April 28, 2008

Impressions Of China

Posted by Rachel Pepling on April 28, 2008 in The Editor's Blog

From Deputy Editor-In-Chief Maureen Rouhi’s editorial this week:

On my first visit to China two weeks ago, fascinating contrasts greeted my arrival. Traveling to the center of Shanghai from Pudong International Airport on a maglev train that reached a peak speed of 430 km per hour, I zoomed past a rural landscape of vegetable fields and simple houses along narrow streets traversed by people on foot or bicycle. Within the premises of the modern headquarters of a pharmaceutical chemical producer, I watched women tending a lawn by hand, removing the stray broadleaf weeds that were marring the uniformity of the tall, straight grass.

A bad experience, however, marked my departure. Air China canceled flight 933 to Beijing. The botched handling of the situation turned what should have been only an inconvenience into mob-behavior-inducing chaos, causing many passengers to resolve never again to fly with Air China. Reputation can be so easily damaged.

Read the rest of the editorial

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