Journey Into China: Epilogue: Five Closing Thoughts on My Week in Shanghai

10,500 words might have been too much, but I’m infamously long-winded.  If you made it to this point, you are a most loyal reader.  You must like me, or be very patient, or love reading.

Here are five concluding thoughts from this experience:

1.  I couldn’t have had a better experience in Shanghai.  Pursuing a professional mission really allowed me to interact with the people, the culture, and the country in a way that pure tourism never would have allowed.  I’m most grateful to my school, Maui Preparatory Academy, for entrusting me with this important mission to help build our boarding program, and to Educatius for competently and professionally organizing a full week of recruitment activities.  This was a dream trip.

2.   Succeeding in student recruitment in China, as in any business in China, requires patience, dedication, and guanxi (relationship-building).  As an innovative, entrepreneurial, and aspirational school, Maui Preparatory Academy can become a prime location for Chinese students to master English and excel in American Universities, as well as to  

enhance our school ohana with their unique cultural contributions.  These seeds we plant in China will bear fruit, but it will be interesting to see when and how.  My job now will be to water these seeds and keep planting.

3.   I really like speaking Chinese.  I’m not great at it, but I’m functional.  When meeting with parents who didn’t speak English or students who felt shy, my speaking in Mandarin helped.  It’s a fantastic feeling in my brain to make profoundly different sounds that communicate meaning.  Also, Chinese people give me far too much credit for my abilities, or they’re just really polite.  In any event, my ego appreciates it.  I hope I can find ways to study more Mandarin in the future.

4.   China is a conditional success story. Never have so many people been so quickly pulled out of poverty into the middle class.  Americans enjoy prosperity, and Chinese have a right to it as well, without question.  The ascendacy of hundreds of millions of Chinese people to the middle class in the last thirty years is one of the greatest stories on earth.  That said, the gaudy materialism often characteristic of the nouveaux-riche wherever in the world they may be found is worrying.  The environmental, ethical, and economic ramifications of pouring resources into trivial, non-renewable, and wasteful products are already causing planetary catastrophes.  Chinese materialism, just like American materialism, worries me immensely, though everyone deserves to prosper.

5.   I will never live in Shanghai.  The love of my life doesn’t prefer cities, urban areas, or cold weather.  Shanghai is out.  That’s okay.  I’m already home.