Another strange dinner conversation

When we got back to Lijiang, Bryan and I were invited to dinner again by Mr. Su, this time in a private banquet room in the hotel.  He brought tea set gift boxes for Laura and my mom.

As the waitresses began to serve the meal, Mr. Su turned on a TV and started playing a Bruce Lee martial arts movie.  After a few minutes of fine dining and street fighting, Bryan volunteered to replace the Bruce Lee movie with some jazz, and despite Mr. Su's objections, Bryan prevailed.  

An entertaining dinner crowd: Hameed, me, Bryan and the opinionated Mr. Su.

Mr. Su, who is from Bangkok, has no shortage of personal opinions, unlike most Chinese folks, who tend to not speak out individualistically and who are loathe to disagree with the status quo.

The future of Asia

I like opinionated people (although I am also happy to openly disagree with them) so I asked his opinions about Asia.  Where is China headed in the world of business?  What are we going to see in the next 10 years?  What about other countries - Viet Nam, Thailand, India, the Philippines, Indonesa, Malaysia?

My question was motivated by the westernization of everything in China, the pervasive presence of the Internet, and the modernization of even remote farming villages.

"China will move forward very rapidly.  Here's why: The Chinese govermnent is very focused on this.  They have a mandate to bring modernization, industry and technology to all parts of China - and no one can stand in their way.

"This is not a democracy, where different sides are hosting a public debate about how to do this, or whether to do it or not.  They're going to just do it."

"What about India?"

"India will also do very well - they already produce a great deal of technology and software, plus they have an enormous advantage over all the other asian countries: They speak English.  This makes up for the problems they have with their disorganized government."

"What about the others?"

"Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines have serious government problems.  It will take years to sort them all out.  I don't think they're going to keep up.  Viet Nam is progressive and they'll do OK, but their government is pretty conservative and they're not moving as fast as China or India or even Thailand.  Thailand is very progressive and there's a lot of growth happening there.  And Korea - Korea will do very, very well."

Our conversation meandered from Bryan's next trip to Thailand - Mr. Su offered him his own room in his mother's house, complete with a THX 5.1 AV system - to me and Hameed discussing what kind of business I should start in China.

Does China need camping facilities???

"Hameed, what would you think if I were to open the first campground in Southern China?  You know, father, mother and son (1 kid per family is the rule in China, you know) could climb on a bus with their camping gear and stay at my KOA franchise."

"That's a really terrific idea, Perry.  As a matter of fact, it's such a great idea, I think you should go home and think about it for a long, long time before you come back and do it."

What about all those starving kids in China?

Our tummies were getting full and there was still all sorts of food on the table, which triggered a thought.  When I was a kid, my mother would always say, "Perry, there are millions of starving kids in China who would give anything to eat this food.  So clean your plate right now."

My response to this was always, "OK, Mom, since I don't want it, why don't you give it to them?"  The only answer I ever got was a cruel stare.  Still I grew up with an incurable instinct to eat everything someone puts in front of me.

Now that I was in China, I had the opportunity to bring final closure to this issue.  I asked the waitress, "when you were a little girl, and you didn't want to eat your rice, what did your mother say to you?"

She said, "My mother just told me 'Rice is expensive, so you better eat this stuff or else.' "

I asked Hameed, the hotel service manager from Pakistan, the same question.

"My mother always said "there are thousands of starving children in the north of Pakistan who have nothing to eat, so finish your Biryani."

Next in line was Mr. Su, the hotel assistant manager.  "I always ate all of my vegetables.  And my mother always calls me Mr. Su."

So Bryan closed the conversation about our mothers' guilt tactics by pointing to the uneaten rice, pork, vegetables and sweets on the table and saying to all of us, "You guys better eat that, because there are millions of starving children in America who would love to eat that stuff."

Packing

After dinner, my next challenge was packing for the trip home.  I'd come without checking any bags - only carry-ons - by packing light and wearing the same pants 3 or 4 days in a row.

When you fly from Chicago to LA to Taipei to Hong Kong to Kunming to Lijiang, plus a bus trip to Shigu, you really don't want to check your bags five times - that would be a royal pain!

But after you've added ten pounds of stuff and then Mr. Su gives your wife a boxed tea set, the whole project becomes rather perplexing.

I attacked this with engineering precision.  I stuffed teacups into shirts and sweaters, took souvenirs out of boxes and tucked them into little nooks and crannies, and donated a few items to Bryan.

When I was done, I had a sweater and toiletry bag hanging from the strap of a tightly stuffed duffle bag, and a backpack crammed to 100 PSI.

A slight problem

One of the complications of the trip was that with Chinese New Year / Spring Festival, this is the busiest week of the year for travel.  And some of Bryans' co-workers, particularly Michelle and Hameed, had worked very hard to get me a plane ticket from Lijiang back to Kunming - unsuccessfully.

If I was to get home on time and not screw up my entire flight schedule, I had two options:

1) Take a 9 hour overnight bus trip to Kunming.  Fun, fun, fun.

2) Use Bryan's "Guanxi" with a "VIP" to get tickets by "Pulling Strings."

Guanxi

You can't understand China without understanding Guanxi.  Let me explain.

Everyone in the world understands the basic idea behind Guanxi - it's basically "I owe you one" and "you owe me one" and "I scratch your back, you scratch mine."  Every relationship, enterprise and culture uses this.

But in China, Guanxi is used almost like currency; it can pass through a whole series of people to an endpoint in order to get something accomplished, and Guanxi in reality is more powerful in China than corporate policy or even government law.

Guanxi with ordinary folks has ordinary power.  Guanxi with influential peole can accomplish amazing things.

So given my dilemma, Bryan suggested the possibility of calling Mr. Hu, the hotel director, and asking for a favor.

"I don't want to make you rub the genie any more times than you have to," I said.

"Oh, don't worry.  Let me call him."

So he asked Mr. Hu if he could get me a ticket.  Mr. Hu said, "I think so, let me call you back."

A few minutes later, Mr. Hu called back.  "No problem, my assistant Jameson is also going to Kunming tomorrow morning.  He will take your brother to the airport, and I have talked to someone at the airport and made absolutely sure that a ticket will be available."

Sure enough, the next morning, Jameson and I showed up at the Lijiang airport ticket counter, bought a ticket, and got on the plane.

There was only one obstacle that remained - the time to change planes was only 25 minutes, during which I had to pass through international customs and pay the airport construction tax.

Jameson and I ran feverishly from place to place and deposited me at the metal detectors, and I was the last person to get on the plane to Hong Kong - and the only westerner on the entire flight.

***

After 26 hours of flying, I made it back home, and Laura and the kids were there to greet me.  It's great to be back!  Night is day, day is night, and the food is normal again.

***

This has been an amazing experience.  As you can see, the people here have been extremely hospitable, the scenery has been gorgeous, the history rich and fascinating, the culture and conversations enlightening, and the food wonderful.  

I'm guessing that the entire trip, including Hong Kong and Taipei, as well as visas and immunizations, will have cost a bit over $2000 US.  (Plane tickets were under $1300 round trip, via MTS Travel, who provided great service.)  You could easily blow that much money just going to Disneyland, and have an infinitely less interesting, less enriching experience.

(Perhaps you should ignore that in the case of small children.  Perhaps.)

China is changing fast.  Although I'm sure that many of these small towns will retain much of their culture for many years, the clock of modernization is ticking.  The Chinese government, which for all practical purposes is a unified force unfettered by the inefficiencies of democracy, has a clear mandate to modernize China and bring the country full steam ahead into the 21st century.  No doubt they will do that, and I believe that their 1.2 billion citizens will see mostly benefits from this.

But if you're planning to come to China, why wait?  Come and get your own view of "The Middle Kingdom Between Heaven and Earth."  Come see Bryan in his natural Mandarin habitat.  He'll be glad to have you.  And you'll be glad you did.

Finally, home at last: my 4 year old daughter, Tannah, sporting her new gift from Bryan, a Naxi formal dress

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