Today I went to People’s Bank of China (PBC) to give them a training course on Stata. This job was introduced to me through a company in Guangzhou, and there was a young man from this company leading me to an office of PBC. When I entered the room, that man introduced me to those PBC workers as “Doctor Xie”. I was really surprised on hearing the title “Doctor”, and I’ve clearly told him that I haven’t even got my master’s degree yet. Obviously he was lying, because he wanted to win more trust from them. Then I felt quite embarrassed and I was thinking quickly about whether I should correct his words or not – it was hard to decide.
Frankly speaking, I don’t like lying at all, and I don’t think it’s necessary to lie to them. Usually people put too much emphasis on titles, but I always believe the role of one’s competence/strength is more important than his titles (or other superficial things such as certificates, etc).
Fortunately, I still told them my real identity at last when they asked about my background again.
BTW, just now I “murdered” the first mosquito I saw this year :-D