Lessons from a Xi'an classroom:Bridging the East and West through learning and collaboration

By Chris Clark

Chris Clark is Visa's Regional President for Asia Pacific.Based in Singapore, he is responsible for business operations, strategy development and management of Visa's businesses in the region. Chris is a member of Visa's Global Executive Committee. He joined Visa in 2002 as manager for Taiwan. Prior to leading Asia Pacific,Chris was Group Country Manager for North Asia and Australasia, where he successfully drove growth and managed challenges in Visa's most developed markets in the region. Chris is a fluent Mandarin speaker, has a Bachelor of Commerce from University of Melbourne(Australia) and completed executive programs at both INSEAD (France) and Stanford University (USA).

As Regional President for Asia Pacific at Visa, I often think about how we can help build a more connected and cohesive world. While technology is critical, I believe that global perspectives, knowledge sharing as well as a mutual understanding of and respect for different cultures are just as important.

Having grown up in Australia, my experiences studying abroad and teaching in China have shaped my own views and perspectives. As 2019 marks a first decade of partnership between Visa and the China State Administration of Foreign Expert Affairs (SAFEA), I reflect on the importance of personto-person cultural exchange as a lever for progress, as well as my thoughts for the nation as it continues to progress.

An Young Australian Teacher in Xi'an

Perhaps the one thing that can be said about cultural exchange is how much it teaches you and enriches your understanding of the world.

To this end, my opportunity teaching English at the Xi'an Foreign Languages Institute (西安外国语学院) as a young man left an indelible impression on how I look at life and my career.

Two lessons stand out: one, that there's always something you can learn from everyone (三人行，必有我师), and two, that cultivating strong relationships (关系) are not only crucial to the progress and happiness of a community but also, to deepening partnerships.

So here's a little bit about my own journey, which begins in 1985. I was 21 years old, and like most young graduates, deciding what my next step in life would be. The summer after graduation was especially warm in Melbourne Australia where I was living at the time.I was reminiscing about winter in Xi'an, where I had completed a three-month exchange program at the city's Foreign Languages Institute the year before.

One morning I received a telegram from the Institute that would determine the course of my life. I remember my surprise clearly, as there had been little communication from the school following my application to be a foreign teacher. The telegram simply said, “Looking forward to meeting you late Feb '86.” Nothing else, just those words.I still have the telegram today.

And that was that. In a matter of weeks, I packed my bags, said my goodbyes to friends and family and got on a plane, arriving in the midst of a very cold Xi'an winter in February 1986. Perhaps I was a little more daunted than I would have liked to admit. While I had studied abroad in Taiwan as a teenager, and of course for a short time in Xi'an the previous winter, it was the first time I was truly living on my own in a place so foreign to Melbourne where I grew up. But as homesick as I was about to be, it was also the beginning of the greatest adventure of my life.

At the time, China was taking its first steps in opening up and the city of Xi'an had just been made accessible to foreign visitors only two years before. As a foreign teacher in the Training Department of the Xi'an Foreign Languages Institute, I was tasked with teaching oral English to post-graduate students.

It was an interesting situation, one that really helped me mature and develop a very different perspective on life. Barely into my 20s, it was daunting to teach classes where all students were over 30 years old, some in their late 50s. Selected by their work units, they had come from all over the country for an opportunity to pursue post-graduate studies abroad. Many had left their own families behind to study at XFLI.

English classes aside, as I reflect on my time in Xi'an I truly believe that my students taught me more than I could ever teach them myself. For most of my students,this program was their first glimpse of life outside China, many of whom had never left their own province before this. Their enthusiasm was infectious, and I was deeply touched by the students' diligence and commitment to preparing for the overseas programs they were to be placed in.

Today, I look back on the students I trained with great pride. For many of them, embarking on these programs was not easy. In doing so, they returned back to China with a wealth of knowledge and experiences to apply in their work and personal lives, much of which has helped shape China into what it is today.

Outside the classroom, I quickly overcame my homesickness by making friends with as many locals and fellow foreign teachers and students as I could.

There was a group of nearly 20 of us teachers in the Institute's Foreign Teachers Program. A United Nations of sorts, we had Russians teaching Russian, Japanese teaching Japanese, Germans teaching German, the French teaching French, and of course teachers from the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia and New Zealand, like myself, teaching English. Today, I still have close friends from the program.

And of course, as one of my main goals was to improve my Mandarin, I took advantage of every opportunity I had. One of them sparked one of the closest friendships I made during my time in Xi'an, with one of the institute's security guards. We bonded quickly as we were about the same age, both just entering our 20s.

In the West where great emphasis is placed on the individual self, what I admired most about my friend was his deep respect for his family and community.Despite living in the city area, he would find time to commute back to his family's village when he could. It wasn't an easy trip, one made out of a bus, a steam train and a long walk.

Although we may all have had vastly different upbringings, it was heartwarming to see how common themes like family, what we laughed about and how we saw the best in people, ignite and unite our shared curiosity about the world and the people around us.

Nurturing the ties that bind with Payment Ecosystem and Financial Inclusion

My time in Xi'an sped by, and although I was sad to leave once my teaching contract had ended, it wasn't goodbye. As fate (缘分) would have it, the teaching program marked the first of a thousand steps in my journey with China and the wider Asia Pacific region. In fact, it was very influential in the choices I made about where I lived and what I wanted to do.

My jobs have taken me to places across Greater China like Hong Kong, where I served as a graduate management trainee for the National Australia Bank,Thailand, Taiwan and of course Australia. Today, I am based in Singapore, an axis of Western and Asian cultures.

Yet, with all their own unique nuances, these markets are linked by a common thread－a commitment to progress and respect for community. The lessons of learning from others and cultivating relationships that I have taken from my time in Xi'an still apply, as I work with my team to grow our businesses and partnerships in China and other markets across Asia Pacific.

As a result of its reforms, the China of today is vastly different from the one I left in 1987. What has impressed me most is the incredible pace of infrastructure development－modern roads, railways, electricity, and running water－that no one thought were possible even up to 20 years ago. These developments, combined with the government's focus on poverty alleviation,have uplifted 400 million people from economic marginalisation onto the path of progress.

So when I consider the scale and impact of these changes, I often think back about my Chinese friends and how different their lives would look like in presentday China.

Now, their country is home to the world's second largest economy. Here, smart cities are as common as Wi-Fi and most devices are connected to the Internet-of-Things,making everyday living and commuting easy, seamless and hyper-connected.

These developments show how much global companies like Visa can learn from China, as well as the opportunities for partnership and mutual development.What is especially inspiring about the country's development is how agile, courageous and tenacious its people have been in embracing change – qualities vital to staying ahead in a fast paced and increasingly competitive world.

As a supporter of China's economic development, Visa is focused on creating added value for clients, merchants and consumers in China. And as partners, learning and collaboration are the cornerstones of our business.

In fact, Visa's support goes back more than 30 years since it opened the first representative office in Beijing in 1993. Since then, Visa has worked closely with government, finance and technology stakeholders in China to develop its electronic payments ecosystem.Today, Visa has 58 financial institution partners in China. We have also launched the Visa Developer Platform (VDP) in China, providing our partners easy and secure access to Visa's global network.

To help fuel and nurture China's innovative spirit and entrepreneurship, we work with local fintech communities through the implementation of programs such as the Visa Everywhere Initiative (VEI), which empowers fintechs to create and design the “next big thing” in payments. Our goal is to inspire individual talents and start-ups in China and discover the most creative, people-first solutions that make business and daily life more seamless and rewarding.

However, technology and innovation cannot be reserved only for the urban affluent. As a corporate citizen, we believe it is our duty to expand access into the formal financial system for all.

As such, financial inclusion and poverty alleviation are critical elements in Visa's business strategy in China.We established the Visa Financial Literacy Development Alliance to develop local education programs for rural populations, migrant workers and youth in China.This includes building a national financial literacy curriculum for Chinese citizens in partnership with the Peoples' Bank of China and China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission.

Through strong advocacy and practice, the Alliance has partnered with 15 government agencies, financial institutions, non-profit organisations, and media outlets－and it continues to grow. Today, Visa's financial education programs have equipped over 600,000 people with practical money and business skills, while our financial inclusion programs have also benefited over one million people in rural North China alone.

Beyond payments, China's rising presence on the world stage has also reinforced the importance of global collaboration and mutual understanding. As the country opens up and multi-national companies establish their local presences, more citizens are exposed to international brands and traveling abroad than ever.

In fact, the Visa Business and Economic Insights Global Travel Study indicates that the number of cities in China reaching the tipping point in cross-border tourism is likely to double by 2025－adding almost 80 million more households to the global traveling class.

In support of these trends, Visa has partnered with the China State Administration of Foreign Expert Affairs(SAFEA) to implement an exchange-based training program that shares insights on global financial policies,as well as economic best practices with senior financial regulators and government officials.

Since its launch in 2009, the annual training program has facilitated over 136 senior officials from China's major government agencies. Delegates have found the program's curriculum robust and insightful, as well as the opportunities for cross-sector learning and relationship-building highly beneficial.

Spending time with friends after our classes

Likewise, giving non-Chinese the chance to experience and work in China is hugely important. Exposure to Chinese culture and history, like the teaching and study-abroad experiences I had, also make it much easier to understand China's rapid economic growth and its agenda to improve the lives of its citizens.

Only then, can all sides develop a better understanding of each other's cultures, as well as mutually-beneficial work approaches.

Strengthening Cross-Cultural Partnership, Embracing the future

China's development and reform over the last forty years has been nothing short of spectacular. Looking back from the first time I arrived in Xi'an as a young graduate, to today; the constant influx of new innovations in this country has birthed countless possibilities that previous generations could only imagine.

Today, people in China have many opportunities to pursue their ambitions, hone their talents, and build a better future for themselves and their families.

To this end, China will continue to advance. But ensuring that its economy grows and thrives in the coming decades also requires deep understanding and collaboration between the public and private sectors, local and international alike.

As such, it gives me immense pride to see a global company like Visa woven into the fabric of China's economic progress. And as we look ahead to drive the next thirty,even fifty years of support, cross-cultural partnerships and knowledge-sharing programs like that of Visa and SAFEA's will become increasingly critical and constructive. After all, there's always something to learn from everyone, and exposure is the first step to learning.

I look forward to the continued deepening of our partnership, one built on mutual trust, and win-win cooperation, as we continue to work together to support China's payments ecosystem and its economy at large.