People, people everywhere! As established, it does not matter if you are on the freeways, roadways, back alleys, shopping center or on a side, neighborhood street-- from early in the morning to late in the evening-- everywhere you look are Chinese people. Sometimes it feels like the entire 1.3 billion people are in front of you!

Yet, there are moments you can feel isolated, alienated and alone as you travel through the "Middle Kingdom." there are also moments of human contact that makes you realize just how small the world is and how alive you feel at that moment.

It comes when Koralo Chen and I are with a client at the foot massage and there are belly laughs as I  try to communicate with the service staff.

It comes from the young people that approach you on the street to practice their English.

There are people like the many students who attempted to teach me Chinese and proudly showed me around their China that touch your heart with their innocence and wonder of life.

Meeting friends and Koralo's family and watching their face light up as the repeat; "Ni hao, Ni hao," the typical Chinese greeting  and shaking your hand and with a smile on their face that is like a neon sign full of warmth.

It is the new people you meet along the way who float in and out of your life in a flash and you question if you will ever see them again while you savior the joy of the encounter.

These people touch you in magical and simple ways that make you feel alive and full of joy. You reflect momentarily on just how small the world is and about the similarities, desires and wants and needs we share as we travel through life half a world away.

As I have my lunch on my final day in China I close my eyes and can see the sea of humanity, some I met and became close to, some old colleagues and friends and some complete strangers that seem to float through my mind as I reflect on the experience. Others that you connect with for a few hours or a day that you feel you never will forget.

I wish more people from Michigan and America could see all I see in this vast country. It would scare and entice many. Perhaps it would motivate our leaders in the private and public sector to come together to solve the problems that impact the citizens of Michigan.

While I find the Chinese people both engaging and friendly-- they are equally hungry, competitive and driven to succeed from the individual to the highest reaches of private enterprise and government.

Michigan should take a look around the world and steal a line from the old Oldsmobile commercial-- "This is not your fathers Oldsmobile."

As a state we must get serious about transforming and re-inventing ourselves. Saying we are the state that "put the world on wheels or  the "Arsenal of Democracy" is yesterday’s news.

Traveling to China would perhaps create the sense of urgency and hunger to change as if our very future depends on it--- because it does!

Tom Watkins, who lives in Metro Detroit, is an education and business consultant in the United States and China and the Michigan superintendent of schools, 2001-2005. He can be reached at tdwatkins@aol.com.

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