May 25, 2004
I am now in Shanghai, city of 16 million, China’s industrial, financial, and fashion heart. It is another case of not recognizing a place I have been many times before, but not in the last four years. Shanghai has become modern high rises, more recent than Hong Kong (but not the setting!). There are some of the wonderful old buildings that I have got on picture postcards I collect, but then, as I went for a walk this morning, I realized it’s not my century anymore. Nor, I wonder, is it yours—what I have been thinking for some time may be coming to pass: this is the Asian century, led by China. And it’s not just Shanghai–it’s Chongqing, 700 miles west, the sleepy World War ii capital of China.
The countryside, by contrast, is still farming as it has probably for centuries. There is still water buffalo and manpower, but the young people (as they are everywhere) head for the big cities, where they find hard labor jobs that those who have rising standards of living have abandoned. While the government owns the land (so I understand), they have just passed a law that makes the private assets possible. That should make foreign investors more likely to invest.
Almost every hotel where we have been at, and we have been at some wonderful places, has had MBA students from the US visiting. As I said at the beginning, they should be here to see what I have seen. If China can master distribution (which is improving; when I first came there was one ten mile long expressway), watch out.
The business we visited today captured it best when the owner, a Taiwanese, pointed out that China has a communist government, but a capitalist economy.
Enough of the philosophical. We have had a great time touring the historical and cultural sites. Those are quite different (of course) than anything in the West. And the food is great.
JR Glenn, who is one of my students, an Eagle Scout from Lincoln, said, “It’s just like Scout camp.” In the sense that every day is an adventure, and I’ll tell you about some of them when we return), he’s right.