Open Space, Billionaire Lunch, and More

After many days without internet access, I'm back at last and trying to get at least a little caught up.

Tuesday: The conference began in a rather typical way--a panel of people giving talks and taking questions. In this case, they were students at the HK University of Science and Technology who were engaged in field research in mainland China. They were supposed to talk about their methods rather than their actual research, but some didn't have the ability to distinguish the two. In any case, I was well prepared, having deliberately sat in the back and brought my crocheting. It's amazing how having something to do with your hands improves your ability to concentrate on something that would otherwise be stultifying. (Probably I would have been more interested if I were actually doing something that could be termed field work...)

After this we had a group photo. This is not an official copy, but only my picture of the picture. It's hard to tell, therefore, that everyone seems to have been flatteringly touched up a bit. That's what I'm guessing, anyway, because we all look better in the photo than we did in real life.


The rest of the conference proper was conducted in a format known as "Open Space". It went roughly like this: chairs were placed in a circle. The theme was announced. Large sheets of paper and markers were placed in the middle of the (enormous) circle. People were directed to think up questions related to the theme, write the down, announce them to the group, and stick them up on the wall. The wall was divided into five different columns corresponding to the five time-slots that would be given to these group meetings. The number of groups was theoretically unlimited, but in practice there were about 25-30. Then we were instructed to choose which ones we were going to go to, with the additional note that we were allowed to get up and walk to a different one if we wanted.

This worked better than I would have thought. It seemed effective in bringing out independent thinking and motivation in people who would otherwise have felt bored/rebellious at being herded around. Given the tremendous diversity of interests, the panels were slightly too long--there were very few that had a topic everyone could really get into, so it often ended up that one or two people did much of the talking. Still, it probably made people talk more than they would have otherwise, but there wasn't awfully much pressure even on the person leading the group. It was all very loose and free. However, we were instructed to take notes.

I went to panels on "How to adjust to Chinese academia", "Comparative Philosophy" and "Does Confucius Matter Today?"--all interesting topics. Of course, the last two drew essentially the same crowd both times. I was especially interested to meet the two Eastern philosophy professors, FP and SA. Also, I was the only girl; how silly and typical. The Chinese academia one was interesting but no one really had many answers...

In the evening, we were taken on big buses to "The Peak" where we were having a reception at the resident of the American Consul-General. I sat next to FP on the bus and he told me he was reading the Mozi and some of the things he thought about it. I am also interested in the Mozi, or at least I was once, and we had lots of interesting things to chat about. We got there and then ambled over to look at the view: a few pictures, which don't really do justice to it.



Inside the residence, it was--well, a fancy house full of dressed up people. There were speeches about FB grants being awarded to students from HK. That was fun, I suppose. Interesting to contemplate other lives. Lots of the money for them was put up by HK billionaires, who were there also to be thanked. They seemed mildly pleased and dignified and all.

Then a diplomatic buffet. Fancy food that you had to be terrified you were going to drop on the expensive carpet. Nice goat cheese and tomato mini-pizzas: not a lot of goat cheese in Beijing, so it was really nice to eat them. Soft chocolate chip cookies. I ate too many. I chatted to people. I heard about one fellow's girlfriend, who was from Singapore but went to college in the US. Singapore paid for it, but the deal was that she would then have to work for the government for six years--or else pay back all the tuition money with interest. Pretty darn harsh if you ask me. It's like indentured servitude.

These flowers were the centerpiece on the table. I was kind of fascinated by them. They were really different from any flowers I have seen before, although I thought perhaps they were a variation on the snap-dragon? The picture isn't very good, but they were definitely real. I felt them. They didn't have the stiff waxy feeling of orchids, more the meltingly soft fragile feeling of snap-dragons. But I really don't know. I like mystery flowers.

The bus back let people off in Central HK for a night on the town, but I wasn't up for it, and just rode back to the campus.

Despite being so tired, I somehow managed to stay up really late in my room--talking to Pocket of Bolts, writing e-mail, posting all the pictures shown in the previous post below.

On Wednesday, however, I got up very very early. This time I was determined to see the sun actually rise, preferably from somewhere down near the beach. Well, the sunrise caught me halfway down the long winding road, but it was still a beautiful picture. Doesn't it look like a sunset instead? I promise you, though, it was morning. (Unless I got up earlier than I thought!)

Down below the track, on the last stretch of road before the beach, I ran into my fellow Beijing grad student, KP. We walked together. She was low because she loves to go running and had gone yesterday but had strained her already-bad back and so couldn't run again today. Ugh, running! Though I admit that the seaside running track made it more inviting than it otherwise would have been. Still... I sympathized with her frustration but for myself a stroll seemed perfectly pleasant.

Water rushing over the rocks:


KP, an exceptionally sweet picture somehow, I think:


On the long walk back up, she asked me if I was planning to get married. She had agreed to, next summer, and was stressed out about it. Even small weddings are expensive, she said despairingly. Are they? I tried and failed to contemplate it. All the relatives would have to be invited, she said. And even if you don't serve a meal, even if it's not at an expensive place, still it adds up. How many relatives do I have? I again failed to contemplate it. Well, for now it's her problem and not mine. I did not feel envious at all!

We had more Open Space meetings, all of which were a little too long, and everyone was worn out and weary. Then we had some closing thoughts. This was difficult to manage because there was the microphone in the middle of a huge circle--panopticon--and you had to volunteer to go out and talk. The professors stepped up first to the plate, and said things with professorial smoothness. The Public Affairs woman was bubblingly enthusiastic, but then she doesn't have to actually do these kinds of projects. On the ground it is sometimes much harder than on paper.

We went in the buses back to the center of town where we were ushered into a very fancy restaurant at the top of a tower. The restaurant was on the 56th floor, which was not the top, but I took a picture of the view.

This was the billionaire lunch, for which we had all been instructed to dress up. Each table was supplied with a billionaire "host" (nominally known as, board members of the Better HK Foundation or some such). We were supposed to be learning from them about the future of HK. Actually, I liked our billionaire well enough. He owns the companies that make all the tools you buy in Home Depot. I have his card. What a funny thing. So all you who know me? You are now two degrees of separation from the HK Home Depot billionaire. Also, when you buy stuff from Home Depot you are enriching him. Now you know.

Originally, the fellow was from Macau. Since we were all going to Macau later in the week, we asked him questions about it. It wasn't as it had been, he said. Our conversation was then interrupted for the, er, keynote speaker RC. RC was I guess the head of the Better HK Foundation, and could point out which buildings on the skyline he owned. He was, well, the biggest of the big fish. He was supposed to talk about the future of HK, but he takes orders from no one. HK is a small place, he said, but it's doing okay. It'll keep doing okay. Now let me talk about something I really want to talk about: the difference between Chinese and Americans.

He then proceeded to give the most offensive speech I have ever heard in my life. He managed to insult not only Americans, but also Japanese people, Jews, and women. Given that the FB group was more than 60% women, the last was especially upsetting. It was about a Shanghainese business woman who had given a marketing presentation, competing for a contract with his company. The minute the presenters had left the room, one of RC's execs said, "If I have to work with that bitch, I am quitting." Of course I couldn't let this guy I'd worked with for 20 years get upset, RC said, so she was totally out of the running. What a stupid company, to think they could get some sort of advantage sending a woman, ha ha. And it's too bad that women think they have to be so aggressive to get ahead in this world. Ha ha. Much more in that vein, with the remark about the Shanghainese woman being a bitch repeated multiple times.

It was really kind of astonishing. In an informal poll I took later, the women were shocked and hurt, while the men shrugged it off. Some of guys who lived in HK said that it was typical, par for the course. These are the people who sell us most of the things we buy. Sure, the stuff is made in China; but a huge lot of the money from them goes to HK. HK has the feeling of a tiny but massively powerful empire which secretly owns the world. Just an impression. And that speech was a nice little "fuck you" to all us bright-eyed little American kids who thought we knew something about Asia. I guess.

The delicious lunch we were supposed to be enjoying tasted like dust and ashes, as you might well expect.

The organizer of the conference and the lunch introduced our next activity in a quite embarrassed fashion, and we straggled down the multiple elevators. The bottom of the building was a shopping mall with a Watson's (drug store on the model of CVS or Rite-Aid, but fancier), where the women congregated en masse: chocolate, water, Tylenol [Paracetemol actually] (for me), hair products, whatever seemed comforting. It was pathetic, but not pathetic enough to keep me from getting something for my headache. Everyone seemed harassed and depressed.

Actually, this was a long long afternoon, and I am so tired now I can't even contemplate writing about it. So another post about Wednesday part II with many pictures, coming up tomorrow, stay tuned.