Friday, May 23, 2008

My Perspective on my Trip to China

I'm back after 12 days in Hong Kong, Xian and Beijing. When I left diesel fuel cost us $3.87 per gallon. Yesterday it would cost $4.57!! There is no doubt that many of our customers are feeling the double whammy of higher costs and lower head counts. We need to keep plugging away (and I know I sound like a broken record) but we need to continue to prove our value to our customers in helping them with battle the effects of the economy.

Traveling to another country truly gives you perspective on what we have here. My travels to China were a confusing mix of contrasts. Great wealth in Hong Kong, a booming economy in Beijing, the innate poverty of the masses, the overabundance of labor, the human tragedy of an earthquake, the sense of tradition politically and religiously, the desire to learn, the desire to prosper, the unique culture, the Westernization of a Communist country. I left China barely able to comprehend the future of this huge country.
What I do understand is that unlike in the US, when a dictatorship wants to flex its muscles it does so in an instant. The immediate prohibition of all foreign entertainment channels taken off the air during the period of mourning, the candor of the guides that they "could not talk about that" when a sensitive issue was questioned, reminded me of the totalitarianism. Yet, the anarchy on the roads, the aggressive capitalism, the construction cranes everywhere, made me wonder how even a dictatorship was going to control this crazy growth without losing their grip on a population with raised expectations.
All I know is we are so lucky to live here in this country at this time in history. In China, I heard again and again, the admiration and curiosity of what it’s like to live in America. Our appreciation of what we have, and the way we work to preserve our democratic society will determine our destiny.