The China Pilgrimage was provided as an accelerated leadership development through shared community and individual experiences. Chinese people, history, art and culture provided the mirror which allowed American participants to view the world and their own roles from a radically different context and thus to learn about self and others in very different ways.

FGISpirit International designed The China Pilgrimage, made all arrangements, recruited the pilgrims, and personally led the group during the time in China. The essence of the pilgrimage process was to create a learning community and then to offer participants many new and sometimes challenging experiences with daily opportunities for individual and community reflections.

FGISpirit's first pilgrimage was convened in Russia in 2000. The results of that experience were so rich that many people have been asking, "Where next?"

During the past two years, many of our own significant growth and learning experiences have come from our work with Chinese business leaders in China. Thus, the second FGISpirit Pilgrimage was held in the Peoples' Republic of China during October, 2003.

The Pilgrimage included interactive learning with Chinese, Americans and others; as well as study, meditation, journaling and touring in order to investigate these two questions:

What has allowed the Chinese spirit to survive and thrive through centuries?

Are there learnings from the Chinese experience that can be translated into knowledge and skills necessary for leaders who wish to serve more effectively in creating a world that works for all?

A special feature of the Pilgrimage was an event called "Talking Together: Business, Culture, and Friendship" which was held in Shanghai with participants from China and other countries joining the Americans in conversations about life, work, peace and creating a world that works for all.

Talking Together: Business, Culture and Friendship was a "commons café" global forum held in Shanghai. At this forum, over 100 women and men from seven countries on four continents came together for three days to explore work and life through deep, shared conversations, cultural entertainment, and other stimuli in order to create personal change, community change, organizational change and global change. Generally, the process design was similar to the Commons Cafés that FGISpirit has convened in Denver and Omaha. It was based on the work of Sharif Abdullah and Margaret Wheatley with an FGISpirit design.

FGISpirit International convened the forum, recruited the participants, provided all of the logistics and managed the process from conception to completion. A key factor in success came from FGI/FGISpirit International adding a colleague in Shanghai two years ago. Rui Shujie, who has served in that role, was essential to the success of both the Pilgrimage and the Forum.

Participants ages ranged from nineteen to over sixty. Of those from the PRC, about one-third received scholarship assistance. Additionally, thanks to our FGISpirit donors, the fees for Chinese and Russian participants were partially subsidized in order to allow their attendance.