{"id":8686,"date":"2021-10-11T07:30:27","date_gmt":"2021-10-11T07:30:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focus.cbbc.org\/?p=8686"},"modified":"2025-04-23T09:50:17","modified_gmt":"2025-04-23T09:50:17","slug":"what-a-book-about-rowing-the-atlantic-says-about-cross-cultural-communication","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focus.cbbc.org\/what-a-book-about-rowing-the-atlantic-says-about-cross-cultural-communication\/","title":{"rendered":"What a book about rowing the Atlantic says about cross-cultural communication"},"content":{"rendered":"

When it comes to cross-cultural training days, Christian Havrehed did things differently. Rather than utilising a projector and a whiteboard, Havrehed decided the best way to really understand a person and their culture was to build a boat, find a Chinese friend and then row all the way to Barbados from China<\/span><\/h2>\n

Everyone believed such an off the wall cross-cultural project was doomed to fail, but they pulled it off. And now Havrehed\u2019s getting back in the water to retrace the steps of China\u2019s pre-Columbus voyages to the Americas. Originally from Denmark, Havrehed first visited China in 1989 and worked there for 20 years. What he learned along the way about cultural cooperation, teamwork in China and building lasting relationships is all in his newly updated memoir, <\/span>\u2018Beijing to Barbados in a Rowboat: The true story of how China and the West pulled together to row across the Atlantic\u2019 (Impact Books). Paul French caught up with Christian on dry land\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

\"launchpad<\/a><\/p>\n

Can you briefly explain what you set out to do on this incredible voyage? <\/span><\/h4>\n

Sun Haibin (Havrehead\u2019s rowing partner) and I did the project in 2001, the year China joined the WTO. The Chinese economic miracle and massive poverty alleviation had not yet happened. The Western stereotype of a Chinese person then was a poor and backward factory worker turning out poor quality, low value-added products, with whom it was impossible to cooperate because the cultural and language difficulties were simply too big.<\/span><\/p>\n

We wanted to challenge this stereotype and inspire Chinese and Westerners to think differently about each other. We wanted to showcase that Chinese-Western cooperation can succeed even in the most extreme circumstances, as long as there is a common vision and both sides are willing to trust in each other. <\/span><\/p>\n

We also wanted to introduce the Western concepts of privately organised adventure sport to the Chinese, as well as private philanthropy, in order to create scholarships to send Chinese students to the United World College of the Atlantic in Wales, my alma mater. Such concepts were completely foreign to the Chinese at the time.<\/span><\/p>\n