137: Coronavirus in China; Laurance Draken

Coronavirus in China with Lawrence Draken

About This Week’s Guest Lawrence Draken

Lawrence Draken published “The Year of the Rabid Dragon” in November 2018, a medical mystery set in Beijing, China.

The story wound around political intrigue, cover-ups, and secret interrogations, but most of all, the potential for scientists in a culture with drastically different ethics, to use new technology like CRISPR and virology for nefarious means.

Draken writes not just crime stories, but about current events, politics, and the daily drama within China that is nearly impossible to understand from the outside.

She lived with her husband in Beijing for nearly five years.

Her book is as much a study of the culture and mindset of China as it is a medical thriller with the Coronavirus in China on the background.

“In Germany people value their individual rights highly (as they do in the US; In China the ‘Group’ forms the functional core and you first do what the authorities tell you and when you do that you will have your individual freedom.”

Her tips on becoming more culturally competent are:

1. Leave your home country; if you can, take a sabbatical year or two. Get yourself confronted with different situations that you don’t understand (and learn from them).
2. If/when you come in contact with someone new, try not to pass judgment but try to learn first about what is going on.
3. Be open to the experience that you might undergo and realize that what you possibly expected to happen or be, might not be what you will experience.

Links mentioned in this episode are:

• Website: https://www.lhdraken.com/
• Email: lh@lhdraken.com
• Listen to the first interview I had with Lawrence here

Culture Matters

A general article about covid-19 and/or the Coronavirus crisis and how different cultures deal with this can be found here.

Another article about China and the Chinese can be found here.

More about  the Coronavirus in China can be found here.

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