Cormorant Fishing

In the river villages of China, there is a way of fishing that is both lovely, and not to SPCA standards.

Cormorant fishing is a way the fisherman is able to catch lots of fish, in rivers and lakes, where apparently the fish are too smart to take bait on a line and a net won't work because of the rocks. The You Tube link shows this being done graphically. I'll explain what we were told.

The fisherman raises the cormorants from being hatched from the egg. They become a part of the family and they are loved and cared for. They don't run away. Here's a picture of a fisherman's cormorant crew.
At night, the fisherman goes out with his crew and the cormorants skim the water and catch fish in their beaks and then bring the fish back to the fisherman. Now, here's the non-SPCA component: the fisherman ties a rope around the bird's neck so that it can only swallow little fish but not the big fish. This way, everyone gets fed!

Great Wall of China

Today we visited the Great Wall. This amazing wonder of the world is 6,400 km long. The easiest part for tourists to visit is about 70 km from Beijing. It is so easy, that 100,000 people visit the wall every day! I know I use the word, "amazing" too often, but this truly is. In this picture, off to the right of me are just a few of those thousands trekking up the final piece before reaching watchtower #8 at Badaling. Last night I badly stubbed my toe and as it was complete black and blue this morning, we decided not to walk from watchtower #1 to the top. That trek would take about three hours. Instead, we opted for taking the gondola to tower #7 and then just climbed the last piece. It was a glorious day. Today is Saturday, and even in Beijing, it was blue sky. When people aren't commuting to work, the smog is considerably less. In fact, Beijingers are dealing with smog in several ways. First, during the Olympics, each day, they only allowed even or odd licenses to drive on even and odd days. Now, they don't allow two final digits to commute each day, thus cutting traffic by 20%. I find myself saying, "those clever Chinese" too often.

Anyway, millions of people built the wall. And millions died there and are buried beneath the wall. A truly stupendous undertaking.


The coordination of enabling 100,000 people to visit the wall every day is also stupendous. And, it all works. We saw thousands of buses. We've felt so spoiled as we've had local guides for our tour. And they are the nicest, well spoken people...excited to have jobs and to practice their English. Here's Nancy. (They always take English names, although frankly, I enjoyed her Chinese name better: Luodan. I've encouraged all the guides we've had so far, to use their Chinese names instead of using English names like Susan, Helen, or Nancy. If they are going to use English names, at least they should be using contemporary names like Camilla or Arden!)



Lo and behold, even in Badaling, there is American comfort. Starbucks are EVERYWHERE! And, they too are packed. The Chinese now love coffee. We, on the other hand have been tea snobs for years, drinking green tea. But today, with 35 degree weather, we succumbed to the familiar....Major's favorite Coffee Mocha.
Tomorrow....Guilin at 7 in the morning. Must get some sleep.

Loving China

Before doing two more survey presentations, Major and I have taken a few days off to visit Shanghai and some of the smaller towns: Suzhou and Zhouzhuang. I do love the country. Shanghai is just another big city. Tremendous growth and just now starting to pay attention to preserving some of the lovely neighborhoods and its traditions.
Here's a few pictures:
1. Major and Lexy at the famous tea house in Shanghai
2. The Venice of China: Zhouzhuang
3. Papa and Nonny at Jinmao Tower
4. Missing RC....so found my first white kitty
More later.

Indian Generosity Knows No Bounds

I've had a great visit with new friends in Delhi that I've made while presenting the CedarCrestone Asia Pacific HR Systems Survey. Is there an acronym there? CAPHRSS? Darn....just doesn't role off the tongue. I will write on my observations, but what I want to write about now is the incredible generosity of so many Indians I've had contact with the last six days. Last night was exceptional and I have a little story.

If you come to India, at least once, you will go shopping. The way you do this is to arrange to have a driver who will take you to special places (identified by friends or the hotel) where the crafts are authentic and perhaps even the prices are set. Of course, haggling for an item is fun too. So last night a colleague and I set out to visit several shopping areas. I was looking for puppets for my grandchildren. Kirsten, who had had a bout of Delhi Belly all day was along for the ride. Kirsten is delightful....everyone loves her immediately. Without too much detail, I successfully haggled for some items as gifts, and then we arrived at the Cottage Industries Emporium

This is a special place that brings in handcrafts from all over India. And, as my eye was drawn first to a small Buddha head, I began to make a connection with the man helping me and he with me. I also found a Buddha head for Major. Then, I asked if they had thangkas. I spent the next minutes looking at over 50 and finally settled on an exquisite mandala type. (By the way, I am a practicing Buddhist meditator and a member of the Auburn Sanga and this gentleman too, a Buddhist). As we started to leave, he suggested that we go downstairs to their "special items". Our bodies tired, but our eyes began to sparkle as we traipsed downstairs to be met by a room full of handmade rugs, pashminas, and anything made from fabric. Oh dear....me a quilter in a room of fabric.

The frenzy begins. The first item they showed me was an embroidered coat. Unfortunately it was not in my colors but it was Kirsten's so she tried it on. It was gorgeous. The picture does not do justice to the embroidery and the feel of this silk coat. It was "only $350."
She loved it and we all encouraged her to buy it. She, however, is a single mother, living in Singapore, and had not budgeted for something like this. But, it was truly a buy of a life time but even with much encouragement, Kirsten said she could not afford it .... until next year. Here's where just one example of generosity comes in. The owner of the Emporium told her to take the coat and pay him next year! Tired sick lady she was, started to cry. He gave her the coat and trusts her to pay him. Of course she will. I cried too.

We happily left...me with my purchases (two Buddha heads, the thangka, a patchwork runner, a little Ganesh elephant for my grandson and miscellaneous small items needing a big bag....they gave me a duffle). We tiredly returned to the hotel to go to bed.

I had started to pack when Kirsten called, saying that the store had called apologizing that they had neglected to pack the heads and the thangka. I really was tired to have not overseen the duffle packing plus all of the store people and Kirsten and I were so excited by the trust of the store owner in giving the coat to her for her to pay for later. So, then the owner comes to our hotel and delivers the gift items.

I confess that sometimes in NY and other cities with an abundance of foreign speaking taxi drivers....perhaps from Pakistan or perhaps from India...that I've not had the greatest trust. I will NEVER NEVER not trust these generous people again.

Indians ask the most challenging questions

So, here I am in Mumbai, presenting the results of a survey done in Asia on the state of HR technology adoption. Its part of a series of presentations about talent management and business intelligence.

So one question was: could an organization have been able to predict the likelihoood of the demise of Lehman? A provacative question that eventually had us all deciding emphatically that technology can not counter individual foibles such as greed.

Indian kids better educated....says a 12 year old

On the plane from Delhi to Mumbai tonight, I had the pleasure of sitting next to Eera, a 12 year old, VERY articulate and composed young woman. Our conversation was wide reaching and, of course, I loved her when she said I didn't look as old as I am. She'd asked if she could ask a personal question.

Anyway, one of our conversations was about her belief, from speaking with her father, an aeronautical engineer, that Indian schools are much harder than ours. During the 7th grade, she said she will have 74 different courses from math and science to Hindu and English literature and everything in between. She believes that our kids can sue the school if they are given homework that takes more than 30 minutes to complete.

What an image she has of us. Let's pray for an end to the last 8 years of dumbing down.

Prime Minister to India Inc: Refrain from layoffs

This morning's Hindustan Times has this headline and request to corporate India: "While every effort needs to be made to cut costs and raise productivity, I hope there will be no knee-jerk reaction such as large scale layofffs which may lead to a negative spiral." This in a meeting with "business honchos" in which the country's "top macroeconomic managers confabulated for over two hours with industry leaders." I love the message and the words....honchos ... confabulated.

Also on the front page is, of course, our election along with the perceived stance by Obama and McCain on Outsourcing, India, Pakistan, and Nuclear Policy. The summary statement on outsourcing: "Rough times ahead for India's $40 billion outsourcing industry, still growing at a 25% annual clip. Obama will try retaining tech jobs in the US. McCain says all the right things from India's point of view, but if he wins at a time when job losses are accelerating, he may be hard pressed to walk the talk." Obama is more protective. It is, of course, a tough line to walk.... take advantage of what the world has to offer and have access to the world's customers .... essentially putting up no walls around our economy vs. keep jobs at home.

Now...off to some meetings in Delhi.