IDEAS in China

Getting to China is an all day affair. Actually, it’s a two day affair because somewhere out there in the ocean, it becomes tomorrow. Our Team converged on Beijing from Orlando, Los Angeles and Greensboro, North Carolina and considering the logistics, it was a pretty synchronous arrival. There are no other cities like Beijing. Sprawling and at a scale that defeats analogy, it was on its best behavior today with clear (that’s right CLEAR) blue skies and sunshine. For the Orlando contingent, it was a great and uneventful 16 hour flight changing planes in San Francisco.

Our host, Mr. JP Li of Global CEO Clubs China, is used to the rhythm of doing business here and graciously set up our itinerary with a couple hours to decompress from the flights and a team dinner tonight. We have the lay of the land- two days of meetings in Beijing then on to Chengdu for site surveys and plan reviews and then a finale in Beijing. The business culture is “friends first, then business” and as long as you come expecting that, its a very civilized way to carry on. Tomorrow at 9:00 we commence the friendship building when we attend a formal contract signing ceremony between our erstwhile client HYG and China Construction who will be building their parks and other developments. So far, so good!