• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 3659 0

of his opinions about politics and philanthropy; Buffett’s ideal was a world in which winners were free to strive, but narrowed the gap by helping the losers. In his lifetime he had seen the extremes of inequality; had grown up with the lynchings and beatings of the civil-rights years; and had heard over and over of the Court House Riot, authority shoved onto a scaffold with a noose around its neck, at a time and in a place when one group of people felt themselves more deserving than another. Perhaps without being aware of it, Buffett had many years ago abandoned the libertarian leanings of his father58 and spiritually circled back toward the democratic idealism of Nebraska’s William Jennings Bryan, who had written of “the class that the rest rested upon.”

Buffett, one of the least peripatetic people imaginable in both philosophy and geography, could make the occasional tectonic shift if enough conviction piled up. Now, after he and Susie returned from Ireland, they met in Vancouver to embark on a seventeen-day trip to China, “Across Cathay.” Buffett’s motivation for this round-the-world jaunt was the Gateses. Bill and Melinda had gone to considerable trouble to make the trip enjoyable for him. Ahead of time, they sent him and the other guests a questionnaire asking what they liked to eat. Buffett was not taking any chances on an experience like the one he’d had at the Moritas’. “I don’t eat any Chinese food,” he responded. “If necessary, serve me rice and I’ll just move it around on my plate, and I’ll go back to my room afterward and eat peanuts. Please get me a Journal every day; it’s really hard if I don’t have my Journal.”59

And so Buffett went to China.

After checking in to Beijing’s grand old Palace Hotel on Goldfish Lane, the tour group met Dr. Robert Oxnam, president of the Asia Society, who was to be their lecturer for the trip.60 Following a talk on modern China, they ate a magnificent Sichuanese dinner in the hotel’s Emerald Room. Waiters placed course after course on the rotating platters: tea-smoked duck, twice-cooked pork with chili sauce, spicy chicken, and Sichuan hot pot. But the Gateses had arranged for the tour company, Abercrombie & Kent, to send people ahead to teach the chefs to make hamburgers and french fries for Buffett. To his delight he was served course after course of his french fries—even for dessert.

The following morning, the group set off to tour the Forbidden City, Beijing University, and the National Palace Museum. At Fangshan restaurant, for lunch, and again that evening at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse, an imperial family fishing ground and retreat, Buffett was served hamburgers and french fries while the rest of the group feasted on Chinese cuisine.

In Beijing, the group met the Premier of China, and Gates arranged a Ping-Pong match between Buffett and a twelve-year-old champion. On the third day, Dr. Oxnam lectured on the history and folklore of the Great Wall. When they climbed to the top, the group found champagne awaiting them—and Cherry Coke for Buffett. Looking down at the world’s largest structure, which represented eleven centuries of innovative engineering, human labor, and Chinese history, everyone waited for Buffett to say something profound. Surely he would be moved by the sight.

“Boy, I sure would have liked to have been the company that got the brick contract for this thing,” he quipped.

The following morning, he skipped the martial-arts lesson in favor of a tour of the local Coca-Cola plant. The next day, the group boarded a Chinese military transport plane to fly to Ürümqi, a town in far northwestern China near Mongolia that was once an important stop on China’s Silk Road. There, they would board a train—no ordinary train, for the Gateses had arranged for the group to be the first Westerners to rent Chairman Mao’s personal train—for a journey across northwest China. The train followed the Old Silk Road route, making stops along the way so that the group could ride camels in the desert, visit ancient cities and caves, see the giant pandas in Xi’an, and tour the