Reunion Across Sixteen Time Zones
A Force of Nature in the Flat World
Daily I experience the remarkably few degrees of separation between others and me in this very flat world. Back in April in Boston, I met William Valentino, a Vice President with Bayer China, whose daughter worked in Kabul, Afghanistan, from where I had only returned days before. Who hangs out in war zones, let alone works in them? Yet there it was: Bill’s daughter and me in the same land-locked country in South Asia, donning hijab, helping to rebuild a nation in crisis. Bill, quite the force of nature with his vast array of social programs which he oversees in China, agreed to host my doctoral students in Beijing in May, where it just so happened was my next destination. The students were utterly taken with his work and his lifelong commitment to the nation. HIV-AIDS, rural development, education—little escapes Bayer’s touch.
Within hours of the tragic earthquake during our visit, Bayer was providing relief efforts to the victims. My tour guide in China, Lili Li, who had been in touch with Bill at my request before our arrival, asked if he was from Szechuan province. I laughed uproariously as I explained to her that Bill was not Asian, but rather a Caucasian boy from New Jersey. His Mandarin was that good, as was his navigation of Chinese restaurant protocol, where we enjoyed the choicest slices of Peking duck, thanks to his gracious manners. Following that visit, he and I learned that we were both invited to present at the Asian Forum on Corporate Social Responsibility in Singapore in November. A reunion was clearly in the making.
Singapore via Switzerland
Another reunion was also on the horizon, however. In flight between Kuala Lumpur and Bangalore in April 2006, I met Peter Andrist, Vice President of Business Development for GateGourmet, that multinational corporation that provides food for many of the airports throughout the world. (For my first story about Peter, see my blog titled Culture 101 from Tuesday, April 18, 2006.) A Swiss-born citizen whose company was based in Seattle, Washington and who lived in Bangkok, Peter Andrist is responsible for acquisitions for his company throughout Asia.
Peter represents to me the epitome of a leader for the 21st century—an individual who can flow with alacrity and confidence in and out of cultures. Peter appreciates the differences between and amongst the many nations in which he finds himself and yet knows how to build bridges with people. Little daunts him and nearly everything brings a twinkle to his eyes. These past two and one-half years we have stayed in touch, although I had not had the opportunity to meet with him whilst he lived in Bangkok and to conduct a formal interview about leadership.
Around May of this year, Peter mentioned to me that he would be moving to Singapore, where coincidentally I would find myself this November, and so it was that we made a plan to meet once again and talk about leadership in a global society. In one of Singapore’s typical torrential deluges, Peter greeted me with his intense blue eyes and wide smile, and we headed to Indochine Waterfront, a marvelous restaurant featuring cuisine from several Asian nations, situated on the Singapore River in the old colonial civic district. Glasses of Sauvignon Blanc in hand, we toasted our reunion and proceeded to talk about foreign policy, Asian cuisine, corporate social responsibility, and the many things we had been doing since the time last we had met at 36,000 feet over Malaysia Airlines’ famous satay.
Over intensely spicy Thai seafood Tom Yam soup and Vit Quay Gion Ton Kin—French duck fillets grilled with herbs and spices—I reminded Peter that his love of food reflected his childhood desire to be a chef. He laughed that I had remembered this very first story he had shared with me, but added to it when I asked how it was that he embraced a world far beyond the tiny town in Switzerland in which he had grown up.
“Do not laugh, Elizabeth, but Switzerland has a Navy. Yes, I know we are land-locked, but it is so, as amusing as that is. I wanted not only to be a chef, but one aboard a large ship,” Peter added.
At age fifteen, he set off for Genoa, Italy where he caught a freighter to Lebanon.
Reflecting at the prospect of my young son, who just turned fourteen, taking off around the world on his own, I queried if this distressed his mother. Peter replied that he did not have the typical teenage vices—no drugs, no criminal intent—and so as the eldest child, he had some amount of leverage to chart his own course.
“This was just before the war in 1971 and so Beirut was simply lovely. Now, of course, it is utterly destroyed. The ship had perhaps only seven small cabins for passengers. I made friends with a Catholic priest on board. When we disembarked, the priest greeted his cargo—a new Mercedes Benz automobile filled with arms.”
“Peter,” I probed, “You know that priests take vows of poverty. What on earth was a priest doing with an expensive German car and a cache of weapons?”
“Recall I was a child,” he reminded me. “Had I been older, I would have asked such questions, but what did I know?”
Following this first taste of the world, Peter never lost his love of travel. Speaking a raft of languages fluently, he has lived in many nations and has a deep love of the varying colors of the many cultures he encounters. Ankor Wat in Cambodia? Several times. Viet Nam. The same. Egypt. Please. He lived there. I found it quite surprising, then, to learn that I had somehow managed to find myself earlier this year in a country in which Peter had never been: Afghanistan. He was utterly captivated with my stories of the challenges the Afghan people face each day: security, education, meaningful work for their hands, a roof over their heads.
“When I met the Chancellor of Kabul Medical University, he said to my student, Mirwais, and me, ‘I am going to tell you about my school, I am going to answer your questions about leadership, and at the end, I am going to ask for your help.’ Peter, that month in Afghanistan transformed me. There is much to do, much to do.”
Peter and I agreed to continue the conversation and to imagine what we might do to continue our work in the world.
Daily I experience the remarkably few degrees of separation between others and me in this very flat world. Back in April in Boston, I met William Valentino, a Vice President with Bayer China, whose daughter worked in Kabul, Afghanistan, from where I had only returned days before. Who hangs out in war zones, let alone works in them? Yet there it was: Bill’s daughter and me in the same land-locked country in South Asia, donning hijab, helping to rebuild a nation in crisis. Bill, quite the force of nature with his vast array of social programs which he oversees in China, agreed to host my doctoral students in Beijing in May, where it just so happened was my next destination. The students were utterly taken with his work and his lifelong commitment to the nation. HIV-AIDS, rural development, education—little escapes Bayer’s touch.
Within hours of the tragic earthquake during our visit, Bayer was providing relief efforts to the victims. My tour guide in China, Lili Li, who had been in touch with Bill at my request before our arrival, asked if he was from Szechuan province. I laughed uproariously as I explained to her that Bill was not Asian, but rather a Caucasian boy from New Jersey. His Mandarin was that good, as was his navigation of Chinese restaurant protocol, where we enjoyed the choicest slices of Peking duck, thanks to his gracious manners. Following that visit, he and I learned that we were both invited to present at the Asian Forum on Corporate Social Responsibility in Singapore in November. A reunion was clearly in the making.
Singapore via Switzerland
Another reunion was also on the horizon, however. In flight between Kuala Lumpur and Bangalore in April 2006, I met Peter Andrist, Vice President of Business Development for GateGourmet, that multinational corporation that provides food for many of the airports throughout the world. (For my first story about Peter, see my blog titled Culture 101 from Tuesday, April 18, 2006.) A Swiss-born citizen whose company was based in Seattle, Washington and who lived in Bangkok, Peter Andrist is responsible for acquisitions for his company throughout Asia.
Peter represents to me the epitome of a leader for the 21st century—an individual who can flow with alacrity and confidence in and out of cultures. Peter appreciates the differences between and amongst the many nations in which he finds himself and yet knows how to build bridges with people. Little daunts him and nearly everything brings a twinkle to his eyes. These past two and one-half years we have stayed in touch, although I had not had the opportunity to meet with him whilst he lived in Bangkok and to conduct a formal interview about leadership. Around May of this year, Peter mentioned to me that he would be moving to Singapore, where coincidentally I would find myself this November, and so it was that we made a plan to meet once again and talk about leadership in a global society. In one of Singapore’s typical torrential deluges, Peter greeted me with his intense blue eyes and wide smile, and we headed to Indochine Waterfront, a marvelous restaurant featuring cuisine from several Asian nations, situated on the Singapore River in the old colonial civic district. Glasses of Sauvignon Blanc in hand, we toasted our reunion and proceeded to talk about foreign policy, Asian cuisine, corporate social responsibility, and the many things we had been doing since the time last we had met at 36,000 feet over Malaysia Airlines’ famous satay.
Over intensely spicy Thai seafood Tom Yam soup and Vit Quay Gion Ton Kin—French duck fillets grilled with herbs and spices—I reminded Peter that his love of food reflected his childhood desire to be a chef. He laughed that I had remembered this very first story he had shared with me, but added to it when I asked how it was that he embraced a world far beyond the tiny town in Switzerland in which he had grown up.
“Do not laugh, Elizabeth, but Switzerland has a Navy. Yes, I know we are land-locked, but it is so, as amusing as that is. I wanted not only to be a chef, but one aboard a large ship,” Peter added.
At age fifteen, he set off for Genoa, Italy where he caught a freighter to Lebanon.
Reflecting at the prospect of my young son, who just turned fourteen, taking off around the world on his own, I queried if this distressed his mother. Peter replied that he did not have the typical teenage vices—no drugs, no criminal intent—and so as the eldest child, he had some amount of leverage to chart his own course.
“This was just before the war in 1971 and so Beirut was simply lovely. Now, of course, it is utterly destroyed. The ship had perhaps only seven small cabins for passengers. I made friends with a Catholic priest on board. When we disembarked, the priest greeted his cargo—a new Mercedes Benz automobile filled with arms.”
“Peter,” I probed, “You know that priests take vows of poverty. What on earth was a priest doing with an expensive German car and a cache of weapons?”
“Recall I was a child,” he reminded me. “Had I been older, I would have asked such questions, but what did I know?”
Following this first taste of the world, Peter never lost his love of travel. Speaking a raft of languages fluently, he has lived in many nations and has a deep love of the varying colors of the many cultures he encounters. Ankor Wat in Cambodia? Several times. Viet Nam. The same. Egypt. Please. He lived there. I found it quite surprising, then, to learn that I had somehow managed to find myself earlier this year in a country in which Peter had never been: Afghanistan. He was utterly captivated with my stories of the challenges the Afghan people face each day: security, education, meaningful work for their hands, a roof over their heads.
“When I met the Chancellor of Kabul Medical University, he said to my student, Mirwais, and me, ‘I am going to tell you about my school, I am going to answer your questions about leadership, and at the end, I am going to ask for your help.’ Peter, that month in Afghanistan transformed me. There is much to do, much to do.”
Peter and I agreed to continue the conversation and to imagine what we might do to continue our work in the world.
posted by Elizabeth Reilly | 3:29 AM
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