For a moment, she even wanted to strike a Superman pose somewhere, but unfortunately, there was no phone booth nearby.
Gan Yang had interviewed with a financial consulting firm, also located in Midtown Manhattan. He had deliberately scheduled the interview for Friday afternoon and had another interview the following Monday, giving him a legitimate reason to spend the weekend in New York.
“How did it go?” Ding Zhitong asked, genuinely surprised.
“It should be fine,” Gan Yang replied with his usual confidence.
As they squeezed in front of the small bathroom mirror to wash up, they discussed the afternoon’s interview questions. Gan Yang mentioned that he was asked: “If you randomly selected ten people from your life, how many would like you?”
“I thought, what kind of question is that?” He vividly described his thought process. “I bought myself some time by asking if these people were from my life, not strangers. The interviewer confirmed. So I broke it down: family would be 10%, friends 40%, colleagues 30%, and clients 20%. My family is my absolute support so that one person would like me. Out of four friends, maybe one likes me, two are mutual ‘like’ relationships, and one probably dislikes me behind my back. Then for colleagues…”
Gan Yang analyzed his answer in detail, then asked, “What do you think? Wasn’t that a great response to such an odd question? A textbook answer!”
Ding Zhitong listened attentively while brushing her teeth. She felt reluctant to discourage him but, thinking of future interviews, couldn’t help but ask, “You do know that ‘random’ and ‘evenly distributed’ aren’t the same thing, right?”
Gan Yang was suddenly at a loss for words. As he thought it over, the smile slowly faded from his face. He looked like someone who had just finished an exam and realized while comparing answers with classmates that they had completely misunderstood the approach to the final big question.
Ding Zhitong looked at him, both amused and worried. She thought to herself that he was a complete novice at interviews, saying whatever came to mind. How could he compete with other candidates who had thoroughly studied interview techniques? If he had told her earlier, she could have helped him prepare. Why bother with this surprise?
But at the same time, she felt touched. She could finally be sure that he had thought about the future, even if it was just a spur-of-the-moment idea.
For Gan Yang, the past was the past. If one interview went poorly, there would always be another. They spent a lovely night together, and the next morning, they checked out of the serviced apartment and moved to the Upper West Side.
After settling in, they went to Whole Foods, an organic-focused supermarket known for its high prices. Looking at the price tags, Ding Zhitong began to regret living here, realizing that the same amount of money could buy three times as much at the Asian supermarkets in Flushing. As they browsed, she reached for instant noodles and frozen meals. Gan Yang didn’t stop her from buying them but made her promise to eat them only occasionally. He said he’d keep track of how much they bought and check the next time he visited. Ding Zhitong agreed, secretly thinking, “What can you do if I buy more to replace them before you come back?”
Back at the apartment, they filled the fridge together, washed and dried the sheets, and made the bed with fresh, fragrant linens. A row of five floor-to-ceiling windows stretched from the dining room to the living room, allowing the midday sun to flood half the apartment. Ding Zhitong thought again how wonderful it was to live here.
After lunch, they discussed job hunting.
The finance program directors were indeed responsible, knowing that most students came for the money. Employment rates were the school’s selling point, so they diligently packaged and recommended each student who wanted a job.
Although Gan Yang had caught on late, already in his final semester, he still sent out many resumes in the first two weeks after classes started and received several interview opportunities. Yesterday was his first interview, for the position he had been most confident about, mainly because the company was close to M Bank.
Having learned from this experience, he was now a bit wiser and asked Ding Zhitong for help with mock interviews.
Naturally, the mock interview included the classic “Walk me through your resume” question. This gave Ding Zhitong another chance to learn more about him. Looking at Gan Yang’s resume, she discovered that despite having zero internship experience, his GPA was quite good.
Praised by her, Gan Yang became animated again, immediately boasting that he had scored 1520 on his SAT.
At first, Ding Zhitong didn’t grasp the significance of this score. Since the SAT’s perfect score was now 2400, she thought, “What’s so impressive about just over 1000 points?” Later, she learned that in the year he took the test, it hadn’t been reformed yet. With 800 points for math and 800 for English, the perfect score was 1600. Scoring above 1480 put one in the top 1% of test-takers. His 1520 solidly placed him in the top 0.1%. Moreover, given his personality, he probably hadn’t practiced much – just like with interviews, he relied on his natural intelligence.
Ding Zhitong concluded that he was indeed smart, and with some intensive training, he might still have a chance.
So, they sat face-to-face on the living room carpet, browsing interview experiences on the Wall Street Oasis forum.
Ding Zhitong started with a classic question: “There are 1000 coins. 999 have heads on one side and tails on the other, while one coin has tails on both sides. You randomly pick a coin and flip it 10 times, getting tails each time. What’s the probability that you picked the double-tailed coin?”
Gan Yang immediately raised his hand and answered, “I know this one! It’s 1/1000.”
“Is that all?” Ding Zhitong was waiting for him to continue, but he had already laid down, resting his head on her lap.
“Yes,” Gan Yang replied, eyes closed.
Ding Zhitong looked down at him, patting his face. “Then you’re in trouble.”
“Why?” Gan Yang protested, still not opening his eyes.
“First, you need to analyze the question and determine your approach,” Ding Zhitong explained, gently moving his head aside. “This is a probability problem with two parts: the probability of getting tails ten times, and the probability of picking the double-tailed coin. It’s a conditional probability, not a simple probability.”
“Then you apply the formula. For conditional probability, you use Bayes’ theorem… First, define key concepts, then calculate probabilities in layers…” She demonstrated the calculations on her computer.
P(A) = 1/1000
P(B) = P(getting tails 10 times with a normal coin) + P(getting tails 10 times with a double-tailed coin)
= (999/1000) * (0.5)^10 + (1/1000) * (1)^10
She concluded, “…So, the answer is 1/1000 divided by P(B), approximately 50.6%.”
Gan Yang rolled over, looking at her skeptically. “But the original question was ‘What is the probability you pick the coin with two heads?’ Out of 1000 coins, one has two tails, so isn’t the probability just 1/1000? The rest is just distracting information, like those elementary school word problems: ’10 kids plant 17 trees, 9 are already planted, how many are left?'”
Ding Zhitong was momentarily stumped. After a second, she asked, “Do you think this is a trick question? You’re going for an interview. You need to show that you’ve studied probability and can analyze it.”
“But…” Gan Yang started to argue.
Ding Zhitong covered his mouth. “No buts. Just remember this.”
“I get it. It’s about knowing how to bluff, right?” He laughed under her hand.
Ding Zhitong was speechless, but sometimes she thought that was exactly the case. Financial institutions needed people who could explain anything convincingly, throwing in theories and complex models to impress people even if they didn’t understand.
After two days of intensive training, she gained a deeper understanding of Gan Yang. It wasn’t that he couldn’t learn; he just didn’t want to fit himself into the same molds as what he saw as ordinary people like her. In other words, he wasn’t suitable for her study group or job-hunting team.
All they could do now was their best and hope for the best. She told him about those frameworks, letting him choose a few he found somewhat acceptable. Then, they would wait optimistically for the results. After all, his resume wasn’t bad, and he had some advantages in face-to-face communication. At the very least, he was likable.
The weekend flew by. On Monday morning, Ding Zhitong woke up suddenly, disoriented but remembering it was her first official day of work.
Her heart raced until she heard noises from the bathroom – Gan Yang humming a patriotic song while brushing his teeth.
She smiled, got up to wash, and had breakfast with him before applying makeup and changing clothes. She put on the same outfit she’d worn for job hunting, feeling like armor that aged her several years.
Gan Yang watched her, still in his white T-shirt and sports shorts, barefoot on the carpet. For a moment, she had the bizarre impression of being a career woman keeping a boy toy. Unfortunately, it was just an illusion, and she didn’t even know why she thought “unfortunately.”
“Why are you looking at me?” Gan Yang smiled at her in the mirror.
Ding Zhitong examined him carefully. “I think you’ve gotten paler.”
“Really?” He ran to the mirror. “I spend a lot of time outdoors. Maybe it’s just good metabolism; I always get pale again in winter.”
She smiled at him and asked, “What are your plans for today?”
He thought for a moment. “I’ll go to the gym for a run, then come back to shower, change, and go to the interview. I’ll pick you up for lunch, then head back to school. How’s that sound?”
Ah the good life. Ding Zhitong nodded, pinched his pale cheek lightly, gave him a quick kiss, and left.
The subway at that hour was full of commuters, mostly wearing dull-colored winter clothes, their sleep-deprived faces expressionless as they hurried along. If anyone slowed down even slightly, it disrupted the flow, but others just moved around them without wasting time on even a glance.
Ding Zhitong joined the crowd, inhaling the mix of perfumes, body odor, and the burning rubber smell of the train brakes. She swayed to Midtown, emerged from underground, and entered the now-familiar skyscraper. Seeing the indigo logo on the gray-white marble, she felt even more nervous than during her interviews. There were strategies for interviews, but now everything was real – not just questions and answers or case analyses, but actions with real consequences.
For a moment, she even wanted to strike a Superman pose somewhere, but unfortunately, there was no phone booth nearby.
Later, whenever Ding Zhitong recalled that moment, she always found it amazing.
Her class of fortune-seekers had been attracted by the boom years before 2006, but by the time they entered the industry, the landscape had changed dramatically. News of financial institutions losing money due to subprime loans was coming from all over the world, and major stock indices in the US and Europe kept falling. People on the street were no longer discussing how good their bonuses would be this year, but whether the stock market might suddenly crash, repeating the “Black Monday” of 1987.
Coincidentally, on Monday, January 21, European stocks plummeted 6% in one day. The US stock market was closed for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, dodging a bullet. The Federal Reserve held an emergency meeting, cutting the federal funds rate by 50 basis points to help restore market liquidity.
But when the market opened on Tuesday, the feared crash didn’t materialize, though the reason was almost laughable. The “market savior” wasn’t the Fed’s rate cut, but a rogue futures trader at a French bank – the culprit behind the European stock slide! Using his computer skills, he had concealed €50 billion in unauthorized trades, losing an amount equivalent to about 50,000 years of his salary.
So everyone began to think it was just a false alarm. Although the market was tightening and everyone was prioritizing safety, they believed everything would get better.