Ch 39: Of People, Places, and The Future

I writing this entry today with China and Japan behind us. It's been of the greatest experiences of my life for a number of reasons.

#3. The People and Places. There's no view like the one from the ground. We got to see beyond the news, books, and internet postings- to travel China on foot/train from the ground. We found that many misundertandings of China to be truely that- simple misunderstandings. I hope more people can travel to China (and they have been) with an open mind for learning and having a good time. What they will find is that the people here are not different from people anywhere else- they want to live a good life, enjoy good company, and are very open to learning from others. But it is best to come here with an open mind as people always see what they want to see (this can be said in my home of the US as well or any other country). Come here with wanderlust in your heart and you will be richly rewarded.

#2. The Future. Looks very promising for China and the rest of the world. I think it's a misconception that China is going to take over this market or that industry. That viewpoint of world economics implies a very "end game" and implies a set number of resources and players. I see china adding massively to the collective engine of world economic growth and not simply taking manufacturing from Mexico or IT Servicing from Canada/USA. With our negative savings rates in the US and the surplus of savings in China and countries like Japan it is very important to continue to integrate China into the global engine for the collective benefit of us all.

China has been described as a third world country by our Western standards. The term Third World was originally intended to denote countries that did not align with either the Western or Eastern powers during the cold war. Today it has been transformed into a term to describe developing countries. So it's a very recent term, one that denotes the conditions of the past few decades. China however is a very old civilization- one of the few surviving unconquored cultures. History is measured here by the millenium. It has neither a third world history or a third world people in that regard.

The communist economy experiment lasted for roughly 30-40 years. The Chinese have been capitalists for thousands of years before that and are so again today. It's in the culture as the business world has slowly learned over the past few years. It's a definite benefit to progress here. There's no need to teach a dog how to bark. (I always find it funny when I read publications on how China today is "learning" to be capitalists)

I have spent the last few weeks looking at the face of the fastest growing economy in the world, supported by 1 billion plus striving to get back toward being the "center" of it all. So where does this leave me? I think it's a question asked by many people these days. It will be asked by many more in the future.

Some say that China will be the Titan of the 21st Century. I grew up, was educated, and worked in America, the titan of the 20th century. American is a model for Chinese and world business. America learned it's ways from the previous titan of the 19th century, the U.K. I believe that sometimes to understand the future you must sometimes travel to the past. And that's where I'll be headed for the next year, Oxford University's Said Business School. In a years time I will hopefully have the answers to the question, "Where does this leave me?".

#1. Our Company. A Priceless Experience. I really cannot put a price tag on the greatest part of this trip for me- I was able to spend over a month travelling with my three younger brothers with not a care in the world but where the next meal was coming from and if we had a hostel to bunker down for the night. I've been away from home working in New York for a number of years. In Chicago attending university prior to that. In the mean time my younger brothers have grown into fine, respectible, young men. Each with their own unique talents (and quirks). A door in time was opened when we found that all of us were to be in school at the same time (at least on summer break). Walking through that door has been one of the best decisions of my life and I would not trade it for the world.