Groundspeed, 431 km/h

Under construction

Assimilation Announcement

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This Very Flat World

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A Rolex for One-half Bottle of Sprite

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This Is Not Your Mother or Father's China

Pristine and brilliantly-polished granite floors. High tech steel beamed architecture. Gucci, BMW, and Clarins Boutiques. Jean-clad men and women talking animatedly on mobile phones as they navigate Beijing International Airport (symbol, PEK), this is China today. It is clearly not your mother or father’s China. We arrived exhausted, but filled with anticipation as we moved toward Immigration and Customs, where our health forms were perfunctorily collected with nary a glance, leaving me a bit cynical about my thoughtful consideration of whether to check snivel or psychosis as recent health conditions. Immigration was similarly a breeze, and the agent stamped my passport whilst I studied the several buttons available to me at the counter which afforded me the opportunity to evaluate his service. I pushed, “Excellent,” which included a smiling face icon, and thanked him for his help. He smiled broadly.



On clearing Customs and Immigration, we moved to the exit to find Lily Li, our guide who would serve as our ambassador for the days to come. As we drove into Beijing, Lily and I discussed if we should use the afternoon to begin sightseeing, and I voted for immediate immersion. We headed for Temple of Heaven, built in 1420 CE during the Ming Dynasty and expanded under
the Qing Dynasties. Chinese emperors considered themselves “Sons of Heaven,” they built their own dwelling, “The Forbidden City” smaller than this dwelling for Heaven. Ming and Qing Emperors traveled each year from the Forbidden City to the Temple of Heaven on the winter solstice and in the first month of the lunar calendar to worship, offer sacrifices to heaven, and to pray for good harvests.

Small groups of Chinese sat around walls playing card games, singing, and chatting in the Long Corridor leading to the temple. Numerous souvenir hawkers approach us with Prada and Rolex knockoffs, postcards, and Chinese musical instruments. We would see in the days to come that these entrepreneurs would find us at every turn, and since at this point we were not fully immersed in the barter culture, we merely walked on. The first view of the Hall of Prayer took our collective breaths away, and our dozens of cameras made their appearance.

From ancient to new age, we headed next into Beijing, where in preparation for the Olympics, the city has undergone a complete facelift. The streets were clean, free of Los Angeles-style potholes and litter, and filled with new and beautiful cars. Unlike Southern India, where the women wear classic salwar kameez and sari, not a Mao suit was in sight, and I looked to no avail for the Mandarin collar, so popular in the United States. The Chinese dressed so Western in style, that I found myself a bit disorienting. I mused that perhaps the fact that they produce so much of the clothing we wear in the West, it was no stretch to imagine that with the loosening of the government’s restrictions on apparel, it only stood to reason that they could wear whatever they wished. New construction was everywhere, and the city took on a War of the Worlds-style appearance with its ubiquitous metal monsters situated at each turn. As we arrived at our lovely hotel with its vast marble floors and massive porcelain vases, I wondered just what would differentiate China today from any European city. It became my small mission to begin to create a Venn diagram of similarities and differences between China and the West. What would I come to discover about China’s place in the world today? How might it be relevant to us in the United States?


What would I learn about leadership in a global society? Would I be able to do what I was asking of my students, namely, to withhold judgment and allow the experiences of the days to come to wash over me? The hot shower prior to dinner that evening in a bathroom no different from any I have seen the world over, did indeed wash over me and permit the dust and the travel weariness to float mercifully away.

Sea of Okhotsk, Siberia

Ground Speed 543 mph
Altitude 39,000
Distance to destination 1,807
Distance Traveled 4,293
Time since Departure 7:08 hours
Time to destination 3:21
ETA 1:24 p.m. Wednesday, June 6

On the tarmac of San Francisco International, our pilot announced that we needed to wait until the plane ahead of us was ten minutes out of Russian airspace before we could take off. I recognized in that moment that I had paid scant attention to the route we would take to reach Beijing. As it is summer, the plane is filled with various groups who shall take tours—middle school students and their beloved history teacher, senior citizens who shall rendezvous with others on landing, and our group of over thirty, most of whom are on this flight. It is full. We are all flying in what I affectionately call, “steerage,” and we are packed in like so many cattle. I reminded my colleague, Farzin Madjidi that were we flying to India, we should be in first class—cattle being revered as they are in that nation.

My next realization that we were heading to China came when our flight attendant handed me three forms: a customs form, an immigration form, and a health form. As I reviewed them, I noted that the health form asked me to check boxes if I had any of a host of various ailments including snivel and psychosis. Another question asked if I had been around poultry in the past seven days. I had roasted a chicken two nights ago, I thought, chuckling. Traveling as much as I have in the former Soviet Union, I recognized that as amusing as the form was that should I choose to be cheeky, I would find myself detained in Customs and Immigration. As Agent K said in Men in Black, “We at the FBI have no sense of humor that I know of.” I imagine Chinese officials are similarly predisposed.

The students, faculty, and I have entertained ourselves these many hours with stories in the aisles, films such as Wild Hogs, and the occasional meal. One student noted that she had read that similar to the Indians, the Chinese do not queue.

“What?” I remarked. “The Indians also did not pick that up from the British!”

In preparation for the Olympics, however, the government has designated June 9 and 10 as “Queue Practice Day” in Beijing, and so all citizens must on those two days wait in lines. I understand spitting on the sidewalk has also become forbidden.

Snack Time just concluded and we found in our boxes not the traditional sandwich, but rather a cup of noodles—yet more evidence that life will look entirely different for the next ten days. Following our photographs of our flight attendant reconstituting our noodles with boiling water and much laughter on our parts, we returned to our fourth movie and the final leg of this journey. Under normal circumstances, a cup of noodles would likely not cause such amusement, I recognize, and that something somehow gets lost in translation. It has got to be the altitude, and yet I imagine many more things shall get lost in translation for a while to come.

China, Inc.

Most of my work in the world I do alone. I do not mean that I conduct it without the help and support of many, but from age nineteen as an undergraduate studying in Vienna, Austria, I have ventured out principally by myself. Over the past year as I have begun to distill the preliminary findings related to global leadership from my work in India, I have found increasingly more people asking,

"So, how does this work in India compare with what is happening in China?"

My response has been, "Besides what I read in the news, I cannot say with any measure of authority."



So it was in Fall 2006 that my Associate Dean, June Schmieder-Ramirez approached me and asked, "What would you think about China in June 2007 with our Organizational Leadership students?"

Russia for my doctoral work during the collapse of the Soviet Union. India for my research initiative. Nigeria, Thailand, and Afghanistan on the roster through my doctoral students in just this past year. China? Absolutely! China as a culture that has long held my imagination. China as a way to begin to calibrate what I am learning in India. China as a means of helping my students to understand the flat world. China...and not alone...Chinaaaahhh.

Fourth century Taoist philosopher, Zhuangzi, said


which translated, offers, "The World is Large. Its beauty indescrible. "

Our nation has much to learn from this emerging force of nature. As with India, China has bet huge stakes to join the world community. Join my colleagues, Doctors Farzin Madjidi and Anthony Collatos, nearly thirty doctoral students, and me on this soujourn to an ancient land whose presence on the global stage has become as prominent and ubiquitous as a red dragon in a Chinese New Years parade.