HBS rating: Good Fun

whos should read:

• Tech lovers

• East VS’ west interesandos

• What helped drive and build America as we know it today fascianados

Crossing from Hong Kong to the Shen Zhen province in China a few weeks ago, I didn’t quite know what to expect once I leave the ferry.  The ride is short, about 30 minutes.  The closer I got to the Chinese mainland the more curious I became.  What does China look like? Should I expect industrial revolution cityscape or ancient ink drawings?

The Shen Zhen province, is one of China’s industrial zones.  Anyone interested in manufacturing something, or anything, big or small, simple or complicated, is bound to arrive there at one point or another.  Remove the people from the streets, and the banners and logo’s off of the buildings, and you will not know which part of the world you are in.  A mega city of modern high-rise buildings, four to six lane highways, Starbucks, McDonalds and Walmart (yes Walmart). 

It’s exciting and disappointing at the same time.  Exciting as it is quite an opportunity to see a country going through high energy stages of an industrialized revolution.  Disappointing, as it seems that the Cultural Revolution now followed by an industrial one, pushed away anything an outsider would recognize as “Chinese”.

In here lies a trap.  Do we really know the Chinese and what China can do?  Once we figure out what the Chinese can do, how far will the west go to keep its edge?

China is developing fast; as time passes by, more and more knowledge and abilities associated with Western or other advanced technological societies around the world is and will shift (actually already have shifted) to this vast country.  The technology race is on, and there are historical precedents we can refer to.

In “Sputnik, the shock of the century” Paul Dickenson lays out the story of how one chunk of shiny metal circling the earth, shocked the entire American nation.  It wasn’t that the Americans didn’t have the ability to shoot something into space, its seems it wasn’t in their list of “things to be done”.  It’s not so certain that the Russians had it on top of their priority list either.  In a very Soviet way, they managed to delay their space program by a good number of years by imprisoning their brightest mind in a Gulag (for something only a communist would understand).  Luckily enough for them (again in a very hard to understand Russian way) the imprisoned scientists kept on developing their science in hiding.

What the Russians had, was thrust.  They could build rockets, and pretty damn powerful ones.  What they couldn’t solve with a small hammer, they solved with a bigger one.  So the dream of overcoming gravity became a reality.  What the Russians didn’t have, was the delicacy and technology to actually place in space something clever and sophisticated.

The Americans on the other hand, seemed to have the opposite.  They had, and eventually managed to perfect the complex necessary technology to go into orbit and land on the moon.  What they missed at the time Sputnik was beeping from space, was the knowledge of how to leave the Earth.

Here the reader will be confronted with a very difficult to come to agreement part of the American Space Program.  This does raise the question of how far nations will go to keep ahead of the game.

The person that is responsible for most of the rocket knowledge the Americans have, and the most spoken personalities to advance the American space program in a time that it wasn’t that popular (as result of big spending and internal rivalry between Army, Navy and Air Force as to who should lead the program), was none other than a Nazi war criminal.

Werner Von Brown, was a high ranking Nazi officer, responsible for the development of the infamous German V2 rockets.  In fact, the first rockets shot from American soil after the war, had many captured V2 parts in them.

Von Brown was not just an administrator; he was responsible for running the secret factories in which Jews were forced to labor and slave and build the V2’s.  In a very German way, the Nazi’s found out that it is cheaper to bring in new labor and let it die, than try and keep the existing labor alive.  Thus the life expectancy of anyone unfortunate enough to arrive at those technology death camps was about three months.

And Von Brown was responsible for that.

However, let us not confuse ourselves with facts.  The Russians had an object in orbit, so Von Brown, his team, and their families were cleansed from their criminal past and turned into official American citizens; in return, they helped the US overcome gravity.  How Americanized has Von Brown became? To the point he was testifying in Congress committees headed by the future 36ths President LBJ.  

Going back to my visit in China, I tried to figure out which is it that the Chinese have today: thrust, technology or knowledgeable scientists providing knowledge from countries that used to be considered enemies.

The answer is easy.  They have it all. 

On my last day of the visit I met with an American living in China for 25 years.  He is a go between business man helping outsiders manufacture in China.  How long will it be before the Chinese will stop needing people as yourself, I asked.  Six to ten years, he figured.  I sipped my locally brewed beer, locked over the city skyline similar to that of any American city, thought of the couple I saw earlier in the day drinking Frapucino’s in the local Starbucks while day stock trading on their locally manufactured laptops.  I think that with all of his experience in China he is getting his numbers wrong.  Sooner, much sooner,  a “beep from space” will awaken the west to realize exactly how far and advanced China is.  And then, how far will we go to keep ahead of the game?

HBS rating: Must read

Who should read?

·         Tao, Eastern Culture or philosophy lovers

·         Those looking for answers

·         Those looking for questions

·         Those who like poetry

·         Those not afraid of questioning what they already know

One man’s brave attempt at explaining life from a-z.  Better then Soduko, this book will get you thinking.  It took this ancient genius three months to write, but will probably take us a lifetime to understand.. 

 Figure this out.  The one piece of Chinese literature that has sold the most copies in the world, and yet, doesn’t have a translatable title.  It’s not called Tao Te Ching for nothing, as these three words can be translated in a variety of ways, all of which make good, or no good at all, sense.   No translator would risk getting the wrong combo on this ancient masterpiece. 

And the options are..”The way of the flow of energy” or “The revelation of the force of Tao” or “The way of the law in the revealed” or “The cure of the flow and the way”. . Whichever way, it’s a work of art.  A masterpiece, unless..

You end up reading the wrong translation.  It’s a bit of a hit and miss as the way the book is translated can turn the reading experience from a head scratching “I don’t get it” experience, to a joyful and enjoyable event you will repeat many times.  My personal copy is beautifully translated to Hebrew.  I believe the translator really got the spirit of Lau Tzu which…

May or may not have lived, unclear, but has left behind a pillar of world knowledge.. The Tao.  So here’s some background. 

Rewind to ancient China.  Some 2500 years ago the Chou dynasty was in control.  This dynasty has managed to rule the country for some 1000 years without the use of excessive force.  The secret was in a simple and ingenious feudal system.  Each plot of land wad divided into nine plots.  The outer eight plots where given to eight families.  The center plot belonged to the emperor.  The eight families could live off their plots, as long as the central plot (worked by the eight families) produced as much rice as the eight plots.  All was well and prosperous, until technology moved on and a new medium was introduced to the arena: iron. 

Using iron better framing equipment was  made.  More crops could be grown.  Suddenly people had more money and a new class of merchants was created.  This new class grew rich fast, politics joined in soon after, and the combination led to many small private armies being created.

The new armies, powered by iron weapons and chariots constantly challenged the emperor, and eventually forced him to retreat and set up a new capital.  He has survived, but lost control over his empire.

Seven new states were formed by the new rising powers, and all got busy fighting one another.  The Chou emperor  knew he had to come up with something other than military power to regain his control.  Following his ancestors, he turned to his advisors and a plan was set.  How about a new religion of some sort that will unite the new states and the Chou (shrinking) empire, positioning the Chou’s spot on in the center of control?

The emperor had three options to choose from: Confucius,  offering a well thought out judicial and ethical system; a host of angry generals looking to fight the new nations, and Lau Tsu, than the head of the national archive who was a pretty sharp character – but no one could quite understand what he was talking about.

So according to Murphy’s law, when offered the right and wrong option, there will always be a person opting for the wrong option, the emperor managed to combine all of the wrong options.  He let Confucius establish his religion, provided the generals with funds for fighting and ignored Lau Tsu.  Soon after the empire collapsed and the Han dynasty was set up.

Lau Tsu, disappointed and old, mounted his favorite Ox and headed towards the mountains.  Realizing an important piece of knowledge may be lost, the emperor ordered all border posts identifying Lau to stop him on the spot and.. have him write down all he knows.

The slow moving Ox carrying one of the world’s most wonderful  pieces of knowledge eventually hit a guard and was stopped.  For three months Lau Tsu wrote what we now know as the “Tao Te Ching”.  In some miraculous way the book made it back to the emperor and was kept.

Did Lau Tsu ever exist? Did all of the above ever take place? Does it matter? We have his book.  Please forgive my poor translating skills and allow me to quote:

“if I had any sense

Just a little bit of sense

All my life

I would take the high road

It is big

Straight

Wide

And flat

The wise man fears by passes

But side roads

And twisty trails

Are for some reason favored by the masses

When the palace is fancy

But the people’s fields are dry

When the wealthy wear expensive clothes

And eat well

While the people are hungry

And leaving in between thorns

The rich should not be surprised

If there are thieves and bandits

This is also within the Tao

Excessive

Estates

Make you forget

The

Essential