{"id":23,"date":"2019-02-15T10:56:47","date_gmt":"2019-02-15T00:26:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/alumni-stories\/?p=23"},"modified":"2020-09-23T16:18:32","modified_gmt":"2020-09-23T06:48:32","slug":"sven-meyer-the-east-west-conduit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/alumni-stories\/2019\/02\/15\/sven-meyer-the-east-west-conduit\/","title":{"rendered":"An east-west conduit"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\nWhile others might feel damned to be cast as an eternal outsider, Mr Sven Meyer has embraced the opportunity to serve as a bridge between east and west.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Armed with his Bachelor of Commerce degree from Flinders as well as a range of other German and Australian qualifications, Mr Meyer moved to China 20 years ago and has assimilated to the point that he now feels an outsider at home.<\/p>\n

Mr Meyer\u2019s father migrated to Australia in the 1960s and fell in love with an Australian woman. They moved back to Germany where Sven and his siblings were born and raised.<\/p>\n

After enrolling in sinology (Chinese studies) and cultural anthropology in Germany, he sat through a number of economics lectures and loved them \u2013 but was told he wasn\u2019t allowed to take the course.<\/p>\n

Undeterred, he pulled out his Australian passport and returned to Australia to study commerce at Flinders, in his mother\u2019s home city.<\/p>\n

\u201cFlinders gave me the opportunity to dive deep into economics, and familiarise myself with Australian culture, which was quite different to life in Germany,\u201d Mr Meyer said.<\/p>\n

After further study he moved back to China for good, reasoning that as a German-Australian, choosing a land halfway between the two seemed like a good idea.<\/p>\n

The global citizen now resides at the interface of east and west, overseeing a team of researchers into the Chinese economy and its impact on the world, as the Director of Research Cooperation at the Shanghai Institute of Futures and Derivatives.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis job gives me licence to spend time developing insights into how the Chinese economy works \u2013 and by extension, how society works, how life works,\u201d Mr Meyer said.<\/p>\n