My company, Studio D, specializes in running research projects for multinationals, spotting patterns in human behavior, and turning these into insights for new products and services, and changes in strategy. This place is at the edge of that miracle, where massive state investment in infrastructure have combined with huge commercial bets on residential and commercial developments. I came here to better understand a part of the country that can help decode the Chinese economic miracle, and you can call my drinking companions my focus group. That conversation turned into a toast, a night of toasts actually. sleeper to Chengdu, but last night fate-in the form of a helpful bilingual gallery owner sauntering over to my restaurant table-intervened. Today, I was supposed to be on the 6 a.m. The beauty of traveling alone is being able to change plans on a whim. The pills were my morning-after contribution to last night’s bender, an unexpected night out in Yushu, a Tibetan area in western China’s Qinghai province, with the monk’s entourage, which included two Chengdu businessmen in search of better karma, a gallery owner, and a number of robed disciples. “Are these from America?” the monk asked, turning five small baggies over in his hand, each containing pills for a distinct purpose: head, stomach, heart, mind, and libido. Jan Chipchase journeys to the rough edges of globalization in China.
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