The End of Copycat China: The Rise of Creativity, Innovation, and Individualism in Asia

5The Beijing CoughJanuary 2013

Where do we eat?” I asked my colleague Ben Cavender. I looked across the street into a wave of blackness. We were standing in Beijing's central business district. The China World Hotel owned by the Shangri-La Hotel chain should be right across the street, I thought to myself, but I could see only a wall of smog.

Cavender threw me a look as if to say, “I can't believe this situation.” Educated at the famed Phillips Exeter Academy and then Cornell University, where he rowed, he was my first hire at the China Market Research Group (CMR) in early 2006. He and I have been through a lot of struggles and challenges together as we have built up CMR. He is not easily perturbed. More like a rock. But at that moment, even he looked dismayed.

Cavender and I had just finished delivering a five-year growth strategy project for a business-to-business food service catering company. Both the headquarters of the firm in America and the president of the Chinese operation received the project well.

We wanted to celebrate with a nice meal. That happiness was soon replaced by shock as we went outside to look for a place to eat.

We could not even see 20 meters ahead, the air was so black and gritty. Ben and I were engulfed in what eventually became called Airpocalypse Beijing 2013, when the air quality topped 700 on the Air Quality Index (AQI), more than 30 times worse ...