October 15, 2007 by admin.

I know that this is not exactly an original idea and that it has been analyzed and written about extensively, but it occurred to me while I was trying to sleep last night just how incredible technology really is these days. Certainly I would have never come to China without the internet (I had posted my resume’ on some MBA Network website in early 2000 where it was found by the Chinese company that brought me to China to teach MBA classes in February 2000), but it goes beyond that. I certainly wouldn’t have been able to stay in China so long, so far away from my family - those occasional pictures that I get of any of my 4 nephews can really brighten up my day - and the emails 3 or 4 times a week from my mom help to close the distance from half a world away. And just this past Saturday (early Sunday a.m. here in Beijing) I was talking with both my mother and father at the same time using a certain company’s “computer to landline” phone service for only US$.01 per minute (I won’t mention the company by name since they charge me to advertise my business, they can pay me to advertise theirs!) and giving them almost live updates on the Oklahoma State - Nebraska football score since it wasn’t televised back home. So here I was sitting in Beijing, China giving my parents in Oklahoma updates on the score of an Oklahoma school playing football in Nebraska. These types of things have become so commonplace that we don’t really think much about how nearly miraculous it is until the computer breaks down or the internet goes down; then we realize how much we take it for granted.

Without current technology, I certainly wouldn’t have been able to start Beijing Discovery Tours and offer Beijing tours, hotel rooms and holiday packages to people all over the world through the internet. Guests can safely and securely pay either the 30% deposit or pay in full through the website with current technology and then come to Beijing knowing that they don’t have to worry; we will have everything ready for them so that all they have to do is relax and have a good time while they are here. Technology also helps us coordinate travel plans for our customers to travel to other cities such as Xi’an with the world-famous Terracotta Warriors and Chongqing where they can enjoy the famously spicy food as well as Yangtze River cruises.

Last and certainly least, the internet and current technology allow me to sit here on the computer in Beijing, China, looking out on a beautiful sunny fall day in October and write these words that can now be ignored by the entire world, from Azerbaijan to Zambia and all points in between.

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October 8, 2007 by admin.

Today is Monday, October 8 and I assume that it’s back to work for everyone here in Beijing after the week-long holiday for the equivalent of China’s Independence Day, which is the date that the People’s Republic of China was formally established by Chairman Mao at Tian’anmen Square on October 1, 1949. China actually has three yearly week-long holidays, known as “Golden Weeks”, one for National Day, one on May 1 for Labor Day, and the other for the Chinese New Year (also known as “Spring Festival”), which falls on a different day each year in either January or February by the Western calendar because it is based on the Lunar Calendar. There is some debate within the Chinese government as to whether the 7-day holidays should continue for Labor Day and May Day, with interruption of the normal flow of business cited as the reason to discontinue them. Critics of these holidays say that they should only be 3-days long, with the other days spread to other traditional Chinese holidays such as the Mid-Autumn Festival. From my personal standpoint, when I first came to China teaching in an MBA program, the week-long holidays (which had just been started in 1999, the year before I came to China) came as a pleasant surprise and gave me a chance to do some traveling around the country. These holidays and my subsequent travels in China were so much fun that I decided to start Beijing Discovery Tours to help other people enjoy traveling inside of China as much as I have. (To plan your own Beijing tours and holidays or other China tours,  visit our website at www.beijingdiscoverytours.com.)
The main point of this writing today (other than to plug our website of course) was to suggest that we might be able to learn something from the Chinese government in the U.S.A. It’s not often that you read something positive about China’s government, but in this case I think that they have done something right. The whole idea behind the “Golden Week” holidays was to spur domestic consumption, and judging by the amount of travel and shopping that is done during these holidays, it has been an overwhelming success. I know that this could never happen back home, but what if we put a couple of mandatory week-long holidays into the U.S.A.’s too-busy calendar? A week-long celebration for Independence Day would give more people a chance to travel and see their families (as well as promote a greater sense of unity in the country)  as would a week-long holiday for Christmas/Hanukkah, and they are fairly equally spread out through the year. It might do us good as Americans to take a more relaxed approach to work rather than constantly enduring the stress-filled lives that far too many of us seem to live.

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October 1, 2007 by admin.

It was an interesting week for me as I went with my best friend to his sister’s wedding in a remote part of Henan Province, one of China’s poorest provinces in south-central China. It took a 16-hour train ride from Beijing to the regional capital of Zhumadian, Henan, then a 2-hour rough mini-bus ride followed by a 30-minute private car ride provided by the local government to get to my friend’s hometown. I had been to his hometown 3 times before, but this was the first time in 7 years that my friend, his 2 brothers and their sister (the one who was getting married) had all been together. It was nice to see all of them so happy despite the really rough conditions, and the entire trip made me realize how privileged in life most of us really are. As I was riding on the way back to catch the train to Beijing in a cramped mini-bus packed full of about 16 people (3 of whom were puking on themselves and others) I thought that I had it pretty bad until we overtook an open-backed truck crowded with probably 12 workers sitting in the back in the cold rain, with no rain gear, on their way to some most-likely hard manual labor work at 6:45 in the morning. It is one thing to hear about the struggles of the poor workers and farmers in China’s countryside but to live amongst them for a week and see firsthand what a difficult existence it is really makes you think about the tough job that the Chinese government has in balancing the exponential growth in wealth in the cities with the incredibly poor in the countryside, who are seeing only small increases, if any, in income and negligible improvements in lifestyles. Almost all the homes in this small village have no running water and no toilet, just an outside bricked-in area of about 4 square feet where you go about your business right there on the dirt, which is then left there for the next person to see and someone else to deal with later on at some point. I describe this only to give any potential readers an idea of how a majority of the Chinese people live (some 80% of the population of China lives in the countryside) and what a tremendous gap there is between the “haves” in the big cities and the “have-nots” in the countryside. To be fair, the Chinese government is pouring money into developing these areas - I saw at least 2 major highways being built that will greatly increase access to these remote areas, and a huge, gleaming new “Xincai Bilingual University” nearly completed within about 30 miles of this small village that looked like an amazing school. Whether this type of investment will lead to better lives for these poor but very hard-working people remains to be seen, but it certainly can’t hurt.

Having said all of that, the people, although their clothing and weathered faces (even on the young) clearly showed the difficulty of life in this part of China, could not have been nicer. I have known my friend and his family for around 6 years now, and I have not found better people anywhere in the world; they remind me very much of my own family. I still cannot understand hardly a word that they say (the Henan Province dialect is much different than the Beijing Chinese language, which I can at least understand a little), but the kindness that they have shown to me every time I have gone there has been amazing. They have taken me in as one of their own each and every time. I hope that through my friend’s translation to his family and the local hometown people that they know that I truly appreciated the chance to stay with them for the week and the manner in which they treated me. I know before I write it that it’s going to come across as cliche’ or overly-sentimental but I also hope that at some point in my life I will be able to do something to help this particular small village in China to improve the lives of those who have become such a big part of who I am today.

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