China Beat Archive

 

Date of this Version

2012

Document Type

Article

Citation

2012 April 3 in The China Beat http://www.thechinabeat.org/

Comments

Copyright 2012 Jeffrey Wasserstrom.

Abstract

Whenever I take a trip that includes stops in Shanghai and Beijing, two people I make sure to meet up with are Jeremy Friedlein and David Moser, the Academic Directors of the CET study abroad programs in those cities. I do this for several reasons. One is that CET has deep ties to China Beat, since the blog’s founding editor Kate Merkel-Hess and current editor Maura Cunningham are both alums. Another reason is that, for almost two years now, CET has been sponsoring a series of literary events at M on the Bund (in Shanghai) and now also Capital M (in Beijing) that put me in dialogue with local journalists and freelance writers. Last but by no means least, Jeremy and David know a lot of interesting people, so getting together with them always leads to my meeting at least one new person worth knowing. In the case of my most recent visit to Shanghai, this meant being introduced to Mary Bergstrom, who has been working on the topic of Chinese youth. Wearing her business professional’s hat, she runs a firm, The Bergstrom Group, that provides expert information on the subject to various international businesses, and wearing her writer’s one, she’s the author of the new book All Eyes East: Lessons from the Front Line of Marketing to China’s Youth. I recently sent her a series of questions about her work, as well as a couple that ask her to respond to recent youth-related pieces of writing by Evan Osnos and Pallavi Aiyar, authors well known to readers of this blog.

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