The re-education of China continues internally

ARTICLE: “In China, Feng Shui Helps Businesspeople Arrange a New Name: Ancient Art Used to Clear Modern Path to Profit; Mr. Chen’s Big Comeback,” by Li Yuan, Wall Street Journal, 17 January 2006, p. A1.

ARTICLE: “The long march to privacy: Gradually, China’s people are acquiring the right to be left alone—as long as they keep quiet about politics, of course,” The Economist, 14 January 2006, p. 45.

Don’t laugh on the feng shui bit. You spend on hour with Joel Osteen, the “smiling pastor” working his Houston audience, and you’ll hear a similarly ancient art being put to use for very similar, self-empowering and self-realizing goal achievement.

And there’s nothing wrong with that either. All such ancient arts are survival mechanisms for society. It’s just that our definition of “survival” changes as we move up Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, or move from Gap to Core.

What feng shui is being used for in China is the same thing that branding and PR is used for here in the U.S.—it’s just capitalism according to Chinese characteristics. People are looking for new definitions of achievement and success and coping mechanisms that get them there. So you get a “stage name,” so to speak. You pick the right company name. You debut on “lucky days” (the Chinese love #4, for example, and are indifferent about #7—go figure!).

But the most important coping mechanism of all is the rising expectation of privacy to accompany that success. I provide for the common good by growing this economy, and I get some personal privacy and freedom on that basis. Beijing’s authorities are more than willing to shepherd that process, so long as it does not spill over into the political realm for now. This is not some communist plot, but rather a fairly calculated attempt to follow in the footsteps of Lee Kuan Yew’s rule in Singapore, a guy whose influence over the region’s socio-economic-political development is vastly underestimated.

Yes, yes, I know. Many observers see an Orwellian watchdog society resulting from this pathway, but that ignores history. Watch the countries that are furthest along in the pathway, like South Korea and Japan, which remain lead geese, historically speaking. Orwell is not alive and well in either country.

Comments

[Tian]

Hi Tom,
I have always enjoyed your analysis of trends and patterns, think they make a lot of sense.
Anyway, with regard to the #4 being a lucky day, I must say I tend to think you have it reverse. The number 4 sounds very similar to word "death" both in Cantonese and Mandarin.

Regards,
Tian