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We roll into another town in Southern Hunan late one afternoon. We bike around looking for a luguan (cheap hotel) and finally find a nicer hotel willing to put five of us in a 3-bed room for slightly more than we’re used to paying. Pete bargains hard and the boss, or the man who seems to be the boss, comes down to the price we normally
pay for five beds. The room is large and has clean linen and its own bathroom with, most amazing of all, hot water. We clean up, plan to put two people on the floor, and consider ourselves lucky.

Later I’m taking my bags off my bike. The man with whom Pete negotiated, the maid, the housekeeper, and another young, stylishly attired man approach me and question me about our journey and its purpose. I give them the run through with our route and our efforts to advocate biking. The would-be owner asks most of the questions,
while the younger man hangs in the background, listening but remaining silent.

When I finally step in the shower I hear someone come into the room and converse with Adam, telling him that he is the boss, supports our effort to protect the environment through use of bikes, and tells us that he’s planning on giving us a free dinner in his hotel. Hey, I think, go environmental protection! Usually, environmentalists must wait for years to reap the benefits of their advocacy, if at all. But in this case, our advocacy paid off immediately. Of course, a full belly satisfies not nearly as well as reduced global CO2 emissions, but I am happy to cash in on the benefits of environmentalism whenever they present themselves.

Mr. Liu, as our tall, sartorially savvy host turned out to be named was the young man who had exercised such verbal restraint when I was speaking with the other hotel employees. He soon returned to our room to tell us that dinner was on the table. We slowly trickled down to find a feast of high quality and a host of an incredibly relaxed
demeanor. Mr. Liu’s sympathy with our group stems largely from his own experience as a bike tourist. He is part of a local bike club and has previously biked to Guangzhou (along the same route we will travel) and to several other smaller cities and sites around Hunan.

In the West, and certainly in China, one expects business people to be middle-aged and formally attired. We were all rather surprised to find that Mr. Liu’s actual age was younger than his young looks. At 23, he’s one of the youngest successful entrepreneurs I’ve ever met. Yet, unlike many of the young men I find hovering around my computer in the net bar or buzzing my bike on mopeds, he has a dignified,
reserved, self-contained manner that puts everyone at ease.

“I like the idea of biking, and I like what you’re trying to do,” Mr. Liu told us over deep fried toufu skin, “more and more people in China are driving, but it causes a lot of pollution.” We commiserated about the traffic situation excess driving has caused in major cities like Shanghai and Beijing. I asked Mr. Liu if he had any ideas about how
to convince more people to bike. “There’s only one way,” he said, “and that’s to do what you’re doing, to demonstrate that it can be done. And also the internet.” We gave him our website, and the conversation switched to the local area.

Like most of rural Hunan, the town of Matian has been slow to develop. This changed in the ’90s when a coal mine was opened nearby. “Things are developing quickly now,” said Mr. Liu, “but there is a Chinese saying: ‘Depend on the mountain, consume the mountain; depend on the water, consume the water’.” Suffice it to say, Matian was quickly exhausting it’s resources. By depending so heavily on coal for it’s
economy, it was leaving itself without an alternative. “After the coal is used up,” pronounced Mr. Liu, “there will be no more development.”

For himself, Mr. Liu plans to leave Matian for a bigger city after perfecting his management style. Hopefully for Matian, and indeed, the rest of us, Matian and the rest of the world will manage to diversify its energy sources and continue the prosperity that have marked the last 30 years in China.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 13th, 2007 at 12:14 pm and is filed under Jim's Posts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.