Return to China: Day 12: Shenzhen + Reflections on an Odyssey

Day 12: Shenzhen

On my final full day in China I travel to the fastest growing city in the fastest growing country in the world: Shenzhen.  This city has sprung up out of nowhere in the last thirty years, buoyed by its midpoint location between Hong Kong and Guangzhou.  It’s a capitalist border region megalopolis, with views across the water to Hong Kong and bullet train rail links to Guangzhou of one hour.  It’s one of the lynchpins of the Pearl River Delta, and a place where people are making new money in manufacturing and trade.

Clyde, Mark, Tomas, Emma, and I board the bullet train and race the eighty minutes down the Pearl River Delta to Shenzhen.  We hardly stop to eat as we scurry through tunnels, streetscapes, and train stations.  In Shenzhen we taxi to a high rise where EIC will be hosting our fair.  This will be another opportunity to meet 30 to 40 students and families.  I see many of the same faces that I saw the day before in Guangzhou- Kiwis, Americans, Europeans, and Chinese, all hawking various schools from around the planet.  This office is a bit disorganized, and when we arrive we don’t have enough chairs or tables for our station.  We end up commandeering a few and setting up our way.

The following four hours of advertising the school are interesting, productive, unproductive, unusual, tedious, and fascinating at turns.  Some of the other school representatives have been traveling for longer than I have, and they are in various states of delirium and discombobulation.  As my table is ignored for much of the fair, I begin to feel discouraged, when suddenly a young boy comes to my table with his parents.  I have no translator, so I use my best Chinese over the next thirty minutes to sell Maui Preparatory Academy.  I am successful enough to exchange contact information and build a relationship with the mother.  Here, on the final stop of my whirlwind tour, I may have at last found a guaranteed student who chooses Maui Prep.  Only time will tell. . .

Our work is done.  I bid adieu to Clyde and Mark, who will fly home to New York this evening.  It has been a wonderful pleasure to meet them both, and I hope to see them again one day, though this China road tour has been its own unique experience.

Tomas, Emma, and I take the train home to Guangzhou.  In the city, I help Tomas move out of his high rise apartment in the new city, and we share a hot pot feast together in the restaurant district.  An evening walk precedes a deep sleep before the morning’s long journey: Guangzhou-Tokyo-Honolulu-Kapalua. . .

Time to go home to  mama and baby. . .

Epilogue

This was my second trip to China.  The first was a weeklong run through Shanghai and surrounds in November.  On this my second trip, I visited seven cities in 14 days, a true whirlwind. Here are my five new insights.

1. China is changing fundamentally, comprehensively, and profoundly at a speed and in a way that virtually nobody comprehends.  I’ve been thinking, reading, and studying this country for a decade, and the scale of societal transformation is almost incomprehensible.  The more you see of China, the more you can’t believe what’s happening.

2. Many people want to leave China.  Adults, students, professionals. Some people want to leave forever, and many others just for awhile. There are rising trends in many different directions. However, as the growing middle class flexes its wallets, China and the world will be impacted. The last 15 years are just the beginning.

3. The U.S. and China have to get along.  We are each too big, too powerful, and too pivotal to not work together.  There needs to be understanding, cooperation, and relationship building at every level.  On a micro-stage, this is the best result of what my recruitment might provide: a chance for American and Chinese students to know each other, like each other, and learn from each other.

4. The potential of the Chinese market is limitless, yet certain realities remain.  Hawaii is not on the radar of many Chinese as a competitive place to study, grow, and prepare for the future.  This holds true for lots of other places in America that aren’t the Northeast or California.  The Chinese market is brand driven, and Hawai’i and Maui Preparatory Academy must build the brand.

5. Chinese want to come to America.  Not New 

Zealand, not England, not Australia, not anymore. This is a bit of an oversimplification, but as America has the most best Universities in the world, the Chinese want to prepare to attend those Universities.  In this regard, Hawai’i is interesting to Chinese because it is in America, and provides a pathway to American higher education.

6. Dr. Samuel Johnson once commented, “When one is tired of London, one is tired of life.” The same holds true of China.  This civilization contains multitudes.  Five thousand years of history, one of the longest continuous forms of writing in existence, 1.4 billion people, the biggest economy in the history of the planet: accolades and superlatives abound.  The whole world wants and needs to China to succeed.  The progress of China in the next fifty years will continue to be the Greatest Story on Earth, and I hope I can be a small part of it.