The China Blog

This week’s guest columnist is C.J. TAN, who works for a major Chinese state-owned enterprise screening potential target companies for merger/acquisition potential.  He has significant international and personal relocation experience, having lived and worked in Tokyo for six months, San Francisco for three years, and most recently in sub-Saharan Africa for two years while leading his company’s initiatives there.  In addition, he has worked for Danish and British companies in the international trading, shipping, and energy industries.  Mr. Tan has also co-translated several books into their official Chinese editions, including “1999: Victory Without War” by Richard Nixon, “History of Western Civilization” by William McNeill, and “Global Conflict: The Domestic Sources of International Crisis” by John W. Burton.  Mr. Tan now travels less, reads more, constantly searches for the real fun in life, and rejoices in being home now with his family in Beijing.

Never mind whether you are Chinese, American, Chinese-American or American-Chinese.

When it comes to China, only three decades of changes can make one’s feeling of identity an antique luxury in this rapidly changing world.

In the early 1990s, a Chinese colleague of mine who was assigned to San Francisco with me was caught by the highway patrol police for speeding; he was asked to pull over to the shoulder of Highway 101, the first time he was ordered to do so in a foreign land.  Confused but still hoping to argue with the policeman, he got out of his car, and approached the policeman who stood about 10 meters away to make his argument. The policeman held up his pistol, pointed it at my colleague and shouted “Don’t move, hands off!” As my colleague recently recalled, he was surprised the policeman treated him like an enemy launching an assault.

That happened in an era when owning a private vehicle in China was a luxury.  The popular symbol of luxury at that time was the triad of a washing-machine, a refrigerator and an air conditioner.  Even then, a breeze of change was gaining momentum – the Chinese car industry was beginning to open to French and German car makers.  And that was at a time when everything new seemed just about to replace the old – things like the traditional imports from the Eastern Block, for instance. I happened to see Chen Pei-Si, the Chinese comedian and film star, drive an aging Russian import, a Volga, in the streets of Beijing. And I can recall figuring out that this guy would become much wealthier and this Volga would soon prove an antique show-off.

“Pulling over” is about rules: Once rules are universal, all traffic would flow like a liquid.  Today in China, cars are many, and many bikers chose cars over bikes. To cope with the kind of speeding my colleague encountered on Highway 101, the Chinese traffic rules are enforced to the similar effect – no bargain, no spot argument and leave it to the court. I rather believe this is an American lesson learned for the good.

So, I would feel that a Chinese driving on Highway 101 or an American driving on G101 makes no difference today – similar experiences result in similar rules.  And that statement is a rule, too!

An old but true story about John Fairbank would sound jokingly alarming today. In the 1930s, as John recalled in his autobiography, he once accidentally rode his bike into the rut of the old Peking trolley and ran down a Peking local.  Anxious and uncertain about how the gathering local crowd and the police would treat him, John lay on the ground for some time longer than his actual pain would justify, only to show that he was suffering a misery equal to the one of the run-down man. As a result, the police fined him one dollar and an apology to the “victim” to settle the case.

With the world becoming a village – as many claim – and more experiences and rules being shared, the less anxiety and uncertainty one needs to have.  “Fun” is what a village would mean to Johns and Zhangs alike.