 This is Think Tech Hawaii. Community Matters here. Yes, sir. Bingo. Welcome to Think Tech Asia. I'm your host, Jay Fidale. Our show today is called 700 million people in China on the move, Wanderlust. We're going to talk about, we're going to talk about China and Wanderlust all in the name of patriotism, trying to make a global impact. Patriotism can be a great motivational force. If you want to ask a question, make a comment about this discussion. You can tweet us a Think Tech HI or call us at 808-374-2014. Our guest for the show, which should be no surprise, is our regular correspondent and contributor, Russell Liu, an attorney, a Hawaii attorney practicing in Beijing. Welcome to the show, Russell. Welcome, Jay. Welcome. Aloha from Beijing. Yeah. Where are you now? You look great. Well, I'm right now in Beijing, in the district called Hai Dian, known for its universities. I'm at the actual coffee shop of the second largest press publication house in China at the Beijing Ford Studies University Pub and Press. That looks great. Looks better than Starbucks, if you want to know. So let me say something. Go ahead. Well, here's my cup of coffee to you. I'm drinking Americano. Okay. So I want to just sort of set the stage here. 700 million people are on the move in China, the largest migration of people. And around October 1, which is national day, that's half the population of China. Everyone on the move, this migration occurs from October 1 to October 8. So why are they on the move is one of the questions we're going to ask, where are they going? How is all this moving affecting them and us? So China's national day holiday celebrates the country's founding similar to our 4th of July Independence Day. Unlike other countries, such as the U.S., celebrating the 4th of July with patriotic events and parades, China's people celebrate the holidays by travel. They travel, they spend lots of money, and they do shopping. The largest migration and shopping spree in the world, 700 million people. A large number, according to CTIPS, which is China's largest online travel operator, are going to travel overseas for the holidays in exotic places, 6 million people are going to travel. The economic effect of the Chinese during this one week period affects all of us and it affects all of us globally. So now we're going to find out from Russell what's going on, Russell. Tell us about national day and tell us about this huge migration and wanderlust that is affecting the world and changing things in China and everywhere. You know, Jay, I think it's really important to think that from the West, when you hear and read the press about nationally, you think it as some kind of really patriotic, very military day. But it's really not. You know, China has gone past that point. I think the perception of many Americans who have never been to China is very different than an American being in China. And I kind of wanted to show everyone what the really is happening on the ground. And yes, it is a national day. It's called National Day Olig October 1. Maybe the name, there are some misunderstanding what's all about. But let's take a look. We've got a couple of videos here just to show you the people on the move. How are we, Russell? What is that an airport? A lot of people there. You're seeing what it looks like on the travel system in the subways. How many people are traveling around in China. And China has invested so much in the subway systems. And it's so efficient because from the subway, you get to the train directly to the airport. And these people movers, I really unified the people. You know, they talk about the China Dream and everything's possible now when they see this and experience this. So what do we see? That was the subway. People online in the subway. What were they waiting for in the subway? Yes, that's the subway that you see. Modern subways. And you will find the subways. I find them a lot much more efficient than I'm in the U.S. than in New York. New subways. Everything's clean. And for the amount of people in China and Beijing, it's a population of 20 to 23 million people. And just imagine how they have to do with crowd control every day. Security and crowd control. Yeah. Well, let's take a look at another video you gave us and see how that compares. Everybody's headed toward Tiananmen where we're headed. See what you're like in National Day in China. And as you can see, okay, Russell, that's impressive, too. That's a modern, you know, 21st century subway. Where does the subway go? Well, the subway goes all around the city. This is in Beijing. Think of Los Angeles. Imagine the breath of Los Angeles, and you can get clear across Los Angeles in 45 minutes on a subway. It's very impressive. And people now, they're used to that. The trains come every three minutes, did you say? And they're always there on time. Tells you when they're coming. And it's every three minutes. And there are signs. There's TV screens along the side of the subway where you're waiting. And it tells you the countdown. You'll see the countdown. It'll tell you blow by blow, three minutes, two minutes, one minute. And you'll then hear the announcement that the train is pulling in from this stop and it's going to the next stop. Wonderful. Fantastic. We don't have that in the U.S. No. And what you told me before the show, too, that those subways will take you to the big trains. And I'd like to ask you about the big trains. And they will take you to the airport. So if you're traveling, you just get on the subway and you're ready to make your trip right from there, no? Right. Well, what I do is I pull my roll-ons and I just get on the subway. And it takes me from where I'm at across the northern part of the city to the southern rail station. It takes me 30 minutes, 30 minutes. And then I simply roll my luggage right off the subway. I take up the escalator and I'm at the train station. I roll up right past the security checkpoint and I just check right in at the gate. It's like this all over China, not just Beijing. Last week I went to a northern city of Jinan in Shandu. Normally it would have taken five hours, but this took only two hours on the high-speed train. Yeah, those are the fastest trains in the world now, aren't they? They're faster than the Téjé Vey in France and the other place. Yes, they just unveiled their latest high-speed train. It is the fastest bullet train in the world. And that service, especially if you were in China, it's wonderful to take it from Beijing to Shanghai. And it's probably faster than taking an airplane. Airplanes, you have security check, you have delays. And by the time you get all in place and then you fly, you're probably there on the bullet train. Well, I just want to get the dynamic of this. A few years ago, say 10 or 20 years ago, despite the fact they had National Day then too, people did not travel in the same way, the same scope, the same distances, the same speeds, with the same money in their pocket. So this is all fairly recent, isn't it? Yeah, yes. The China National Day really, 1949, when the first National Day. And National Day was on October 1, although the founding of the country's action is September 24, 1949, October 1. So every year they've been having this celebration. And in 1999, the government changed it. China is a very practical place. So they said, well, we're going to take a look at this. And what they did was, a modern day National Day is not like it was 1949. It's a time where the government says, okay, for all the people, now that we've got this wonderful transportation system, we want you to see your country, experience your culture. People from outside of Beijing will come to Beijing. We want to make the country unified. Beckon, they found it's a great way for domestic spending. They spent a lot of money. 700 million people coming to Beijing, and 6 million will go abroad outside of Beijing, and they will travel. But it brings about $100 billion domestically. This is part of Hu Jintao's initiative to increase local spending, local consumption of goods. Before it was all an export economy. He wanted to make it a local consumption kind of economy, and have the people in China buy Chinese goods. And one way to do that is to have them travel around the country and go on a shopping spree. Yes, that's right. And this is also called Golden Week. And because it's the largest retail spending week, one of the weeks of the year, 14% of domestic tourism spending are costing this 7 to 10 day period. And in fact, people don't just go to the malls. They go out to eat lunch, and they sit there, get their smartphones, and they order things. So it's a society that's not really brick and mortar. So just imagine. The malls are busy, people are buying, and people are outside on the street with their mobile phones. And you might think it's hard for Americans to understand this. But I think we've got a video that I've got here, which shows how the Chinese don't need to go to malls. And this is over lunch with three of my local guides that I went lunch. And I saw a plate that I wanted to buy at the restaurant. And so what they did was they showed me how they used their mobile phone, got on Alibaba's engine site, took a picture, and simply it came up, where to order, and I could just order right there. In the restaurant. From the restaurant. From the restaurant. I think we have that next video. Yeah. Hi, this is Rusty back with ThinkTac with my two guests, Irene Lee and Jocelyn here. And we're going to show you how much commerce and technology is merged together in the daily lives of everyday Chinese. So while we're sitting here at a Russian waiting for lunch, I commented how beautiful this plate looks like. And Ms. Irene is going to show us how the Chinese use technology. So you're able to buy online instantly and make a purchase. So anyway, Irene, show us, show for our audience. What are you using? Your smartphone? Yeah, my smartphone. There's an app called Taobao, which is the, which is from the Alibaba company. So everybody's heard of Alibaba and you, I see that. Now what she's going to do is she's identified the plate. This is the plate. I'm going to take a picture of the plate and then they can identify this item instantly on online. So right now I'm taking a picture of the plate and this is scanning the item. And you can see they are all the plates they found. So instantly you can get whatever you want when you see it and you can make a purchase online. So in other words, for our audience, this means that you don't have to go to a breaking mortise place. You don't have to waste time. It's efficient. All we did was take a picture. It's even cheaper on the internet. So for this plate is only 10 RMB, which is awesome. So I think I'm going to order some, Irene, don't close that out. I'm going to order some plates and the plates, when I ordered, how long will it take to get the plate? Only two days. But if you buy something from Beijing, from the same city, you'll get this next day, like just one day away. So here we are in the Bhutongs, having lunch, having a conversation and being able to shop. Now that's what I call efficient. In China, where technology has merged into daily lives of everyday Chinese technology using your smartphone, you don't have to go to a shopping mall. And it's efficient because I'll have next day delivery. That is cheaper. So anyways, again, Russell, you're on the road in Beijing. It's National Day in China. We're here. It's going to site itself in Beijing to show you what the daily lives of the Chinese are. We'll see you later. Goodbye. Wow, Russell. That's pretty impressive. It doesn't matter where you see it. It'll recognize it. It'll send it to you. That's what's his name, Ma, in Alibaba. He's eclipsed Amazon, hasn't he? Yes. And so that is incredible, isn't it? That's every day what the Chinese do. They live life very mobile. That's why they spend trillions of dollars on e-commerce. And it's a big, again, a big domestic engine that makes economy run. And so it's part of something where technology, this show is about technology. So you just saw what technology does to a society. Well, I sure like those delivery times, one day in the same city and two days from anywhere else. But I want to add something. We have this possibility. Hawaii has a possibility of having an Amazon Center being built here. And you might think that that's a remote possibility. But I heard just a couple of days ago that Jeff Bezos of Amazon was here, not a block from where I am sitting. I wonder what he was doing here just a week ago. Isn't that something? Isn't that amazing? Maybe we will have an Amazon Center right here. Well, that's what I'm saying. If we can bring Amazon to Honolulu, we'll bring Alibaba. It'll be a great global logistic center. And we create special economic zones, bonding zones, so that there are no taxes passing through. But then we get this economy going. But you know what's important here? It makes everybody from Amazon that level down to the ordinary person empowered, empowered to want to go business. Next show I'll show it to you. We were having before we set out our day trip, we went to a small coffee shop. It was in the basement of the university next to a cafeteria. And you would think, why would this guy be there? And it turned out he makes the best German black forest cake and chocolate cheese cakes. And what he does is he'll just go there and I drank a cup of cappuccino and had your cake. It was wonderful. But you give them two or three hours, you'll take your order. That cake will be made and it will be delivered to you in two or three hours. But imagine, people are empowered. They're not constricted by expensive motor and brick. And this is the kind of society where money turns and economy grows. And in the back point of every society is a small business. This is what China is all about. It's happening. It's happening. Everybody in China seems to be dedicated to that proposition of let's do local consumption. Let's do national Chinese consumption instead of just import-export. So now we're taking a short break, Russell. When we come back, I would like to talk about these 700 million people who actually leave China and go flying around the world, you know, getting there with the subway and the high speed trains and all, getting to the airport and one belt, one road and see how China is expanding its travel horizons to other countries and other continents. We'll be right back after this short break. This is Think Tech Hawaii, raising public awareness. My friend, mother, what big eyes you have. She's sad. All the better to see you with my dear. What are you doing? Okay, cool. Research says reading from birth accelerates the baby's brain development. And you're doing that now? Oh, yeah. This is the starting line. Posh. And this is over. You're dead. Read aloud 15 minutes, every child, every parent, every day. Yeah, we're back. We're live. We're talking to Russell Lu, a Hawaii attorney who practices in Beijing and reports to us every week or two from Beijing. And we get all kinds of interesting information from about how life is doing in China and everything is doing in China and affecting the Chinese. And what I love about this show is the people in China watch it. As a matter of fact, the people all over the world watch it. This is one of those special shows. And we have several of them that are that are viewed in various countries around the world. Good for Think Tech and good for you, Russell. So Russell, tell us about the way the Chinese have expanded their travel horizons to other countries and other continents and what that does for them, for their wanderlust, if you will, and for the economy of China as well. Well, it's a very fantastic to see how the Chinese have improved their way of life. And people work very intensely here. And they look forward to these golden holiday weeks. And this year, there's about 6 million of them that go abroad. And they do make an impact in other countries. In fact, recently, the press was big news. The Japanese leader Abe, first Japanese leader in 15 years, Percy went to the PRC and congratulated for their founding of their country. And he wanted to continue with the normalization of relationships. And that was standing where we're here in the press, all the other things. But and it's it's probably because this time of the year, the Chinese block in big numbers to Japan. Japan is the second most sought after destination in this period. And so they go there. And in 2015, for example, they spent $830 million just in seven days. And this year, it's a lot more. I don't know what that will be, but it is things like that. They're doing things. And the number one destination last year, believe it or not was Morocco, Morocco went off the off the scale. But it gives us a good idea of the white tourism, how we need to think about rethinking of how we attract these tourists. And we need to quickly build capacity because this is the kind of of a probability one, the largest spending, they come in big numbers. They give us a chance to breathe, you know, during the holiday periods, New Year's Spring Festival, national day, we can breathe between them. But we want to track big numbers. And again, it really is about what you do to change your product, you know, how to brand it. Yeah, well, I have talked about trying to get to Chinese signs in the airport, Mandarin signs in the airport and trying to make the Chinese feel welcome here as welcome as a Japanese tourist are anyway. But I'm wondering, which we haven't really done yet, I'm wondering whether Japan or for that matter, Morocco have taken affirmative steps to make it comfortable for the Chinese to come. Do they have Mandarin signs? Do they have Mandarin signs in Morocco? That'd be really interesting. What do they do? Well, you know, it's no surprise in Tokyo, I've been to the airports many times in Haneda where they did a read at the airport. You find live speakers, Japanese who speak Mandarin, they're all over the airport, you hear loud speakers in Mandarin, you catch the local airport bus, they have Mandarin tapes on it. And it's incredible. But this was something that Japan did not do overnight. You know, when I've been here 15 years, Jay, about 10 years ago, the language schools, they would send their middle management ANA and JAL to Beijing for two years of language training. That's how they would get promoted up the ranks. They foresaw it. So I think, you know, it's proactive planning. But again, the airports in Tokyo have signage, they have language capability, they have ticket agents who speak Mandarin. And it's sort of like this, you got to make the field before they come. The American way is, well, we wait till they come. If you wait till they come, they won't come because it's a word of mouth. They use WeChat saying, this is not friendly. This place is not friendly for us. But you know, I got to be creative. The state has done, and Hawaiian Airlines has done a fantastic new terminal. I was just out there on my last trip leaving Honolulu brand new. It did look very, very nice. But again, we need to, as a community, we need to welcome the Chinese. We need to get the whole airport. You know, if we have Japanese and Korean, we should have Chinese. It's so very important. We need to rethink our strategy. What is the Chinese traveler looking for? Is he looking to shop? What kind of tours does he want to go on? What is his taste in hotels? Does he want to top of the line or something else? What is the experience he is seeking? Well, you know, I think the Hawaiian tourism industry is looking for the high spender that's going to stay in the high hotel. But that's not necessarily the guy who's going to spend a lot. I've traveled to Chinese group. They will carry $1,000 to buy, for example, Louis Vuitton, to buy Rolex watches. And that's great for us too. But we need to welcome them. We need to make them friendly because, again, the first and last place to the airport, if they don't hear Mandarin, they know they're not welcome. And it's not a matter of favorite one country or another. It's face. The Japanese, Korean all have the same with the Chinese face. It's a lack of respect. We're the number one travelers around the world, spenders, but you're not willing to welcome us. And I think another place is Waikiki, Alamoana Center. You have many Japanese-speaking concierge, but the Chinese don't see any there. I was there a month ago. I saw lots of Chinese FIT travelers. They're buying things from Chanel, Gucci, Hermes. But when you walk them all, you're not welcome. And I think we need to start to move in that direction. Sure. We have to compete because there are other places in the world competing. There are other high-end shopping centers elsewhere in every major city. You can go shopping anywhere you want and find things that equal or rival or exceed what we have at Alamoana, sorry to say. But let me ask you about the connection between the trip, the experience of the Chinese visitor, wherever he's going, and the economy. In other words, for example, we know the Chinese are investing a lot of money in Africa right now. And they have companies that are deeply involved with lots of employees and agents all over Africa trying to do resource development factories, what have you. Now, does the tourist, if you will, call him the average Chinese visitor who goes on National Day to Africa for a trip, what does he do? Is that trip connected in some way with the economic activity, if you will, the soft power of China in Africa? No, not really. The Chinese have been in Africa for many, many years. And in fact, I just had met one of my students who went to South Africa. And I think what the Chinese are looking for is a unique experience. And they want to tie into the local community. They want to absorb the local community. They don't necessarily want the plastic dancer dolls. They don't want that. They want to see the real thing. They want something that's interesting. That's kind of a National Geographic kind of experience. So I think we have to keep that in mind. They want the authentic thing. And I go back to it because what they want is the authentic Hawaiian experience in Hawaii, for example. And that's why I'm saying is we have to look at our Hawaii tourism. It has to be global, not international. International means we change our tourism product to meet a certain market. We did that with the Japanese travelers. But we need to make it global for everyone. Like wherever you go, Starbucks, you know what the latte is going to taste. You're going to ask for a grande size latte. Right? So in other words, we have to globalize so the Chinese want that experience. Well, you know, there's an irony there that they come to buy high-end stuff in Palm Court at, you know, in Alamoana. But at the same time, they want an authentic experience, Hawaiian culture experience, Hawaiian music experience and all that. So it sounds to me from what you say that we have to offer them both. We have to offer them a high-end shopping experience with hotels that meet their budget and their taste. But we also have to offer them the natural organic experience of the essence of Hawaii. It's not one. It's not the other. It's both. Don't you agree? Yes, Jay. And also, I think another key component is that I was just reading somewhere. In fact, I talked to a fellow from Italy and he said they're going nuts. I think it's all for a mobile. They just opened up in Italy. And the Chinese feel welcome. They will jump on their bikes and they will start to feel attached to a place, you know? So I think if Honolulu truly is a global destination, we need to incorporate these elements. We need to get mobile there. We need to get mobile there. We need to use WeChat. We need to be a technology-driven city like Singapore. Singapore is done. And in Asia, they will spend more money. Imagine if we could use WeChat in Honolulu, a leading place of tourism and spending. People will be on the bus, on the tour bus, on their phones ordering things so that they will buy in advance and they send to their friends on WeChat go to this place to eat dinner. And they use technology. We need to be much more technology-driven, much more than the other cities in the U.S. If we do that, I will ensure that Honolulu will be truly a leading tourism place. We need to push technology. Yes, we have to show that we're innovative and we're ahead of the game. They were competing beyond what other countries and destinations are doing. And what you're talking about will attract not only Chinese visitors, but visitors from all over Asia, actually, who have the bucks to come. And for that matter, make Hawaii a better destination for people from the mainland and from Europe and every continent, any continent in the world. But I want to ask you also, what happens after October 8th, Russell? Does everybody go back to work? That's the end of that. And they stop traveling? I mean, is there Chinese travel going on after October 8th? That's a rhetorical question. What do you think? I think there's always traveling that's going on in China. I met the train stations quite often, traveling myself. And people are always on the move here. It's just that a mass number comes out in that week because, you know, for people that work in state-owned enterprise or government companies, they don't have a luxury of saying, I want to take off on November 10th, one week to go to Hawaii. They don't have the luxury. So they planned their travel for these periods like National Day, the Spring Festival. So in the scheme of things, if Hawaii wants to be a global tourism place, we need to plan ahead. We need to make it a gala event in Honolulu so that they will get on sea trips and book their trips early. Well, that sounds like they minimized the risk by doing that, the risk of being involved in unplanned experiences while they travel. But we live in a dangerous world now. There's always the possibility of terrorism. And some countries have a regular diet of terrorism, it seems like, especially in Europe, and now here too. So I wonder how the Chinese deal with that. Are they afraid of that? Do they make their moves to avoid that risk? Do they avoid destinations that have an inordinate risk of terrorism or other difficulties? Or do they cruise right in and go wherever they want to go, not worrying about it? Jim, sorry, I didn't get that feed quite clearly. I think you're talking about terrorism. Yeah, I'm wondering how the Chinese feel about terrorism when they plan their trips. Well, I think when they plan their trip, yes, that is in the back of their mind. And that's a very good question, because we've had a lot of civil unrest in the U.S. So the Chinese actually, that has been a little chilling effect as to them wanting to go to the U.S. We had a bad incident in the University of Illinois champagne where a girl was kidnapped, and I believe she might have murdered. So they had the Schrodingerville incident. So the Chinese are aware of all this going on. So it does affect them. But that's where Hawaii, I think, to the largest, like, knock on wood has been fairly lucky. It's a place, a sanctuary, a peace, calm, and it's a very safe place. But again, that team should be brought out much more of the Chinese tourists. Yeah, where the mainland has all these issues, white supremacy issues, racist issues, including not only African Americans, but also Asians. So that would be a bit of a turnoff for a Chinese visitor. But Hawaii has diversity, Hawaii has tolerance. And that means, and I really like your thoughts on this as we close, and that means that we have a great opportunity. We have a great card to play because of our diversity and our tolerance. We are a very appealing destination, are we not, to the Chinese and anyone in Asia, because of that. And do they think about that? Is this an important card for us to play and for them to come here? Yes, Jay, that's right. It's a place of healing and good place. And I think we just need to get our community together. We need to get our leaders to be, hopefully, much more engaging and welcoming these tourists. Because I think that will make a difference. Yeah. Okay. Very important that we hold that thought. Very important here on National Day, but all through the year. Thank you so much, Russell, for joining us and for the clips you have and for showing us this beautiful coffee shop behind you and taking us on a tour as you do every couple of weeks with Think Tech. May I say and Sai Jian Russell, you? Yes. Yes, Sai Jian. Take care.