There’s a well known saying among those who write about China: “After you have been in China for a week, you think you can write a book. After you have been in China for a month, if you are lucky you might be able to muster a short article. After you have been in China for a year, you keep silent.” The point of this quote is, the more you learn about and experience China, the more you realize it has too many faces, it is too complex a place to master, and you have too much to learn. Many of you (all of us?) will return from China with more questions than answers. If so, that’s okay and natural. It’s also, in my view, the way true education should work and is one of the ways a truly educated person learns to view and experience the world. Happily for us, our goal for this trip and course does not require us to become experts on China, but to gain a deeper understanding of ourselves, the global economy and our ability to operate effectively within it.

In China CEO: Voices of Experience from 20 International Business Leaders, attorney Norman Givant (Managing Partner, Shanghai office, China Practice Group, Freshfields, Bruckhaus, Deringer Law Offices) reminds us that China’s booming economic development has taken place despite the messy, chaotic, and confusing backdrop of the transformation from a communist to a socialist and market-based system. He very insightfully notes, “[Unlike many Westerners] the Chinese have no problem at all in living with contradictions. Their question is: Does it work over time?” He points to Shanghai’s’ remarkable growth as an example. “Look out the window: you see a prosperous, dynamic city that has grown tremendously in the last 20 years, and it grew primarily by ignoring the contradictions [e.g., the poor shanty hutongs/alleys that exist next to a five star hotel or world class skyscraper] and focusing largely on economic development.” (Page 205) Simon Keely (Head of the Hewitt Asia Leadership Center, Hewitt Associates China) echoes a similar tune: “China is full of contradictions. Here we are a socialist country, but it’s one of the most competitive places on earth.” (Page 115) Well stated. Both men clearly “get” and understand this facet of China. I don’t think this means the US is not a place of contradictions, but the China hands I call friends seem to suggest that in China the contradictions are deeper and more disturbing than most places.
For more great examples of some of the contradictions in China that will mess with your mind and tug at your heart, check out following recent Wall Street Journal [subscription may be required] and NY Times articles [subscription may be required]:

• How Capitalist Transormation Exposes Holes in China’s Government
• So Much Work, So Little Time
• In Booming China, Protest By Poor Intensify
• China’s Reporters Face a Backlash Over Investigations
  
• In Chinese BoomTown, Middle Class Pushed Back
• Chinese Success Story Chokes on Its Own Growth

Doing business in China, and much of Asia, can often involve a lunch or dinner banquet, with great food, drink, and lots of toasting. This is a heads up that some of the events thrown by firms or hosts on our behalf in China may have this element. In China, the celebratory poison of choice is usually the famous maotai (discussed in this Wall Street Journal article) — a fiery sorghum-based liquor made famous primarily by Nixon and Mao at their historic summit and toasts of “friendship” in the 1970s when Nixon came to China.Part of this banquet and sociological ritual is celebratory and to relax, part social to strengthen relationships, and in some cases part of the game is to get you on your heels through alcohol consumption so you are not thinking clearly and concede or disclose things you should not in a business deal. Having said that, and as I already pointed out in your FAQ document and reiterate here, I want you to remember the following things about China, this drink and such events:

1. Mautai is really, really strong and not for the meek. It looks like water, yet will knock you on your behind faster than you can blink. Men and women far bigger and stronger than you or me have been toppled by this stuff.

2. One of the oldest tricks in the book in China is for your host to drink water, while he/she toasts you time and time again as you are toasting with mautai. Don’t fall for this. While sometimes your host might do this to gain advantage (see above), it may also be the case that this is the 5th banquet your host has attended that week as part of the normal and regular course of doing business in China and to keep their own health in order they may choose to drink water but look/act like they are drinking mautai with you out of respect.

3. This is a business, not a party trip. What you do on your own time is up to you, but make good, safe choices and decisions. When/if you go out on your own, non-class time, never, ever get drunk in China (or anywhere you travel for that matter!). You will make bad decisions and you make yourself a target to be robbed or somehow taken advantage of. Even on your own time, don’t embarrass Cal Poly, the MBA program or the USA. Also, if you do, for example, go “clubbin” at night on your own time after class is dismissed and drink too much, remember that you still gotta get out of bed the next day, ON TIME, for that day’s activities — nobody gets to take a day off or “sleep in” on this trip.

4. If you don’t drink, no problem. No need to start now at such events. Just politely decline and toast your host using your tea, coke or water!

5. If you do try mautai, don’t mix it with beer. If you do so you will get as sick as you ever have been.

6. Re-read and follow rules 1 through 5 above.