1998.

No matter how many offices I visited every day, my clients could do nothing as people back in Japan had no reason to fly to Kuala Lumpur when the business deals were not there.

The sales department is the first one to be blamed for not filling up the hotel with customers. We all worked hard, but simply the business was not there.

The market situation did not recover much in 1998. It had to wait for the year 1999 to see the customers back in the hotels.

Several hotels approached me and offered senior positions, but I knew I would not be able to bring in the result in that market condition, so I kept turning down the job offers.

I simply stayed there and endured the pain of recession doing everything possible.

It was bitter, but meaningful lesson. The general manager was keeping his head up and tried everything. I admired his will power and optimistic behavior. No matter how he was worried and scared in reality, he never showed that to his staff. Instead, he came out of many interesting ideas to keep the business going.

The sad, busy years had passed slowly. It seemed to me the year 1997 and 1998 would last forever, but fortunately, they didn't.