Four!!!

Here's a delightful piece by Kevin Maney, author and tech journalist who writes a weekly piece for USA Today. I think Kevin is one of the best tech writers in the world. He often has keen insights and his sense of humor is off the charts. Enjoy!
(steve)


What I learned from golfing in China

BEIJING — Golf is always more interesting when there's donkey on the menu.

I'm on the links at Beijing Taiwei Golf Club with about 40 Chinese tech CEOs, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists. It's a slice of life among a generation that has risen out of a business void to start growing companies such as chipmaker SMIC, Web portal Sohu.com and job search site 51Job. All have gone public on Nasdaq or the New York Stock Exchange in the past year.

Who knew you could golf near the Great Wall? Well, other than at a putt-putt course on the Jersey shore.

As we play, I even learn that the SARS flu outbreak did, in fact, have an upside for the Chinese. Since just about every office building in Asia was shut for six weeks, China's nouveau riche spent the time improving their handicaps. At least that's what the guys in my foursome say.

And this, to me, sounds like as good an explanation as any for why they are kicking my butt all over the course.

Golf, in fact, must be a sign that China is reaching a new level of capitalism and comfort — a level that's certain to be accompanied by a wave of BMWs, nail salons and plastic surgery.

China's People's Daily newspaper reports there are 176 golf courses in the country, and that doesn't count the bootleg golf courses. It seems that because of excessive water use and other concerns, licenses to operate golf courses are quite hard to come by. But that doesn't mean you can't open a "park" that looks a heck of a lot like a golf course and happens to be peppered with 18 little holes with flags in them.

Anyway, pulling into the 2-year-old, legitimate Beijing Taiwei resort — where membership costs $70,000 a year — we drive up to an angular Scandinavian-style structure that contrasts with the rounded, mystical mountains all around. Instantly, half a dozen young women in matching yellow jackets surround the car like a NASCAR pit crew, opening doors and the trunk, pulling out bags and people.

One thing China has in abundance is labor, and it's on display everywhere. At this place, it means personal service SWAT teams that won't let customers carry anything heavier than a wallet.

In the locker room, it means there are so many attendants that one guy stands right next to me while I strip for a shower, neatly folding each piece of clothing as I take it off.

How, exactly, does one handle that gracefully?

In some ways, this could be a golf outing anywhere. As the group mills around before starting, hats have Nike swooshes and Callaway insignias. The shoes are FootJoy. Balls are Titleist.

One woman wears a retro outfit, looking as though she wants to be Katharine Hepburn in the 1952 golf movie Pat and Mike. Cell phones go off all day long, playing chirpy tunes in the middle of someone's backswing.

My partners are pretty representative of the group. Michael Yang is CEO of Primeton, which makes software tools that help companies write specialized applications.

He started the company a couple of years ago, after learning the business working in China for San Jose, Calif.-based BEA Systems. Turns out a number of the golfers had learned by working for the likes of Intel, Microsoft and IBM before becoming entrepreneurs.

I'm also golfing with Tang Chuan Long, managing director of Beijing Huaguang Medical Electronic Equipment, and Calvin Quek, Beijing rep for Silicon Valley VC firm Global Catalyst Partners.

All three speak English to some degree, as do most of the others in the tech group. It's Quek's first language. He was born in London.

Like a lot of Chinese tech companies, Yang's Primeton and Tang's medical company sell only inside China. But over golf, they and other tech CEOs talk about how they want to go global. It's funny, but U.S. companies constantly say they want to get into China, with its 1.2 billion people and an economy on turbo thrusters. Yet Chinese companies say they want to prove they're good enough to break outof China and sell to markets globally.

For the most part, though, the day stays social, not about business or dealmaking. Most of those in the golf group know each other pretty well. The Beijing tech community is still relatively small. Playing golf with some of them is not unlike playing golf with any group anywhere. Same style and approach to the game. Same etiquette. Same curses — sometimes in English — when a shot lands in the water.

Sand traps — bunkers — apparently don't have a Chinese equivalent word, so they're called "bunk." I'm hearing this word many times during the day, usually in sympathy as my Chinese partners are describing where my ball has landed. "Ohhhh. Bunk."

After nine holes, we duck into the clubhouse for a quick lunch. The restaurant offers American-style meals (burger, club sandwich), Japanese meals and Chinese meals. And yes, one of the options on the Chinese side of the menu is donkey. I choose not to go there, thinking, for some reason, of Eeyore.

Yang orders an American meal, which comes with a salad — lettuce, tomato, a dab of Thousand Island dressing.

"You want that?" Yang says to me, pointing to his salad with a trace of revulsion. "I don't like such things."

Well, hey, if golf and business can be universal among Americans and Chinese, and the biggest point of contention is whether donkey or a tossed salad is disgusting — that seems like progress.