Post China Trip wrap-up: What does it all mean?

It's been a few weeks since we've been home, but I really needed some time to process all that we did (if anything) on this last trip. On the surface, it almost felt like we just went there for vacation more then a work trip. We were wined and dined and treated like kings the whole time, got to tour around and see some really special places over there, but when it comes right down to it..... did we really reach any tangible objectives? Immediately upon our return home, if asked I might have said "not really"....... After a few weeks of reflection though, it has finally dawned on me that this trip was probably more successful then I ever could have imagined.

Building guanxi, Phil and Zou

Classic Chinese scenery.

Before leaving for my first trip, and a few times since, I googled and researched Chinese culture and etiquette so that I did not make a fool of myself while there. During my research, I kept coming across a term called "Guanxi". Very simply, guanxi is a basic concept that describes the depth of personal relationship. It's kinda like the glue that holds a friendship, or business relationships together. Being a westerner, I'm not sure I ever had a full grasp of it's importance until this trip. The concept of it is literally the underpinning of the Chinese business society. Once you fully understand it, it becomes very easy to explain how our trip unfolded and we reached the levels we did.

Building major guanxi, The two guys next to me

are two of the most powerful sports guys

in all of China.

On deck with the best. Coach Wei Wei and Bai

(both developed Sun Yang and Ye Shiwen

from Childhood).

During this trip, we ended up having dinner with the Heads of two Provincial Sport Development Programs (each one having been responsibly for developing multiple Olympic Gold Medalist's), several of China's most prominent Swim Coaches, plus the heads of several Universities. We were also "allowed" to have access to China's most prominent swimming athletes Sun Yang and Ye Shiwen. While that may not seem like a big deal here in the US, it is a hugely symbolic gesture for them. No other westerners have been able to meet with them in the 2 months since they both set world records at the Olympics. They were both allowed to autograph caps for us, something that in China would be worth more then $30,000 on their open market. Truly an incredibly great honor, one that would have never been possible without a sizable amount of "quanxi" built up over the last several trips.

Xiongdi: Brothers - Wei Wei, Dan, Tim, Phil & Jiang.

I certainly met and came into contact with some important people the last time I was there, but this time, it was to a whole "nother" level. All of it in the shadow of some very public and UGLY times between US/China swimming relations that were born out of the -Last Olympic Games-. Even in the midst of this ugliness, the people directly involved in this exchange (from the Chinese side - i.e. their coaches and swimmers), opened their arms and welcomed us with open arms. The only reason for this is the guanxi build up in the last 2 trips between myself, coach Phil and two of their prominent coaches and managers (Wei Wei and Jiang). In essence, when we arrived, they "vouched" for us, and let others know that we were "sincere" and trustworthy.

More guanxi: Dan, Coach Bai, Yang Ye (2004-2008 

Olympic Silver Medalist), Phil and Tim.

So what does all this mean? Well, for starters, I have been invited to bring 15-25 American athletes between the ages of 13-17 to China for an 8-day "cultural exchange/training trip" in the Spring of 2013. We are the ONLY Americans ever to have been extended this opportunity. Our tentative plans are that we will fly from Western NY to Shanghai and spend 4 days training in Wuxi, which the Wuxi Sports School, and then travel to Hangzhou to train for an additional 4 days, several of which will be with the Zhejiang Provincial Team (which produces 50% of the Olympians for China). My Chinese friends agreed to sponsor the trip so that the ONLY expense for the athletes chosen will be the cost of transportation to and from China. For the cost of airfare, 15-20 lucky swimmers will get the opportunity of lifetime to experience something that few americans get the opportunity to do, experience life in mainland China.

Dan, Tim, 2-time Olympic Gold Medalist and 

World Record Holder Ye Shiwen and Phil.

In addition to that, Coach Phil and I have a few other projects we will be working on with our friends, but suffice it to say that the quanxi built up will last for many years to come. In that way, this trip was a phenomenal success for not only me (and Phil) personally, but for our club in general. It's clear that the Chinese are very interested in opening up to the west, and we are at the very forefront doing just that. There is much that we can learn from each other if we just take a step back and open our minds to the possibilities.

In the meantime, both Phil and I have moved beyond simple quanxi with our contacts in China Jiang and Wei Wei. After this trip, we have become Xiongdi, which simply means "brothers". I'm excited for the opportunities that lie ahead for all of us.

Ye Shiwen, Sun Yang and the Zhejiang Provincial Team

As discussed in my LAST BLOG POST, China selects its National Team (including those that represent it at the Olympics) from the competition between all of the different Provincial teams. Each province sends it's best swimmers to the competition and the top 2 in each event make the National Team (Similar to the US Olympic Trials). The Zhejiang Provincial Team, in which Hangzhou is the capital is by far the strongest in China and it's swimmers make up the largest percentage of National Team members. Two of its swimmers (16 y/o Ye Shiwen and Sun Yang) recently won a combined 4 events at the 2012 Olympic Games and set 2 world records - 1 each). Our itinerary, made up several months ago, initially had us visiting the team on this trip.

At the past Olympics, 16 year old Ye Shiwen shocked the world by setting a new World Record in the 400 IM and beating the American favorite in the race by several seconds. Now, Ye is not exactly new to the world's stage as she was the 2011 World Champion in the 200 IM and should have been favored to be very competitive in both IM races, but for some reason her "win" was suspect to some. Immediately after the race, some irresponsible members high up in the US Swimming community made some accusations that she "must have been doping" to go that fast. While it's certainly true that China, like other countries, has had a checkered distant past mired in drug scandals, but there is also ample evidence that they have cleaned up their act in the past 10 years or so. In any event, their swimmers go through the same testing as every other swimming athlete does, and Ye Shiwen has been tested MANY times in the past and there have NEVER been any evidence of any cheating on her part. It was a totally baseless and unfair accusation to be made in such a public way. So instead of enjoying her success and pride in her performance, she and her coaches spent most of the Games answered dumb media "speculation" questions wondering if she was "cheating". It was an "ugly" stain on the swimming part of the games and caused a little bit of an "International Sporting Incident" between the US and China. Some old ugly scabs got picked off for sure. Secretly, I had worried that might be an issue on our visit, but I know how I felt on the matter, so whatever happen, there was that. Besides, no one made any promises either way, so I figured that if we played our cards right, maybe we'd get lucky.

We had already had dinner with the head of all Sport Development in Hangzhou and plus we had  had some great social dinners with all of Sun Yang and Ye Shiwen's early development coaches, including Wei Wei, her very first coach. Wei Wei is one of our hosts and he was one of the coaches we hosted in the US earlier this year. We developed a very good friendship with him in the past year. He and Jiang, who is his manager at the DaQuan School are just all around great people. So it really didn't matter if we got to meet their champions or not, we have already made some great friends on this trip and that in and of itself is all we really were looking for. Sure enough, on the drive over, Both Jiang and Wei Wei were cautioning us that our trip might be very short and that both Ye and Sun "might" not be there. Something about them having to go to Shanghai at the last minute or something. At this point, we're friends so we had honest discussion about what happened to her at the games and how unfair it was. Bottom line though, it's been less then a month and neither Ye Shiwen, Sun Yang, or any of their coaches have met with, or have been given access to ANY other Westerners since returning from London. We would be the first. They just weren't sure she was ready, or they felt anyone from the west deserved to be introduced to them. I could totally appreciate it. I figured we get the "2-minute" rush tour, while the swimmers hid in the locker room and we'd be shooed out of there pretty quickly. As we walked in the rather large pool area, you could feel some tension in the air. For the first time since being her, I was a little uncomfortable.

As fortune would have it, last year when I was here in Hangzhou last December, I had an occasion to meet (and share a few toasts with) Coach Zhuzhi gen, who is Sun Yang's coach and the Head Provincial Coach. Wei Wei skillfully reintroduced us and he remembered me from that visit. I showed him the picture we took that day on my I phone. We shared a few laughs about it and I offered some very nice words for him and his success in London. Coach Phil and Dan were right behind me and they equally gracious and the mood lightened considerable. Soon we were walking around the facility and were shown a few different things here and there. There were a few groups in the water and a few kids milling about on deck. We were just walking along and we came to a group of girls stretching and getting out of the pool. I recognized Ye Shiwen immediately. Wei Wei went over to her and spoke to her for a few minutes, and then they both walked over and we were all introduced. We shared a few nice words and she smiled and was just as warm, shy and humble as you expect any 16 year old kid meeting a bunch of strangers would be. She agreed to take a photo with us all and proceeded to do just that. After a few more words with Wei Wei, she walked over to a table where Jiang had laid out a few swim caps and she signed one for each of us. After a few more words, she was off to go hang with her friends (practice had ended) or to do what any other 16 year old does after practice.

Coach Tim and World Record Holder Ye Shiwen.

While all this was going on, I couldn't help looking a few other swimmers in the pool and I noticed Sun Yang's BEAUTIFUL stroke from a mile away. We continued our tour and meeting the other coaches for another 45 minutes or so and ended up at the end of the pool as Sun Yang was just finishing warm down (we videoed some of it). Again, introductions and kind words all around and a few pictures later, he strolled over to the table and signed his name on the cap right above Ye Shiwen's name. He was very gracious with us. He even knows a little English. It was a privilege meeting such a well-mannored, and humble dude (out of the water). There was NO discomfort after the few few minutes and we spent over 1.5 hours there. They gathered up the caps for us and we were off. Later as we all marveled at our good fortune, Jiang shared with us that because both Sun Yang and Ye are national heroes, and they are somewhat limited with who they come in contact with, there is a huge market for ANYTHING autographed by them. In fact, on China's versions of eBay, Sun Yang's autograph has sold for 150,000 Yuan (or $24,000 USD). I asked them what the caps would be worth with both of their signatures on it? His reply.......... "there is no price because those never existed until now". So based on a few toast's 8-9 months ago, and a few nice congratulatory words, we were presented with probably the only 3 caps with both of their signatures that exist outside of China. I feel pretty honored by that. Our friendship with Wei Wei (who has coached both Ye and Sun before) obviously had quite a bit to do with it too.

Coach Phil, Tim, Sun Yang, Jiang and Dan.

All in all, it was a great day, and one that wasn't even over. In the afternoon, we traveled to Wuxi, to have dinner with the president of the Wuxi Sports School and the Director of Sport Development for Wuxi (a city of 8 million). I'll dedicate a separate blog post for that.

Day 4 & 5: DaGuan and the ChenJinglin Schools

The next couple days of our trip were a mix of sightseeing and swimming. In the morning, we saw some of the sights and then in the afternoon, we visit 2 of the main clubs in Hangzhou. The overall picture of swimming here in Hangzhou looks a little like this. Hangzhou is a city of about 6 million people and there are about 20 swimming "clubs" here. Here, the word club is somewhat different then it is at home. A club here is a swim program that is set up in one of the many sports schools here in the city. Some you can join, others you can be selected out of primary school, or out of the lessons run at the pool and invited to join the team. Of the 20 teams, only 4 of which are considered professional programs, which simply means that they produce the best swimmers and receive the most support from the government. At this "city" level program, swimmers work hard and train to reach the professional Provincial team. The Chinese national team is selected from the best of the 19 or so different provincial teams around the county. The Zhejiang Provincial team (which Hangzhou is part of), is the best in all of China and almost half of China's National team which represent the country during world competitions (like the Olympics) come from there.

Two of the Hangzhou "city-level" teams are the DaGuan School and the ChenJinglin Sports School. The two are separate clubs, but maintain a close link in friendship between each other in swimming because the coach of DaGuan (Wei Wei) used to coach under the coach from ChenJinglin (Coach Bia). It was coach Wei Wei that discovered 2012 Olympic superstar Ye Shiwen and recruited her to swim at ChenJinglin School in 2004. Coach Wei Wei gets "credit" for her discovery in the Chinese system. The other Chinese world record holder and swimming star Sun Yang also comes from the ChenJinglin school.

On day 4, we went two visit West Lake in Hangzhou in the morning and visited DaGuan in the afternoon and watched practice.  On day 5, we went to a very old and famous Buddhist monastery in the morning and the ChenJinglin school in the afternoon and watched that practice. At some later point, when I have more time, I will get into the specifics of what I saw and experience. Today, we visit the Zhejiang Provincial Team and meet some of their superstars. That's all for now.

Coach Tim