when competitors became a team when competitors became a team

Eka Chemicals
445 80 Bohus
AT WORK
Keeping up with the conversation
in three languages
Steinar Wang emigrated from
China to Iceland when he was
eight. In order to complete his
studies for his chemicals engineering
degree he moved to
Sweden.
He describes himself as a professional
immigrant and he
sees no national limitations to
his future career.
■ Eka Engineering like to recruit personnel with
international backgrounds. Language skills and
cultural knowledge are an advantage when
starting up new plant around the world. Steinar
Wang, who was hired in March this year, was
sent off on a three week customer meeting trip
to China only two weeks after joining Eka. It
was part of his introductory training.
“I was taken along because I speak Chinese.
The meeting was held in English, but I could
understand everything that was said on the
sidelines, both in Swedish and Chinese. Although
I did find interchanging between three
languages difficult on that first day.”
What did the Chinese customers think
about you being there?
“I believe they appreciated us having a Chinese
on our side. They’re pretty good at English,
but there were a good many items on the
agenda to negotiate and agree upon, and I felt
I was doing a useful job.”
Steinar, or Wang Yan as he is called in Chinese,
has an unusual background. Both his parents
are from China and the family moved to
Iceland in the early Nineties.
“My father is a research scientist and took
a job at the University of Iceland. There were
almost no other immigrants in Iceland at that
time, and initially I had my own Icelandic language
teacher.”
The teacher suggested he should adopt an
Icelandic first name to make life easier, not
least for the Icelanders. The eight year old boy
When Steinar Wang joined Eka Engineering in the Stockholm suburb of Nacka six months ago
he found a student apartment, close to his job, in the area visible in the background. But now
he has bought his own apartment, even closer to his place of work, and will be moving soon.
chose the name of Steinar, keeping Yan as his
middle name.
IT WAS TAKEN FOR GRANTED that Steinar
would study at university. His mother too, has
an engineering degree (although she now runs
a travel agency for Chinese tourists).
“I’m accustomed to studying hard. I went in
for chemistry because, quite simply, I find it
enormous fun, said Steinar and went on:
“I read two years at Reykjavik, but because
there was no complete chemistry curriculum
at the University of Iceland I was unable to
complete my studies there. I chose to go on
to KTH in Stockholm.”
In his office there is a group picture taken
outside Stockholm city hall (where the Nobel
prize giving dinner is held each year). The picture
is from the diploma presentations last
spring, when Steinar received his engineering
degree.
He had only four weeks off before he joined
Eka Engineering as a process engineer. He finds
the job exciting and is looking forward to learning
everything he needs to know in order to
assume more of his own responsibility.
When Eka Echo asked 25 year old Steinar
what he thought he would be doing in five years
time he laughed.”
“They asked me the same question at the
job interview. Because this job means I can live
in Stockholm and travel to China, I think I shall
probably still be here. And it’s only a three
hour trip home to Iceland.”
Text and photo: Monica Rossing
T H E N E X T I S S U E W I L L B E P U B L I S H E D I N D E C E M B E R