Why China?

IT CAN BE ACCOMPANIED WITH A BEMUSED LOOK OR A DISBELIEVING grin, but the question doesn’t change. “Why China?” I am constantly asked, especially on my forays back home.

I understand the question, but the bemusement is puzzling. After all, where else is there?

In late 2003, I started research into business opportunities elsewhere in the world, mainly looking at developing countries. The main targets were the usual suspects: Brazil, Russia, India and China. My own interest in the Far East, and the fact that Naspers had already been there for some time, made the latter a clear favourite. Rightly, as it turned out.

In early 2004 I came to China to investigate first-hand, and I was astounded. Even after all the desk research I was amazed by the development. Where were all the bicycles and quaint triangular straw hats? Where were the ancient street markets, and why wasn’t anybody dressed in grey Mao-style pyjamas? I had fallen prey to preconceived ideas, much like those uninformed tourists who expect to see lions roaming the streets of Johannesburg. In my defence, I wasn’t the only one.

What I found was a gigantic, vibrant city, with skyscrapers as far as the eye could see, traffic jams beyond the worst nightmares of South Africans and people so fashionably dressed they wouldn’t be out of place in the better parts of New York. I found enthusiastic capitalism and an entrepreneurial spirit reminiscent of the US in the fifties. I found people with friendly smiles and open minds, willing to learn and teach. In short, I had found what I was looking for.

Nor was it only Shanghai. Beijing looks like Manhattan would, if you trebled the number of skyscrapers. Shenzhen is a hive of activity, Guangzhou is throbbing with life. Each city is culturally different, but each shouts progress and vibrancy. What really caught my heart was that all of this flies in the face of many, many problems. Example: every city and province imposes its own bureaucracy on business, in sometimes bizarre ways that often stretch all the way back to Confucius. There are problems that will probably never be solved to everyone’s satisfaction. But these issues cannot do much to slow down the pace of progress. The juggernaut is unstoppable, and the Dragon is but a teenager.

China is almost the direct opposite of the creaking social welfare state that is Europe. It has more energy than North America could handle. By truly embracing technology and education as the cornerstones of the economy, the Chinese are creating an environment no business person can help but love. Which may be why personal reasons, not business ones, are so often cited as the stumbling block for expatriate workers.

As regular readers will know, this is not the easiest place to live in and it can be tough on a family used to the Western way of life. Nothing is familiar, and you can feel like you’re on an emotional roller coaster. Even basic survival can be trying. One day I’m buying Kiwi milk for R17 a litre, the next day it comes from Australia and suddenly costs R30.

And yet, despite the adversity and frustrations, we love being here. The kids get the kind of worldly education that money can’t buy. The wife and I get to experience things you can hardly imagine. It is intensely rewarding.

But, above all, we get to live in a place that is writing much of the history of the world right now. One day we’ll be able to walk down a beach, pushing our strollers and oxygen bottles, and say: “We were a part of it . . .”