The Geography of Genius: A Search for the World's Most Creative Places From Ancient Athens to Silicon Valley (15 page)

Robert Frost once likened writing free-verse poetry to playing tennis without a net. Without boundaries, we are lost. That’s why the truly creative crave them and, if they don’t exist, construct them.

In the 1960s, a French novelist and a mathematician founded an experimental literary movement called Oulipo that took the Power of Constraints to an extreme. Raymond Queneau, the group’s cofounder, described Oulipians as “rats who build the labyrinth from which they will try to escape.” One member, Georges Perec, wrote a three-hundred-page novel without using the letter
e
.

You might consider that gimmicky or conclude, as critic Andrew Gallix did in the
Guardian
newspaper, that “the Oulipians are into literary bondage.” Perhaps, but followers of this odd movement are onto something, I think. They’ve helped put a dent in one of the greatest myths of creativity: that constraints are something to be avoided. In fact, “we may actually undermine creativity if we make things too easy or too comfortable for individuals of significant creative potential,” conclude psychologists Robert Sternberg and Todd Lubart.

This less-is-more phenomenon holds true not only for individuals but for entire nations. A good example is the “oil curse,” also known as the paradox of plenty. Nations rich in natural resources, especially oil, tend to stagnate culturally and intellectually, as even a brief visit to Saudi Arabia or Kuwait reveals. The citizens of these nations have everything so they create nothing.

China is very different. People find creative ways to circumvent the Great Firewall, for instance, or to just get through the day. Sometimes that means deploying the most powerful of Chinese weapons. Never mind gunpowder. I’m talking
guanxi
.

The word is usually translated as “connections,” but that doesn’t convey its full import. “I need to find some
guanxi
,” people will say, as if it were a natural resource, like oil, scarce yet absolutely essential. The Chinese are constantly prospecting for new, untapped sources of
guanxi
.

So you can imagine my delight when I, an inept foreigner, stumble onto a veritable gusher of
guanxi
. It turns out that a friend of a friend knows Jack Ma, one of the richest men in China, in the world. Ma made his fortune through an Internet start-up called Alibaba and is often called the “Chinese Steve Jobs.” Jack Ma may or may not be a genius, but I bet he has some insights into Chinese creativity, past and present.

One morning, I receive a text message from my
guanxi
supplier. I am to meet Jack in the lobby of the Hyatt Hotel at 5:00 p.m. I am to be on time. I am to come alone. Okay, he didn’t actually say that last bit, but it was understood.

I arrive fifteen minutes early and pace the ornate yet uninspiring lobby. Sure enough, at precisely 5:00 p.m., a slight, elfin man walks through the revolving doors. The first thing I notice is that he is wearing sweatpants. Really? Sweatpants? This is one of the perks of $3 billion, I suppose: you can wear sweatpants whenever you feel like it. The only indication that I am shaking hands with one of the wealthiest people in China is the ethereal presence of a young man in a crisp suit and tie who hovers discreetly in the background, ready with a business card or a cell phone or pretty much anything else Jack Ma needs or wants.

We sit down, and I’m instantly aware of eyes on us. Well, to be more accurate, they are on Jack. Born and raised in Hangzhou, he is the local boy made good. A bona fide celebrity. A waitress appears. Jack orders tea, and I follow his lead. Better for deep thinking.

I tell Jack about my quixotic, global search for a geography of genius. But enough about me. I want to hear the story of Jack Ma, local boy turned billionaire. It’s an unfair demand on my part, I realize. You’d think
it would be enough that he’s fabulously, ridiculously wealthy. Maybe it once was, but not anymore. No, these days one must be fabulously, ridiculously wealthy
and
interesting. The public demands it. Every billionaire needs a backstory. Without one, without a tale of Homeric struggle, of overcoming impossible odds, the money is worthless. Well, okay, not
worthless
but worth less.

Jack Ma has a good backstory, I must admit. He grew up poor—not dirt-poor but poor enough. He came of age just as China was opening its doors to the first Western tourists. Young Jack began to hang out in front of the Shangri La Hotel, fascinated by these strange people with their outsize frames and wallets. Jack declared himself a tour guide, offering his services for free in exchange for impromptu English lessons. Jack was a fast learner. Language is never culturally neutral, though. Values embed themselves not only in stuff but also in words. So, alien notions—strange ideas about freedom and opportunity and risk taking—wormed their way into young Jack’s brain until, one day, he realized that he was thinking differently. He was still Chinese, but part of him had become American. So when the Internet came to China, Jack was ready. He started Alibaba, and yada yada, he’s worth $3 billion.

The story didn’t just happen anywhere, though. It happened in fabled Hangzhou, a city that through the centuries has birthed a large litter of geniuses. And it happened—where else?—along the shores of West Lake, the very lake that inspired the likes of Shen Kuo and Su Tungpo all those centuries ago. Ma explains how when Alibaba was in its infancy and had no office space to speak of, the employees used the lake as their conference room, finding a grassy spot along the shores and holding their meetings there.

Jack Ma insists he is “one hundred percent made in China,” but his success story is, I think, a hybrid one. Chinese respect for tradition combined with American gumption.

So why aren’t there more Jack Mas in China? Is it a fear of taking risks?

“No. Just look at the way Chinese behave in casinos, or on the roads. The Chinese are great gamblers.” He has a point. The driving, certainly, reveals a willingness to take chances, with their own lives, and others’, too.

No, says Jack, it’s the education system—and in particular the dreaded, mind-numbing exams—that is squelching Chinese creativity. Those exams, which played such an important role in shaping China’s golden age, are now one of the main culprits behind the innovation gap. The exams are a source of endless suffering for Chinese students and, not insignificantly, a creativity killer. Consider this recollection.

“One had to cram all this stuff into one’s mind for the examinations, whether one liked it or not. This coercion had such a deterring effect on me that, after I passed the final examination, I found the consideration of any scientific problems distasteful to me for an entire year.”

Those are the words not of Jack Ma or an unhappy Chinese student but of Albert Einstein, recalling the deadening effect of similar exams he was subjected to in Germany. Note that it wasn’t the material that deterred Einstein, or even the exams per se, but, rather, the
coercion.
Even the most enjoyable of activities becomes a chore if embarked upon under duress, and Chinese schools these days are all about duress.

That partly explains China’s current innovation gap, but, says Jack, there is another, more insidious reason. “I would say that China lost its culture, and it has lost its religion.”

I nearly spit out my tea. I’ve spent enough time over the years in China to know that religion is a dangerous subject, one that is broached extremely carefully, if at all. Jack Ma, though, is insulated by a large wad of cash. Modern China offers plenty of freedom of speech, if you can afford it. He continues, “Those religious teachings contain a lot of inspirational ideas, ideas that have very practical applications when it comes to creative thinking.”

When I press him for an example, he cites one of China’s major religions, Taoism, or “the Way.” Between sips of tea, Jack explains that Taoism helped him guide Alibaba to such Olympian heights. “When I compete with eBay, or whoever, I never use the Western way. I always use Taoism.”

“Taoism against eBay? What do you mean?”

“When you push me here”—he points to his solar plexus—“I don’t push back. Instead, I fight you here, and here. Where you don’t expect it. The idea is to use wisdom, fight smart, always keep your balance.” The
Western approach, one Jack has come to expect from his competitors, is the way of the boxer. Jack’s way is that of the surfer.

His story reminds me of the artist I met a few days earlier. I had asked him about creative destruction. Do the Chinese embrace the concept with the same enthusiasm that we in the West do? He answered my question by drawing a tree, called a
long su
, found in southern China. The roots, rather than being buried underground, hang in the air. When they are long enough, they touch the ground, and sometimes a new tree is born. The new tree doesn’t destroy the old one. It grows alongside it. One root can turn into a new tree, yet it is still connected to the old tree. Something new is created yet nothing old is destroyed.

Jack Ma sees no future for Chinese creative genius without a reawakening of this sort of timeless philosophy and culture. Otherwise, “we are just a copy. We copy, we take knowledge, we copy. This approach won’t last.” But there is hope, he says, and that hope resides in, of all places, the Internet. China, he’s convinced, will reconnect with its past through the modern Internet, a technology that allows people to bypass the mind-numbing schools and the government propaganda. “Hopefully in thirty years, if we are lucky, we will have a generation that can combine Confucianism, Taoism, Christianity together. Because of the Internet.” How exactly this religious confluence would power another Chinese renaissance is unclear. Ma is wealthy enough now that he needn’t fill in the blanks.

After Jack and I say good-bye, I decide to walk back to my hotel and reflect on our conversation. The sun is just setting over West Lake, the light soft and golden.

I’m not sure what to make of his prescription for Chinese creativity. Is it truly a different approach from the Western way, or is this just a bunch of
Karate Kid
mumbo jumbo he serves up to gullible Americans?

As I walk, I recall one study that seems to justify Jack Ma’s optimism. Robert Sternberg and fellow psychologist Weihua Niu asked a group of American and Chinese college students to produce artwork, which was then evaluated by a panel of independent judges (from both countries). The American artwork was found to be more creative. Not a surprising result, as we’ve seen. What is surprising is what happened when researchers
repeated the experiment but this time gave explicit instructions to “be creative.” The Americans’ artwork improved only slightly, while the Chinese showed dramatic progress. Perhaps the reason the Chinese don’t think more creatively is because no one has told them they could.

The Chinese are good at playing follow the leader, one academic told me. If their leaders are tyrants, they act tyrannically. If their leaders are poetic, they act poetically. At the time, it struck me as an oversimplification. Now I’m not so sure. If, as the research suggests, creativity is contagious, then it makes sense that in a hierarchal society such as China’s “contagion” would necessarily begin at the top and work its way down. The country is unlikely to see a return of the emperor-poet, but might it see enlightened leadership of a different kind?

Definitive answers will have to wait. I’m eager to return to the sanctuary of the Crystal Orange, with its Andy Warhol prints, stacks of books, and a goldfish that is at this very moment no doubt wondering where the hell I’ve been.

It is easier to explain endings than beginnings. So while the source of China’s golden age remains misty, the reasons for its demise are fairly clear. On the scientific front, thinkers such as Shen Kuo, brilliant as they were, failed to stitch together their sundry observations into overarching theories. Hangzhou’s emperor-poets, meanwhile, turned out to be better poets than emperors. They made a series of foreign-policy blunders that opened the door to the Mongol invasion of 1279. As I learned in Athens, though, golden ages rarely collapse solely because of outside influences; there is always a rotting from the inside, and that was the case with China. The exam system, once a source of innovation, devolved into a mindless scramble for power and prestige.

“The system’s strengths proved to be inseparable from its weaknesses,” says Mote, the sinologist. That statement, I realize, could apply to all great places. Eventually, they collapse under the weight of their own greatness.

Did Hangzhou’s most famous visitor, Marco Polo, see the end coming? Or was he blinded by the glories of the fabled city? So fantastical were
his accounts that skeptics back home labeled his diary
Il Milione
, or “the million.” As in a million lies. Yet even on his deathbed, urged by friends to recant and thus rehabilitate his reputation, Polo didn’t budge.

“Friends,” he said, “I have not written down the half of those things that I saw.”

As I pack my bags, I smile at how I am about to perform a reverse Polo. I am heading to the great traveler’s homeland, a place that experienced a flourishing even more magnificent, and less likely, than that of Hangzhou. Genius, once again, was on the move, and so am I.