Free Postcards From Tomorrow Square by James Fallows Page B

don’t think I’ve given you any reason to eliminate me. But the lady hasn’t given you any reason to eliminate her. Under the circumstances—her being pregnant, the struggles of a young mom, the public support—you should just take me out.’” As they did.

    E verything about the live final show was meant to be spectacular. Most episodes had three judges; this time there were 11. In addition to famous investors like Jack Ma and Hugo Shong, there were other prominent business figures, like Niu Gensheng, head of one of China’s leading dairy companies. Introduced separately, and given the right to make the final selection, were the heads of the two most respected firms in all of China: Lenovo, the leading computer company, and Haier, which has a high reputation for quality and which absolutely dominates the domestic “white goods” market for refrigerators, washing machines, and so on. Win publicists said this was the first time the two CEOs, Yang Yuanqing of Lenovo and Zhang Ruimin of Haier, had made a joint appearance.
    The two finalists who were not among our candidates were the first two eliminated in PKs. Then things got serious. Ms. Zhou, Song “Social Conscience” Wenming, and Zhou “Wild Wolf” Yu answered questions from the judges—and mobile-phone votes showed that Song had done best of the three. Thus the two Zhous had to face off in a PK, whose drama was apparent even if you didn’t understand what they were saying. In an earlier round of questions, all five candidates had had to explain their greatest weakness. Mr. Zhou said that he had a bad temper—but that passion was a good thing in a leader! And so, he helpfully pointed out, was the kind of education you couldn’t get from books. For her part, Ms. Zhou said that her attention was always flitting from subject to subject; on the other hand, that kind of alert eye could help in running a business.
    During the PK, it was as if Ms. Zhou was trying to make Mr. Zhou explode. “You are avoiding my questions; maybe you don’t have enough learning to answer.” “They call you the ‘Wolf,’ it would be better for the Wolf to stay in the wilderness.” After Mr. Zhou (unwisely) mentioned that he was thinking of going back to school, she dug in: “Even if you get the diploma, it won’t mean real skills.” After inserting each of her barbs, Ms. Zhou would slap her PK button with a smile at the audience and a little rise of her eyebrows. Wild Wolf would splutter and yell, slamming his fist onto his button, and finally getting a near-ovation from the crowd when he said, “You question my skills, but I am standing here tonight! That should be proof enough for anyone!” He also had the last words, which were: “I’ll talk to you later!”
    As it turned out, in trying to provoke the Wolf, Ms. Zhou ended up mortally wounding them both. The judges declared him the victor over her in this PK—one said later that he was “like China itself, from a poor background, still crude, but proud of its rise”—and so she had to sit down. But in the anticlimactic final choice between Mr. Zhou and Song Wenming, the M.B.A., Zhou’s fiery and uncontrolled outbursts during his PK with Ms. Zhou proved his undoing. All 11 judges spoke, many saying that passion was great, but you needed a steady hand to build an enterprise. Song Wenming was nothing if not steady. The Haier and Lenovo CEOs glanced at each other and gave the winner’s name: Song Wenming.

    W hat had it all meant? I got in touch with our four contestants later on, Zhao Yao in person when he visited Shanghai and the others by e-mail through a translator. Each made veiled and provocative comments about the contest itself. When I asked Ms. Zhou about differences between the contest as she experienced it and what viewers saw on TV, she said she could not give any details, “because of traditional Chinese values” of discretion. “All I can say is that the exposure of the most repulsive side of human