Great Storytelling is Universal

I was sitting on the Bund looking both behind me at the row of banks that line the street and then across the river at Pudong. On the Bund side, the banks are more than 100 years old. The architecture is not unlike seeing Central Park South in New York. On the other side are the tall financial buildings in Pudong. The Huangpu River literally separated the old money from the new. It is a powerful dichotomy.

A man with a small megaphone walked in front of me when a Chinese woman gave him a few RMB. He stopped, looked at me, and said what I am sure is the only English word he knew, "sorry." I didn't quite know what to expect. He began to speak. In Chinese.

As he spoke, he began using grand gestures. He kept pointing to the Pudong side and then the Bund side. The crowd increased. Soon, I was the only American, or foreigner for that matter, among a group of maybe 30 Chinese. With every gesture, the crowd reacted. With every sentence, the crowd laughed, or sighed, or was silent.

Someone next to me asked, in broken English, "do you understand any of this?" I said "no." They asked why I didn't get up and move. I asked, "what is he saying?"

"He is telling a story about the meaning of the buildings."

I said, "that is why I am not leaving."

I tell my students that great storytelling will always be more effective than good reporting because it incorporates solid journalistic skills with a deeper level of writing and presentation. Great storytelling can break through any barrier.

Great storytelling is universal. It grabs at the one thing that ALL HUMANS share--the ability to have emotions. I could FEEL his gestures, even if I could not understand one word.

That was all I needed.