Good People Helping Good People 贵人相助
Good People Helping
Good People 贵人相助
I was very honored to be asked to
speak in Beijing about long term
world travel and education to a
I was very honored to be asked to speak in Beijing about long term world travel and education to a special group of people ( with a Chinese translator). The name of the group is 贵人相助北京总裁俱乐部 and it's a business club full of very interesting Chinese entrepreneurs. Our long time friend Winser Zhao introduced us to Mr. Chen, as you can see us all together in this photo at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beijing before we set out.
Mr. Chen, the 贵人相助北京总裁俱乐部 club founder and a very successful businessman, explained that 贵人 culture is a traditional Chinese philosophy which means that good people will help and support each other without asking for anything in return. So much in China has to do with connections. This club shows by helping others you help yourself too.
Before I began, each person stood up and shared why they came and how they were inspired by and interested in our story which was very touching. It was so enriching to be able to connect and communicate deeply with this group thanks to the talented and hard working translator ( another Twitter friend KineticONE CEO and filmaker @sioksiok who volunteered).
I was super honored that an old friend, (head of Google in China) and terrific human being, Elliott Ng, ( who is now living in Shanghai) also made it a point to come. I was very surprised and quite impressed with this fellow Californian's Mandarin when he introduced himself! ( He is the one who connected Winser and I via Twitter, and there will be more coming about our meeting his whole family in Shanghai and an interview with him about American expat life in China).
It is much harder for the average Chinese person to do independent travel outside of China and Chinese parents have an extraordinary interest in educating their children, so they wanted to know more about our unusual world travel and world schooling educational approach.
Everyone we met there ( and all over China) had such a beautiful, pure heart, so it was a very exciting way to begin our China trip. We have a great love for Lao Tzu and the Tao Te Ching ( 道德经) as the philosophy resonates closely with our own beliefs.
Through the very good and kind people we met, thanks to Winser, we felt the Spirit of Lao Tzu is so alive, well and thriving in today's China. This group and their works and values were very inspiring.
The aim of the 贵人相助北京总裁俱乐部 club, seems to be "paying it forward" and creating a win/win world. Mr. Chen hopes to spread it around the world eventually and is setting up an online eco-system to make it accessible to more people.
Mr. Chen had just had his first baby only a few days earlier and she is a beautiful dragon girl, just like Mozart. He is an older parent too who really liked our family travel and worldschool ideas and wants to do the same with his child. When he asked Mozart about her future dreams and she mentioned that she wants to go to Harvard, (to our amazement,) he volunteered to connect us with a Chinese group he knows well that gives full scholarships to Harvard to help her fulfill that dream!
People are what makes a place and the people of China really impressed us. When I went to communist USSR and East Germany in 1988 with a peace group, there was a very heavy, repressive energy there. I guess I kind of half expected to feel some of that in mainland China as well, but I didn't feel it there, but the opposite.
The kindness, caring, industriousness, creativity, joy, humour and enthusiasm of the Chinese people was very uplifting and gave me more hope for the future of our planet. Don't you think good people helping good people is a great idea?
Date: March 7th, 2013 @ 08:47
Categories: Family Travel, Independent Travel
Subscribe to the RSS Feed