Should Emerging Markets be Allowed to Emerge Before They are Expected to Recycle?

I was riding the escalator up to the street-level from the subway yesterday on my way to work. Once I got to the top of the escalator, where a mob of people were waiting on Nanjing Xi Lu, I noticed something interesting. An older Chinese gentleman wearing a worn brown jacket and dusty gray pants was asking people stepping off the escalator for their newspapers. As in many major cities around the world, many people in Shanghai buy a newspaper and read it on the subway. Once they arrive at their destination, they either opt to leave the newspaper on the subway, trash it on their way out or take it with them to finish reading later. I didn't engage the older gentleman further regarding his intended use of the newspapers. Given I didn't have a newspaper visibly in hand, I was of no interest to him. I can only speculate that the older gentleman intended to resell the newspaper to someone else, recycle it for money or put it to some other ingeniously thrifty use.

This incident got me thinking about an issue that isn't new: "Should emerging markets be allowed to emerge before they are expected to recycle?" Many present-day industrialized nations, such as the US, were allowed to emerge without environmental restrictions placed upon them. The US developed before there was any awareness of the detriments of greenhouse gases produced by fossil fuels, the Kyoto Protocol was written or Al Gore informed us about "The Inconvenient Truth."

Many environmentalists, investors and business people alike pay lip service to "clean tech" and "green energy," but the reality is the entire world, not just the US, is "addicted to oil." The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) stated there is now a 90 percent probability global warming has been perpetuated by the combustion of fossil fuels and other human activity. This is up from a 66 percent probability from the same group in 2001. I am expert, but I would venture to say there is a 100 percent probability humans have had a hand in global warming. The question now becomes, what will it take for us to clean up? Sadly, I believe running out of the "black gold" is the only thing that will really force us to change.

Rich countries are in more of a position to set an example for weaning ourselves off of oil and explore other energy options because we have the money to plow into research and development. While advancements have been made, we are nowhere near where we need to be. Right before our eyes, other nations are in the process of developing. Jim O'Neill, of Goldman Sach's Economic Research Group, coined the acronym "BRIC" in 2001 to describe Brazil, Russia, India and China. Mr. O'Neill's argues that in 40 years BRICs economies together could be larger than that of the G6's. He goes on to say it is possible, by 2050, only the US and Japan will be among the world's 6 largest economies in US dollar terms. This will create a huge sift and complicate decision making in the world, especially as relates to environmental issues. If Mr. O'Neill's projections are accurate, most of the world's largest economies by 2050 will not be the richest, as is the case today. He article is worth a read and can be found at http://www2.goldmansachs.com/insight/research/reports/report6.html


The US is the largest oil consuming nation in the world. What most people don't realize is that oil was discovered in Pennsylvania and its first major application was as a lighting agent, as cars weren't around in 1860 or so when it was discovered. The US was also a major exportor of oil until the mid-1970s. If you understand the history of oil, it goes a long way toward understanding the history of the world and geo-political relations since the late 19th century. I highly recommend "The Prize-The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power" by Daniel Yergin to those of you interested to learn more. It is a fascinating read.

Presently, the US uses most of its imported oil today to fuel cars. As the BRIC nations and other countries around the world continue to come of age, progressively more cars will be on the world's roads. This means, assuming things stay roughly the same, we'll demand more of a finite resource unless we come up with other means of powering our vehicles. What will it take for this to happen?

When green is go, yellow is the same as green and red is go... faster!!!

Every morning I walk to and from work. I walk primarily due to the fact that it is virtually impossible to get a cab in Shanghai, especially during prime hours of the day when people are either head to work or home from work. Conveniently, I don't live near a subway line either, so I am left with little choice. I am sure there will be future blog posts to explain this frustration in utter detail down the road.

At many major intersections in Shanghai, two "traffic assistants" are positioned in bright orange reflective badges, hats, sunglasses and armed with a whistle in hand, similar to your elementary school crossing guard that used to greet you everyday as you passed going to and coming from school. I give the traffic assistants credit, because every one of them seems to take their job very seriously. If anyone so much as thinks about putting their toe on the street or even hovering it over the curb, the traffic assistants will assault them (not literally) with their whistle and shout at them in unintelligible Shanghainese. If a foreigner happens to garner up the courage to run the gauntlet, they simply motion you to back up. This sounds simple enough, but it is quite a task to get 50 people at an intersection in China not to venture out into oncoming traffic.

The funny thing is that it is all a front. Once in a while (or quite often actually) someone will try to sneak past the traffic assistant and cross the street or cross in the middle of the street away from the intersection (what we used to call "jaywalking"), because, for some reason or another they are in a bigger hurry than everyone else or they think they just don't have to follow the rules. It is quite comical when this happens and the traffic assistant notices, because the traffic assistant will start blowing the whistle feverishly and waving both arms in the air like they have been stuck on a desert island for 2 years and are trying to wave down a passing ship. Many times, the people crossing are already across or at least halfway across the street. The animated whistle blowing and arming waving is as severe as the punishment gets. The traffic assistant can't do anything to you but scream and yell. Sometimes, it is just worth it to sit there through a few red lights and watch the charade. It is especially hilarious when a foreigner crosses, because the foreigner simply doesn't understand what they are saying or can at least appear not to understand the rules. Some many things are about perception.

If you choose to break the traffic assistant's rules and cross the street on your own when the light is red, you take your life into your own hands to an extent. There are motorcycles whizzing by, taxis cutting each other off and buses that look like a bat out of hell coming through the intersection.

Despite this danger, I am not convinced it is any safer to cross when the walk light is green and the traffic assistant "grants" you passage. Why? Because red doesn't mean stop. it means go faster to bicycles, motorcycles, buses, taxis, rickshaws and anything else with wheels that you might happen to see on the street in Shanghai. You need to pause a good ten seconds after "the sign says it is safe to walk" and the traffic assistant waves you through before it is actually safe to cross. Even then, it isn't totally safe. Many locals assume others will continue to come through the stoplight even after it is red. It is like it is hardwired into their heads and they pause unconsciously. They would think you are crazy if you started running across the street when the light turns green. People in other countries might pause a few seconds and then walk, but they would think it ridiculous to pause for 10 or 15 seconds while all the stragglers floored it to speed up to "make the light" or "just miss the light."

I have seen people in Shanghai, mostly foreigners, nudge motorcycles and bicycles that come pealing through the intersection after the light is clearly red. To the people whizzing by, they didn't do anything wrong. Most of the time, it is innocent fun, but once in a while someone will fly off a bicycle or lose balance on their motorcycle carrying a family of 4 and tip over. It rarely ever turns into anything more confrontational than that. To me, it is a simple misunderstanding: in many countries around the world green means go, yellow means speed up and red means stop, but in China (and many many other countries), green is go, yellow is the same as green and red means go faster so you can "just miss" the light!!!

If there are Chinese Americans, can there be American Chinese?

I walked into a room last night filled with 200 or so guests attending a wedding in Shanghai. Normally, I'd be less apprehensive about going to a wedding, unless it happened to be my own, but this situation was decidedly different. Since I happened to be the only non-Chinese person (or 大鼻子"big nose" as the Chinese sometimes refer to foreigners) in the entire room, upon my entrance, 200 or so sets of eyes fell on me.

After I was introduced to some people by my friend, a bit of the initial awkwardness faded. My head was on a swivel keeping up with the animated MC and watching the bride run in and out of the room, each time in a different dress. Like standing at the chaotic Chinese intersections, I was trying to find the logic to it all. As I sat there enduring 7 courses of food that was served to us in 10 minute intervals, toasting the bride, groom and various others with countless shots of 黄酒("yellow alcohol"), a question occurred to me: "is there such a thing as an American Chinese, and, if not, will there ever be?"

It took me spending a substantial amount of time outside of the US to really recognize the diversity that is woven within society in my own country. Sometimes it takes leaving and coming back again to really catch what was clearly in front of you the entire time. Walking down the street in NY, LA, San Francisco, Chicago, Houston or any other major city, you are bound to run into people who are Chinese American, Mexican American, African American, Indian American, Korean American and many more. Some of them are first generation and some are 4th generation Americans. It is quite amazing to listen to some of the stories of struggles people endured and paths they took in search of the "American dream (if you or your family has one, I'd like to hear about it)." Many are in the very interesting, and sometimes complex and challenging, situation of trying to maintain their own culture while simultaneously working to blend in to American society and culture (What is American culture? I'll write about this more later). Many times, this struggle goes unnoticed to most.

As a white middle-class male, I never really thought of myself adding diversity to any group by virtue of where I was born, my skin color or the socioeconomic situation I happened to be born into. As I have gotten older and experienced more, I spend less time thinking about things I cannot control. In reality, we have no control of where they are born or what economic situation they are born into. However, we do have some control of how diverse our minds are. I've made a conscious effort to "diversify" myself by virtue of my experiences and life choices I've made. I wouldn't trade it for anything.

In the huge ballroom I thought to myself "can any non-Chinese really be viewed as Chinese?" My initial response and simple answer to this would be, "no." Although I was able to follow the ceremony, engage in conversation with everyone in the room and at least attempt to lean on my understanding of Chinese culture to blend in, the fact is I am not Chinese. Regardless how many years I spend in China or how many dialects of Chinese I speak, I will always be viewed as a 老外("foreigner"). It begs the question, is this fair or balanced given that millions of once non-Americans become Americans every year? I think the fairness of it all how or I feel about this is of little importance . The important thing is to recognize this is the reality of the situation. There is little I can do as an individual to alter the ingrained mentality of a nation, especially one as old and proudly rich in culture as China. What I can do, is try my best to act as a bridge between my own culture/country and others.

In order to bridge cultures, while language is extremely important, it is not enough. Those that say it isn't important, are deluding themselves. It would be the equivalent of saying, learning English wouldn't be necessary for someone to really understand American culture and society. Those that say language isn't important, many times, haven't taken the time to learn it themselves. So, they don't know little cultural insights and nuances they are missing. While English may be the indisputable world language of business, that shouldn't be confused with the universal language of everything. Language is merely a tool or gateway to understanding the mentality of people. If you agree that people think in a language (are the thoughts in your head just thoughts, or do we think in a language? Can there be thoughts without language?), learning other languages is essentially learning different ways to think. This can put us on the same wavelength with those different than ourselves. What I have also come to appreciate is that learning language is a life-long investment. It is impossible to put languages in boxes and pull them out only when we need them expecting them to be as perfect as they were before. Inevitably, if you don't use it you lose it. Frustrating, but true.