I am a big fan of Jon Stewart. Huge, huge fan.  (For the literalist readers out there, again note that I used the word “God” in the title fo this post with a small “g”.)   He repeatedly uses humor to show how absurd each of us, myself included, can be, and how we can all be guilty of taking our own petty theories and looking for data points to confirm those theories and hence our biases and view of the world. Yet we ignore, over and over and over, the data points that refute how we see the world, how we wish the world to be, and/or that we cannot explain. Humans sometimes do this because we can be lazy as a species and/or do not want to move from our developed country wired way of thinking and comfort zone.

Here are several pieces of advice I give people before they travel to China and/or India for a business trip like ours:

1. Watch and observe. Don’t preach to our hosts about our culture and way of doing things until and before you have taken ample time to learn about their history, culture, demographics, politics, businesses, industries, economy, etc.

2. Things in the world happen for a reason. This includes things that happen in China and India. Look for and study what that reason is. This is your charge and my expectation for you as educated graduate students.

3. China is what it is. India is what it is. Accept that. Get over it. Resist the American tendency to “wonderfulize” or “awfulize” what you see there until you have studied it fully and thoroughly. Depending on the complexity of the issue, this may mean you have to return two, three or more times before you understand what you are seeing. High level learning and personal growth are hard, hard work that require ownership, persistence and endurance.

Exhibit A and B for how we can learn more about a country, and ourselves, and some of the above lessons/advice, through satire and humor:

A. Click HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE and watch these four short clips and special show/feature by John Stewart on the Beijing Olympics. In this segment he also, in my view, rightly takes the Chinese to task for some of their own inconsistencies. This is perfectly fair and appropriate, in my view. Absurdity goes both ways. (I have read Phillip Pan’s book, Out of Mao’s Shadow: The Struggle for the Soul of a New China, by the way — an excellent book and read.)

B. Click HERE for my earlier post and this prior short segment by Jon Stewart on partisan politics, hackery and hypocrisy, by both political parties in the US. I.e., neither side or party seems that interested, really, in helping us learn more about China (the problem appears to be less acute for India given its democracy status) and how to more effectively interact with the Chinese.

Yes, Jon Stewart remains a god.

After our return from our Chindia trip (see my last post below), I took a break from blogging as I had come down with a serious case of blog burn out. I will try to crank it up again.

Let’s start with Russia.

If you follow the news, you are aware of the Russian-Georgian mess. Basic situation (greatly simplified) — ethnic Russians in Georgia wish to return to Mother Russia, the Georgians say “uh, I don’t think so” and send troops to discourage. Russia reacts by invading said territories with their military, thereby sending the Georgian military running for their lives and back from whence they came.

What do you see as the implications of all of this for China? For the USA? I have been thinking about this lately.

Here is what I see — numerous Chinese, as part of Chinese economic expansion, business opportunity and/or strategic Han integration by numbers, set up shop near the Russian border (and even across the Chinese-Russian border into Russia in some cases). Thus, along the Chinese-Russian border, a line viewed as unclear by some at various points, one can find a mix of Russians and Chinese, including on both sides of Mongolia.

If/when the ethnic Russians in or near these areas decide that they too, like their comrades in Georgia, don’t feel the love from the Chinese and wish to return to or strengthen their connection to Mother Russia, we likely see the Chinese do their usual knee jerk reaction to protect their beloved “sovereignty” and end continued “humiliation at the hand of foreign powers”, and like Georgia, send in their heavies to counter and discourage Russian flexing. Mother Russia then in turns send in their heavies to strike back and protect said ethic Russian from any threat. Then, we have two super powers (depending on how you define said term) pointing their toys, er, I mean their weapons at the other and the USA gets caught in the middle of this mess and comes in to try and broker things to calm the schoolyard down.

I don’t see how this recent stretching of Russian muscle can be good for the USA. I don’t see how this recent development can be is good for China, with the very long border it shares with Russia.

Your thoughts?

And is my read wrong, that so far the Chinese seem to be sitting on the sidelines re: the mess in Georgia? As least I have not seen or read much coming from them. Why not much from Beijing so far on this issue?

I welcome your insights on this topic. My disclaimer: I know virtually nothing about Russia.