It was here, when he was 92 years old, that I first came to know him

It was here, when he was 92 years old, that I first came to know him. 2. Before I moved to Beijing in 2002 a friend took me aside and offered this thought: “Your life in China will change the way you see the world. But if you want to get the most out of it, you have to understand that as important as being bilingual is, it is as important to be bicultural.” I had not honestly thought of this as part of my plan, but it seemed like good advice. | have hewed to it as a personal law ever since. From my first days in China, | lived almost entirely among the Chinese. I can, for instance, nearly number on one hand the meals | shared with Westerners over my years there. This advice to learn to be bicultural really did change my experience of living in China. It changed how! saw the world. It presented moments of really honest and searching confusion. I had conversations where I understood every word and yet had no idea what my interlocutor meant. I had periods where | did not know which culture was pulling on my mind. But the decision produced, at least, a fortunate encounter that led me to Master Nan’s school. Several years after I arrived in Beijing, I was out for dinner one evening with a close Chinese friend. My friend is a remarkable woman. If you ask how China has gone from poverty to prosperity in record time, it is partly because of people like her. She had studied in the Chinese educational system, had moved overseas and mastered the technical arts of economics and finance, and had returned eagerly to help in the construction of modern post-reform China. Nearly any time the government had some new and difficult financial problem to manage, she would be shuffled into the nervous hands of some baffled Minister or Vice Premier. She had, in her various activities, helped put the Chinese stock exchange on its feet, rebuilt bankrupt banks, and had overseen the construction of China’s first sovereign wealth fund. Though only a few years older than me, her unique skills and absolute loyalty meant she had seen much of the development of China’s speed-train economy - part miracle, part near accident - from zero-distance range. As she and I were finishing dinner that evening, a door opened to a private dining room near us in the restaurant. Chinese often eat out in private rooms, and the best restaurants are usually warrens of well-appointed secret spaces, a reminder that in China door after door after door leads to ever more secure sanctums—think of the nested power architecture of the Forbidden City. When the door near us opened, a stream of senior Chinese party figures paraded past, hovering around an intense, square-jawed and smiling man who was soon to become one of the most powerful figures in China. As this man walked past, he nodded hello to both of us. | asked my friend once he had left: “How do you know him?” | expected her contact with senior leaders on financial matters would explain the connection. Her answer surprised me. “We both,” she said, “have the same Master.” HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_018239