In the 1970’s I was a member of the Steering Committee of the International Symposium on Small Business which later became the International Small Business Congress. It was the governing body of an organization that brought small business leaders from over 60 countries together once a year.
The delegations from Japan, South Korea and Taiwan on the Steering Committee, all had translators, as part of their delegation, that were PhD students who had studied at a US university. So besides matters of language they understood our culture.
What I found interesting was that in all these nations students and the general public all had a profound respect for teachers in general. And all of them were teaching English to their young people.
I never experienced anything like this in either Canada or the United States.
And during this period, I met leaders from other nations like Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Thailand and mainland China.
They all seemed to have similarities in culture, similar beliefs. Things like frugality, strong families, hard work, and the importance of education. Confucianism? Who knows for sure.
The big surprise was the massive changes that took place in this part of the world in the 1980s and 90s. It was hard to separate economic development from growth in their educations systems in terms of access and quality.
Here are some stories to explain what I mean:
A planeload of small business leaders from Japan were sent to Canada as a reward for outstanding success in their operations. It was 1978. Some had won design awards, others awards for training, others for growth and so on.
Part of their schedule was an address from me, as a small business leader in Canada. Well, when I walked into the room, all 300 businessmen and women leaped to their feet and shouted out some sort of welcome in Japanese. Wow.
But it was about respect in their culture for learning. And all 300 spoke English. Their performance and interest in my remarks signified a sophisticated international level of quality education.
Now it is 1983 and I am attending the Congress in Singapore. And meeting with a member of the Singapore delegation.
He said that young people go through rigorous testing to proceed from primary school to high school and from high school to university. And he explained, with a sense of disappointment, that both of his children could not meet the requirements to go on to university, so he had enrolled then at the University of British Columbia in Canada.
One of my great thrills was to be invited to speak at the Nanyang Technological University, a university with one of the top ten engineering schools in the world. And to my surprise there were over 200 students in attendance. All fully fluent in Mandarin Chinese and English. Lots of questions about small business in Canada.
The photo is of one of the buildings on their huge campus. You do not want to go through this life without a visit to Singapore. Their education system prepares its young people for positions of leadership in the global economy.
Another wonderful experience was visiting Shanghai in 1985. It was our 30th wedding Anniversary. Everywhere we went we were approached by young people anxious to practice their English.
What a delight and what a surprise. We must have chatted with over a dozen of them and all spoke English without a trace of an accent. It meant a serious investment by the Chinese government in quality education.
I gave them a Canada pin for their lapels, and it was like giving each of them a piece of jewellery.
And the first thing they all said when they realized we were Canadian was, “Ah, Norman Bethune”. They were all taught the story of the Canadian surgeon who marched with Mao Zedong, who, of course, became Chairman Mao.
What a memory. And what respect I developed for the education systems of those Asian nations.
And the insight? Education is about preparing people to function in the international economy. It is about learning the English language, about self- discipline and about organization skills. The prerequisites for growth.
Yes, I believe in “edumacation”.