Auspicious Times for Clean Energy Opportunities in China

Ken Chan, one of our associates who helps us promote clean energy businesses in China, just wrote me:

Today, January 23, is the 1st day of the Lunar Festival, meaning the Chinese new year, the year of the “Golden Dragon,” with my cell phone buzzing nonstop with messages of Greetings and Good Tidings from Beijing.

In these five days, travelers in China are returning home to celebrate with their families. This once-a-year occasion is most auspicious and important, perhaps like Thanksgiving and Christmas in the United States.

During these five days, the volume of travelers is equal to Amtrak passengers for a year — more than 500 million people, not to mention those returning to work in two weeks’ time.

All over China most companies and manufacturing are closed or all running on skeleton staff.

This is the year for the brave entrepreneur to take ‘leaps of faith’ or ‘leaps of confidence.’  Dragon Years should be good for business, new beginnings and innovation. The Dragon is regarded as the luckiest sign; and there will be a baby boom in China this year.  The fortune-tellers say “There’s no time to waste;  quick action is needed to derive maximum benefit – no sitting on the fence.”

Deng Xiaoping and Vladimir Putin are all well-known dragons, famous for getting things stirred up.  I checked; it’s actually the year of the “Water Dragon”…water is the representative of intelligence and wisdom, flexibility, and softness, yet can also wield great power.

I thought you might want a little bit of information on Chinese tradition.

I will keep you in the loop with my discussions of the three investment opportunities we’re working on.

 

Ken: Yes, thanks very much for writing; I love learning more about the Chinese culture, and I’m sure readers will appreciate this as well.