SPEAKING
FREELY How Shanghai is
that? By Ned Boudreau
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SHANGHAI - Recently,
a friend who had taught in this city only a few
years ago came to visit. Not surprisingly, he
observed that
Shanghai had changed:
"Everybody has a cell phone in his or her ear. How
Shanghai is that?" he said.
But the
question should be: How Shanghai are you? You have
a phone? Of course you do. What about a laptop?
That, too? You have an iPod? Excellent. Now: How
about a BMW? A Benz? But what about Tsao
Hsueh-chin; what about Shakespeare? This is not a
rhetorical question. Where is elegance, where is
culture if art is lacking? How Shanghai is that?
They aren't missing at all: My Chinese
friends convince me of that. All of them know and
love the Classics; I'm reading Song Dynasty poets
and A Dream of Red Mansions. How Shanghai
are we? Very. Naturally, we have cellular
telephones, we have - most of us - laptops and all
the rest. Maybe none of us has our own Beamer or
Benz, but we have the most valuable asset in all
business and economics: creativity. How Shanghai
is that?
Most of the major media, even the
Chinese media, play down and even denigrate the
creativity of the Chinese. I beg to disagree. The
Shakespeare Players and the poets in my Poetry
Corner at a local university taught me an entirely
different story. They all are studying finance or
accounting or economics, but The Players are not
afraid to lose face onstage; they play fools and
clowns and buffoons.
The Poets have huge
gifts, in both Chinese and English, and they are
unafraid to display those gifts. They translate
from Chinese to English and from English to
Chinese with equal dexterity. One young man among
the Poets writes incessantly in both languages;
much of his work is superb, in either language. A
young lady writes heart-wrenching love poems
during her mathematics classes. Another young
poetess amazed me with an extraordinarily powerful
poem, her very first in English; she's an
accounting major.
Similarly, one of my
Chinese friends is a techie, but a highly creative
techie - he runs a computer animation lab doing
film and TV work. So he's both a nerd and a
graphic artist. His English name is "Byron", after
the great English lyric poet, whose works he
quotes from memory. Another colleague and friend
is writing a hilarious, much needed book on
American business slang. Her husband, a banker at
the highest level, is a brilliant photographer who
thinks of early retirement so he can pursue his
passion on a full-time basis. Yet another friend
is a passionate musician who teaches chemistry to
pay the bills. How Shanghai is that?
Well
- very! Creativity is a hard thing to define, but
it's easy to see. Where? In Shanghai, of course,
but in all of China, too. Chinese actors and
directors are taking their rightful place at the
top of the film world - and not for the idiotic,
formulaic movies favored in Hollywood, but ones
with truly Chinese themes and sensibilities
presented in entirely new ways. Chinese designers
are beginning to compete with the best-known
fashion designers in Paris and Milan. Modern
Chinese artists have long been known for inventing
new variations on traditional themes and
techniques in painting, calligraphy and sculpture.
When I studied marketing at Harvard, many
of the textbooks emphasized the crucial role of
creativity, even if they did not call it that.
Often, they termed it "research and development".
And I recall one line from a marketing text:
"New-product development is the lifeblood of
firms, especially in mature markets." New-product
development requires a great deal of creative
thinking, as well as the huge creativity that goes
into effective advertising campaigns.
Today, everyone has heard the phrase
"think outside the box". That's creativity. It's
as important to business as management skills.
Economists study creativity, but they call it
enterprise; it is - along with land, labor and
capital - one of the "four factors of production"
vital to all economic theory. John Maynard Keynes
called enterprise "the animal spirit of
capitalism"; The Economist calls it "the creative
juices".
When China began to open up, the
effect of entrepreneurial capitalism was like
casting strong sunlight on a glacier - a flooding
cascade of economic growth that continues to this
day. I witnessed the same type of imagination and
creativity during 18 years in the US corporate
sector, where I slaved away in the mines of
marketing communications - a very creative part of
business - in highly competitive markets.
Tens of millions of Chinese took to
business like fish to water. They made China the
fastest-growing economy in the world by
establishing highly entrepreneurial businesses of
all sizes. So, to all those pundits who are
getting this issue wrong, I say: "How Shanghai are
you?"
Ned Boudreau holds a
master of science degree in economic development.
He teaches economics, English and the theory of
knowledge at Shanghai High School, International
Division.
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Speaking Freely is an Asia Times
Online feature that allows guest writers to have
their say. Please click hereif you are interested in
contributing.
