Stephen and I really relate to this as we are not the most tech savvy members of our team.  Thank you Steve Jobs for giving us a fighting chance with our iPhones and MacBooks.

Link & Covey as "The Ugly American Tourists"

Believe it or not Stephen and I have rarely spent free time together.  When we travel on business together once or twice a year it is usually just that, we do the business and immediately fly off in different directions.  We enjoyed the 4 hours we had together in Beijing immensely. It turned into quite a memorable adventure. We happened across the network, familiar to most savvy international travelers, of starving art students that speak English and love to “show their work” to international tourists.  Actually it was refreshing to see first hand that the entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well in China.  Stephen and I were an easy mark. We stood out like a sore thumb as we tried to jam days of sight seeing into a few hours.  We were approached by a college student (read lead generator) who suspected we were lost.  He offered to walk us to Tianimin Square.  

My propensity to trust waned however, as he attempted to convince us that we needed to turn right, away from the square,  when we clearly had two blocks left to go.  (He did not realize that I had been there before.)  Undaunted he graciously served as tour guide but ultimately managed to lead us out the side entrance of the Forbidden City which conveniently led us to his Art Studio on a side street.  From there we experienced a sales process second only to the American timeshare industry.  Turns out, the shop is owned by his “Art Professor” and the student was trying to raise money for a trip with the professor to the USA. Never mind that they contradicted each other several times on what cities they planned to visit. The art was actually quite impressive.  Stephen really liked one of the professor’s pieces, but loving soul that he is. did not want to offend the student by not buying one of the student’s pieces.  Voila, in a masterful tour de force that I thought was exclusively American, the student turned Stephen over to the Professor (known as a T. O. in the car and timeshare industries) who generously solved Stephen’s dilemma by offering to throw in the student’s work if Stephen bought the more expensive Professor’s piece (known as the drop in the US car and timeshare industry).  It was really  beautifully orchestrated.  The good news is that the art Stephen bought is an extraordinarily beautiful Oriental ink drawing.  As we laughed about our experience while we walked back to the hotel taxi stand to return to the airport it dawned on us that neither one of us had any idea the market value of the art.  Fortunately value is in the eye of the beholder and both Jeri and Stephen love the piece and Stephen and I have a great road warrior story and a great laugh together.

Birds Nest with rare blue sky

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