My Trip to China

My trip to China was amazing and reinforced my desire to move my family there. With the difficult global economy its not the right environment or time to head over there now, but it is still definitely in the Keller's plans.

I kept a journal of thoughts, feelings and experiences and have posted them here for everyone to enjoy. I cannot promise that it will all make sense but ...

"Day 1 – Beijing – January 12, 2009
Flying into Beijing, China was anti-climatic. But 30 hours of traveling from Salt Lake City, Utah will do that to any adventurous spirit. Fortunately, curiosity propelled me to shed the fatigue shortly after arriving at the JW Marriott hotel and venture out to the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square. I found both sites incredibly interesting and awash in history. Books I had read about the Ming and Qing Dynasty rule from the hallowed halls of the City were top of mind as I wandered through the Meridian Gate and into the Outer and Inner Courts. Mysticism titillated my senses as I peered into the Three Halls of Harmony and at the throne in the Palace of Heavenly Purity. Crossing the street from the City put me on ground where modern-day revolutions were celebrated and squashed. I was impressed by the size and surroundings of Tiananmen, but was saddened by the horrible atrocities that occurred in this square during the Cultural Revolution and 89’ Massacre of college students. Interestingly, my feeling of conflict in The Square set precedence for the duration of my trip. Like the feelings of Tiananmen, my experience in China was to be wrought with conflict regarding my desire to pursue a life and career in China. And the feelings started on the first day of lectures when numerous speakers painted drastically different pictures of the present and future of China economics and politics. Interestingly, the messages that percolated to the surface of my understanding were spoken most eloquently by Frank Neville: 1) don’t be intimidated by the mysticism and history of China, 2) don’t check your common sense at the door when thinking about and interacting with China, and 3) don’t be culturally naïve about China but don’t also stress out about mastering China. These three points described succinctly the words of encouragement I needed to hear in contemplating the emotional conflict I feel about the China. It was an interesting first day.

Day 2 – Beijing – January 13, 2009
After a tremendously engaging first day there is nothing quite like beginning day two with a disappointing site visit to an uninspiring fruit juice bottler. Huiyuan Juice Group cordially hosted us for a site visit of it’s bottling plant in an area one hour outside of Beijing. The hosts introduced to Huiyuan via a five-minute video and 30 minute tour of the company’s trophy collection. The only interesting aspect of the business was to learn that the founder, Mr. Zhu Xin Li, created the largest privately held juice bottler in China by leveraging his guanxi in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Such relationships allowed unfettered growth, which eventually led to the 2008 offer from the Coca-Cola Company to purchase Huiyuan. This has led to an interesting CCP debate as the iconic American company attempts to takeover a Chinese symbol of excellence. Despite the economics of the situation, the takeover of Chinese national symbols was established well before the Huiyuan / Coca-Cola deal. In 1979, the CCP’s leading member, Deng Xiaoping, persuaded Chinese citizens everywhere to pursue the glories of wealth. This generated significant advancements in economics and stimulated what is today a thriving tourism market. The Great Wall of China is an amazing tourist destination and one that is awesome to behold. The sure magnitude and gravity of its design and creation is spectacular. My father use to always tell me while I was growing up, “Son, when someone tells you it can’t be done, prove them wrong.” I think the Chinese took such a saying literally as the location of the Great Wall traverses over 4,000 miles of some of the roughest terrain the country has to offer. And that is what impressed me most about the Wall. However, despite its magnificence the Wall is not immune to modern-day attractions and the luge ride down from the Wall was a spectacle to behold as Thundebird MBAs barreled down the course at break neck speeds without any thought to life or limb. The luge and Wall represented another conflict for me. A beautiful and historic landmark in companionship with a cheap thrill to line the coffers of the government. The night ended with an extraneous meal at a Communist Theater Dinner. I describe it as extraneous because nothing could have been more foreign than that experience. The setting, the propaganda, the language, the food, and the reactions of my fellow Weiguarens were simply out of our comfort zones but definitely an experience to be had.

Day 3 – Beijing – January 14, 2009
Day three was another packed day as we prepared to say goodbye to Beijing and make our way to Shanghai. The speakers did their part in explaining the current political and sustainable environment of China. Mr. Mark Duval was particularly impressive as he discussed the various levels of touch-points Motorola has adopted in developing relations with the Chinese government and party. I especially found the following quote captivating from his lecture, “You cannot criticize China from the outside looking in. You have to be in the country and create change from within.” I bring this point out in particular because of the tone I’ve noticed with the Thunderbird group. To me, it seems, there are a number of self-appointed “China experts” amongst us that appear to have figured out China. This is perplexing to me as the more I listen to the messages being shared the more dumbfounded I feel toward the complexities of such a great nation. And the saying, “I may be dumb but I’m not stupid” comes to mind as I listen to the pontificating of our group’s critics. I hope the sentiment changes as we move along our Winterim. Our afternoon concluded with a site visit of computer manufacturer Lenovo. This Chinese darling is an interesting organization. Built from the ground up and recently acquiring global prominence with its purchase of IMB’s laptop business unit a few years ago, Lenovo faces the same transformational hurdles as most Chinese companies. That is to say that it is a company with tremendous operational prowess that will only get them so far in an economy attempting to eat up the value chain. Lenovo, admittedly, has a brand issue. Very few peopleheard of Lenovo before it purchased IMB’s laptop business unit. Vis-à-vis the purchase, Lenovo know faces a strategic dilemma of how to build and manage a global brand. I venture to say the success or failure of this one initiative alone will make or break the rising star of this Chinese company. After our visit, we all packed up and headed for Beijing International Airport to catch flights to the sprawling metropolis of Shanghai.

Day 4 – Shanghai – January 15, 2009
I love Shanghai. Imagine New York City with a multiplier of 10 and you might begin to understand the magnitude of the city. It’s amazing, spectacular, and filled with development. Unfortunately, my desires to explore are on hold until the weekend as today was a lecture day. Despite my cabin-fever mentality, today’s speakers were awesome. It all began with Kent Kendl’s stand up comedic rendition of demonstrating how a person can perform in front of a crowd, spew random nothingness about a topic the crowd is relatively naïve about, and in a normal setting, make a lot of money at. If you guessed Kent’s profession was a comedian or consultant you would be right with both assumptions. Despite such classics as “bull cookies” and “super-wealthy, yellow teenagers” Kent actually relayed a decent message as he challenged us to use the following simple principles in working in China: 1) think strategy before structure, 2) pursue top and bottom line business decisions, and 3) work hard to get deep market insight. Another speaker that strongly impressed me was Dr. Janamitra Devan’s explanation of the Chinese urbanization movement. I was fascinated by his modeling of expected growth concentrations in China. The sheer movement of migrant workers out of the farmlands and into the cities breeds need for massive metropolitan planning for the Chinese government and party. Such planning is unprecedented on the face of the earth. However, the icing on the cake for me was Joab Meyer’s story of graduating from Thunderbird, selling everything, and moving to China with his family. Without even knowing Joab, I immediately felt a tremendous amount of respect and admiration for such a bold move. I felt inspired and motivated to follow in his footsteps and land myself in China until I find a job. The siren call of this great land is tangibly tugging at my heartstrings and my urge to live among the Chinese is becoming more entrenched. Listening to these speakers and hearing their stories of struggle and victory persuades me to at least tempt fate this once. To look into the jaws of this powerful nation and place my head squarely in its mouth in defiance or confidence or stupidity, to see if I can withstand and earn the respect of the people. This place captivates me.

Day 5 – Shanghai – January 16, 2009
Today’s site visits were okay. The GM plant was not overly stimulating as I’ve been to several assembly lines. The Intel visit was a bit disappointing as I was hoping to see more than the reception desk and the inside of a conference room. However, despite the day’s disappointments the alumni dinner and social was entertaining. As the Beijing alumni were almost non-existent, the Shanghai alumni made a better showing. During the course of the evening I met some very interesting Thunderbird’s but really felt more closely bonded to the current students. The revelation I had was that as large and diverse as our alumni network is, the meat of the network is the relationships I’m building today. It’s these folks that I’m going to interact with and rely on in the future. The folks that I graduate with our the individuals I will call when deals need to be made or where groups need to be connected. It was great mixing with the various Thunderbird’s and ties that bind do exist but not nearly to the degree that exist amongst this rag-tag group of people I’ve been experiencing China with over the last five days.

Day 6 and 7 – Shanghai – January 17 and 18, 2009
I will not write much about the days off I had; however, I will mention that the two things that impressed me the most were the wonderful personalities of the Chinese people that came out during my bartering spree through downtown Shanghai and the collective spirituality I felt at the Sunday morning church service I went to with friends. Both experiences left deep impressions of reality where stereotypes had once existed. Off to Hong Kong.

Day 8 – Hong Kong – January 19, 2009
If you could smash the atmosphere of Seattle together with the overwhelming feeling of being in downtown Manhattan you would have Hong Kong. A city situated in the amphitheater of the China South Sea and in the heart of the financial arena of Asian economics, Hong Kong is a definite checkmark of spectacular things I’ve seen in my life. The awesomeness of this beautiful metropolis was validated by the day’s speakers. The theme focused specifically on the importance of Hong Kong’s role in the global expansion of Asia both past and future. However, the speakers were not reluctant to discuss the many difficulties the city faces, and especially, brought to light the difficult in determining the reliability of China’s economic forecasts. Some of the speaker’s did their best to convince us that the economy of the region was not as rosy as the Chinese government wants the world to believe and feels the economic slowdown will impact Hong Kong. However, one particular criticism of the world financial markets was specifically made by the Chief Investment Strategist from Goldman Sachs Asia who said, “The financial market needs commercial banks to stop acting like investment brokerages and China needs to stop incenting the Chinese savings rate.” I thought these points were especially interesting as both observations suggest methods of injecting markets with more liquidity via equity investments and consumer spending. However, another speaker mentioned that such drastic steps are not in China’s nature. The speaker iterated that, “a Chinese policy misstep could be catastrophic for the region and the world.” And Allen Vander … from Edelman consultancy projected that the region would experience a surge in NGO influence, a growing transient labor pool and a stronger emergence of the Chinese consumer. All of these points are fascinating interconnected and could produce interesting results. Only time will tell.

Day 9 – Hong Kong – January 20, 2009
Today we had an interesting visit with a Thunderbird entrepreneur named Nelson Choi. He literally cloned TiVo for the Hong Kong market and gave it the name Magic TV. Nelson’s motto for running a company was that, “you do not need to be an expert just courageous enough to believe in your idea.” And he showed it by taking a $100K venture to $50 MM in five years. Impressively, Nelson was very humble with his accomplishments and genuine in his enthusiasm for the Hong Kong market. Our second visit was in Shenzhen, China at Huawei Technologies. Huawei manufactures telecommunications equipment like switches, routers, servers, etc. and is another darling of the Chinese economy. It’s competitive advantage is its relentless focus on its customers; which sounds crystal clear and captivating when spoken, but when asked to relate how that translated into a business success, the speaker quietly found it difficult to produce an example. Once again a conflict of what China represent to what it really is. A vision of harmony masked by disharmony. This place is a paradox. But I still love it.

Day 10 – Hong Kong – January 21, 2009
My last day on the Winterim. I started this adventure wrestling with the problem of being conflicted and how that mirrored the conflict within China. Today’s lecture from Ambassador Lavin, followed by an outstanding dinner and reception with arguably the best represented alumni group I’ve run into since joining Thunderbird, to a perplexingly long ferry ride in Hong Kong Harbor, has brought me to the conclusion that China is a dynamic consternation. It’s so beautiful, mystifying, and enchanting on the outside. And so complex, conflicted and stupefying on the inside. But despite the contradiction I’m enthralled by its very nature and inspired by Frank Neville’s opening lecture. That is, despite China, with all of its prominence and intrigue, one cannot be 1) intimidated, 2) illogical or 3) culturally naïve when thinking about doing business or pursuing a life this great nation. It is only through feeling the stones as one crosses the river that one can find ultimate success and happiness here. I hope one day I can reflect back on this Winterim as another catalyst in my life long journey to experience China professionally and personally."