巴菲特之子的中国明星路

    他这种性格到底是如何养成的？世界各地的听众们都不能免俗，都对这个问题很感兴趣。不过中国听众的好奇程度远超一般水平。彼得•巴菲特喜欢提醒听众的一件事是，他长大的时候，父亲虽然已经是非常成功的投资者，但总的来说还名不见经传。沃伦•巴菲特成为美国经济的预言者、多位总统的顾问并撰写专栏文章，给抑郁的国民打气，告诉他们希望不死，这一切都是很多年之后的事情了。那时，他还只是个普通人，知道他大名并崇拜他的人，只有那些枕着格拉汉姆与多德（两人所著《证券分析》一书被誉为“投资者圣经”——译注）的书入睡的人。如今，他基本上也没有什么变化。

    彼得的股神父亲宣布，将把巨额身家捐给由另一位巨富——比尔•盖茨执掌的基金会，这也激发了中国人的好奇心。许多中国人听到这个新闻后，脑子里只有一个念头：“他怎么这么对待自己的子女？”其实，他们不知道的是，沃伦•巴菲特很早以前就明确表示，他将会留给孩子们“足够的钱，他们将来想干什么就干什么——但不会给得太多，以防他们无所事事。”

    可是，仅仅靠好奇心还不足以使这本书热卖32万本。总编张海鸥称，彼得传达的信息“绝对与中国的年青一代产生了共鸣”，这一信息与彼得的身世密不可分。他告诉听众，从他能够记事之日起，他就热爱音乐。去年春天接受中国中央电视台（CCTV）采访时，他说：“母亲说过，我还不会说话就会唱歌了。”（许多人都知道，他的父亲会弹点儿四弦琴。）彼得是个好学生，进了斯坦福大学（Stanford University）读书。但他并不是特别注重职业发展，对证券也不是很感兴趣。用他的话来说，在大学头一年半里，“我选修了一切以101（表示最初步知识——译注）或-ology（该词根表示‘学’——译注）结尾的课。”

    然后，他就退学了。每次说到这里，年轻的中国听众们就会侧身细听，显然不敢相信自己的耳朵。他确定，自己希望追求音乐生涯。“在我的整个人生中，这一目标就在我眼前，”他说。因此，他拿着“祖父留下来的一点遗产，在旧金山买了套公寓，尝试在音乐领域闯出一番名堂”。多数听众此时已目瞪口呆，他又补充说，父母接受了这一决定。“他们鼓励我，但也说得很清楚，如果你搞砸了的话，那就自求多福吧，”彼得说。两年之内，他已自信作出了正确的选择：“那时，我已经知道我能靠音乐谋生。”

    小巴菲特在中国的多次亮相中一再重申，这个故事的重点是：他从斯坦福大学辍学，尝试在音乐方面闯天下，其实与父亲当年的行为异曲同工。“我的父亲很早就知道自己喜欢做什么，他也确实去做了，而且直到现在还在做，”他说。“因此，我告诉中国的听众们，我父亲和我的启示就是一辈子都在做同一件事。我们做的都是自己热爱的事情。”

    对于许多美国人来说，这可能有些陈词滥调的感觉。愤世嫉俗的人会说，“得了吧，说得轻巧。沃伦•巴菲特是你老爸，你当然可以想干什么就干什么。”但大多数中国听众的反应却截然不同，他们听得目瞪口呆。原因完全可以理解。外界将中国看成一个崛起中的经济大国，一个似乎有着不可逆转的经济发展势头的国家，这一点可能是正确的。可是，尽管经济数据极为华丽，中国内部同样也是一个经济压力锅。希望考上大学的孩子们每天花14到18个小时学习，竭尽全力希望进入顶尖大学深造。一旦进了大学，他们就得早早地选定专业。他们身处一个向上行进的自动扶梯，身不由己。当然，这肯定比爬不上这扶梯要好。就算大学毕业后找到了一份不错的工作，薪水通常也不怎么样，还得经常加班。更严重的是，当今的年轻工薪一族中，许多人都是计划生育政策的产物，是家里的独生子女。这意味着父母亲退休后，他们将独自承担赡养老人的重担。奥美公司（Ogilvy & Mather）在上海的一位高管爱德华•贝尔曾对中国二十几岁的年轻人作了深度调研，他的描述言简意赅：“这代人必须不断奔跑，否则不进则退。我称他们为压力一代。”

    彼得•巴菲特所触及的正是这种焦虑。正因如此，田林峰（音译）与许多其他年轻的中国专业人士一样，对他在中国大受欢迎并不特别惊讶。他主修金融专业，一年前毕业于北京一所商学院，目前在中国交通银行（the Bank of Communications in China）——一家大型国有银行工作。他非常崇拜彼得的父亲 “我想我读过所有关于他的书。”今年春季，田林峰去听了彼得•巴菲特的演讲，事先并不知道他会讲些什么。“我深受触动，”他说，“特别是当他讲到离开斯坦福大学，追求音乐事业的时候，”他摇着头补充说，“那么著名的学校。”

    小巴菲特明白，他所写到的经历，以及推动他职业发展的动力，都是美国文化的独特产物。同时，他也很有自知之明。他坦承：如果他的姓是史密斯或琼斯，或许没有一个中国人会对他感兴趣。他说，“这块土地似乎正在以光速向前狂奔，以至于许多年轻人根本没有机会慎重考虑。” 尽管他刚刚踏足中国不久，但他这话说得没错。

    “我觉得我的父母不会让我像彼得那样做，”银行职员田林峰说，“不过，或许有一天，”他轻轻地加了一句，“我自己的孩子可以有这样的选择。”如果真是这样的话，彼得在中国留下的精神财富或许足以与他的父亲相媲美。

    译者：小宇

    Audiences everywhere are, inevitably, curious as to how exactly that came to be. But in China, the curiosity is off the charts. One of the things Buffett likes to remind audiences of is that when he was growing up -- long before Dad became America's economic oracle, adviser to Presidents and writer of op-eds reassuring a depressed nation that all is not lost -- his father was a supremely successful but largely anonymous investor. He was a regular guy who was known and revered only by the kind of folks who go to sleep with a copy of Graham and Dodd under their pillow. And he's basically the same guy now.

    The curiosity in China is fed by the fact that when Peter's father announced he was giving away his considerable wealth to a foundation run by another supremely rich guy, Bill Gates, a lot of folks there had a single thought: "Why would he do that to his kids?" Mostly lost in translation was the fact that the elder Buffett was acting in accordance with his long-articulated position that he would give his kids "enough money so that they would feel they could do anything -- but not so much that they could do nothing."

    But curiosity alone wouldn't have resulted in the sale of 320,000 books. Something about Buffett's message "is definitely resonating with many young Chinese," says Zhang, his editor. That message is inextricable from Peter's biography. He tells audiences that from the time he can remember he always loved music. "My mother said I sang before I spoke," he told an interviewer for CCTV last spring. (His dad has been known to play a little ukulele.) A good student, he got into Stanford University, but was not particularly career-focused or interested in Graham and Dodd. For the first year and a half of college, he says, "I took everything that ended in 101 or -ology."

    Then -- and here is where a young Chinese audience leans in, not quite believing what they are hearing -- he dropped out. He decided that he wanted to pursue a career in music. "It was right in front of my nose my whole life," he says. So he took a "small inheritance from my grandfather, bought an apartment in San Francisco, and tried to make a go of it." And his parents, he tells mostly stunned audiences, were fine with it. "They were encouraging but also made it clear that if you blow it -- well, good luck," says Buffett. Within two years he was confident he'd made the right choice: "By then I knew I could make a living in music."

    The point, Buffett repeats in all his appearances in China, is that by quitting Stanford and trying to make a go of it in music, he was doing the same thing his father did. "My father knew early on what he loved to do, and he did it, and he's doing it to this day," he says. "So I tell audiences [in China] that my father and I do, in fact, do the same thing for a living. We both do what we love."

    To American ears, this can sound trite. The cynic says, "Okay, c'mon, it's a lot easier to do whatever it is you want to do if Warren Buffett is your dad." But that's not how most Chinese audiences react. Most audiences in China are gobsmacked -- and for reasons that are perfectly understandable. The outside world sees China as a rising economic power, a nation with seemingly irreversible economic momentum. That may be true enough. But for all its gaudy economic statistics, on the inside the country is also an economic pressure cooker. Children with aspirations for college put in 14 to 18 hours a day studying, desperate to get accepted to a good university. If they get in, they have to pick a major early. They're on an up escalator -- which, true enough, is better than not being on one -- and they can't get off. If a student graduates and lands a desirable job, he or she often doesn't get paid particularly well and has to put in long hours. To top it off, many of today's younger workers are children of China's one-child policy, which means that they alone are responsible for taking care of their parents when they retire. In short, says, Edward Bell, an executive at Ogilvy & Mather in Shanghai who has studied the twentysomething Chinese in depth, "this is a generation that has to sprint just to stay even. I call it Generation Stress."

    It's precisely that angst that Peter Buffett taps into. That's why Tian Li Feng, like a lot of Chinese young professionals, isn't particularly surprised by its success. He graduated from business school a year ago in Beijing, a finance major who now works for the Bank of Communications in China, a large state-owned bank. A big fan of Peter's father -- "I think I've read all the books about him," he says -- he went to see Peter Buffett speak this past spring, not quite knowing what to expect. "I was touched," he says. "Particularly when he spoke about leaving Stanford to pursue his music." Shaking his head, he adds, "Such a prestigious school."

    Buffett understands that the experiences he writes about, and the impulses that drove his career, are uniquely American. He also is self-effacing and secure enough to acknowledge that if his name were Smith or Jones, no one in China would be interested. But China novice or not, when he says that "it seems as if this place is moving at such light speed that a lot of young people don't get a chance to have a second thought," he's right.

    "I don't think my parents would ever let me do [what he did]," says Tian, the banker. "But maybe someday," he adds softly, "my own child can have that choice." If so, Peter might leave as rich a legacy in China as his dad.