Heirs of China's New Elites Schooled in Ancient Values

Luo Yu, 31, took a class for children of wealthy entrepreneurs. "The school exists partly because of the only-child syndrome, where little emperors and princes were brought up with everything within their sights," he said. (By Maureen Fan -- The Washington Post)
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Mao made his fortune selling lighters and gave his first company to his daughter. He handed off his appliance company to his son. Now his focus is the school, which he hopes to expand to teach parents and their children.

"Blood is thicker than water. Most Chinese hope their legacy will live on through their children's lives and careers. Every entrepreneur dreams this," said Chen Ling, an economics professor at Zhejiang University, which offers a training course for family-run businesses.

Luo Yu, for one, didn't share the family dream. His father started the Cixi Huili Machinery & Electric Co. here in Zhejiang with 30 people in 1988. The company now has 1,100 employees and $50 million in annual revenue.

"When I graduated from university, I had plenty of my own very good ideas. I was very farsighted," said Luo, now general manager of the company. "In 1996, I noticed Cixi didn't have a good florist shop. In 1997, no Internet cafe. In 1999, no coffee bar. All of these things had potential, but my father did not agree."

Gradually, Luo said, he saw his father's sacrifices and understood the importance of a family business. "Why should we give away what we earn through such backbreaking effort to someone else not in the family and in poverty?" the former Jiaye Changqing student said.

Meanwhile, Zhang, who seven years ago couldn't get graduate students at Zhejiang University, has achieved popularity through his lectures at Jiaye Changqing.

For the past year, he has told students that Bill Gates read ancient Chinese classics in middle school. In college, he said, Gates refused to sacrifice anymore sleep to accommodate both his company and his studies. "You should comply with the natural law. . . . Don't be so utilitarian," he said.

His students don't always agree. "I think for doing business, utilitarianism and a focus on the bottom line is good," said Ruan Shengliang, 23, who runs a shoe factory in China's southern Guangdong province. "While treating people well and giving them what they want, a businessman also needs to get back what he ought to get."

While older Chinese are trying to impart business lessons to their children, the education sometimes works the other way. Many young Chinese are teaching their parents, for instance, that casual networking with peers can be just as effective as relying on family.

Dong Ming, 26, is vice manager of his father's 400-employee metal machinery factory in nearby Chengzhou. While his father networks at the dinner table, Dong chats online or goes to karaoke bars and teahouses with about 30 friends, all children of wealthy entrepreneurs.

"My father's network is limited by his primary school education," Dong said. "It's mainly clients, government and his entrepreneur friends. Whenever he dined with officials and clients, he asked me to join him. It's important. But I should build my own network. I make friends with the media, with scholars and young people at my own age. You get new ideas from them."

That said, Dong acknowledges the importance of his father's ways and the limits of money.

"To people who already have enough money, $10 million or $100 million doesn't make a lot of difference. We can buy more luxury goods, but actually we can't consume it all. A man driving a BMW who still spits on the road, people will despise him. So money is not the most important thing," Dong said. "My father made our factory the most powerful in our township or city, but I hope to make it influential and respectable within the industry."

Researcher Li Jie contributed to this report.