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PrintEx-Tulsans - Robyn (Berry) Meredith
Catching up with the author and senior editor of Asia for Forbes.
Vital stats: Lived in Tulsa from 1968 to 1985, and attended Memorial High School
Now: Senior editor, Asia for Forbes, and author of the New York Times best-seller “The Elephant and the Dragon: The Rise of India and China and What it Means for All of Us”
Why journalism? I got my GED and I left high school a year early to start college at the University of Oklahoma. Later, I transferred to Boston University, where I majored in English literature and worked for the school paper. That’s where I was bitten by the journalism bug. I remember riding my bike home on the streets of Boston at three in the morning on the nights we’d put the paper to bed and the great feeling of seeing my work in print the next morning.
What drew you to Hong Kong? I asked to be transferred to Hong Kong, and Forbes magazine agreed to let me be a foreign correspondent — the greatest job in the world. I then spent years traveling all over Asia writing stories about what’s happening out here. The places with the biggest impact on the rest of the world were India and China, so I began to spend more and more time there — in big cities, in small towns, visiting factories, visiting slums and talking to all kinds of people. 
What was your motivation for writing “The Elephant and the Dragon”? I could see from my visits how many American companies had operations in both India and China, and how dramatically that was changing the world for everyone. I wrote “The Elephant and the Dragon” to explain to ordinary Americans what was really happening halfway around the world and why it mattered to them.
What impact do you hope the book has made? I hope it has helped explain how the world is changing and how globalization has brought all of us closer together, for better or worse. “The Elephant and the Dragon” has sold more than 75,000 copies and been translated into 14 languages so far.
What are some of the most fascinating aspects of Hong Kong and its culture? Hong Kong is a wonderful city. It is filled with neon and is very busy, like New York, only warmer. It has a stunning harbor lined with thousands of skyscrapers, but has relaxing tropical beaches elsewhere. My son and I go surfing on the weekends. We get our surfboards out and surf the waves, then cool off by sitting on the sand drinking a coconut with a straw in it.
Do you have a piece of advice for aspiring journalists? Keep the big picture in mind: A story about the latest school board or city council meeting tells ordinary people what they need to know about what’s going on in their world. That’s what my book did, using a slightly bigger canvas.
Do you still have family in T-Town? My dad lives in Tulsa and works at the Whirlpool factory. An aunt and uncle and quite a few cousins live there, too.
Do you ever make it back to Tulsa? I visit every few years — it takes about 18 hours flying to get there from Hong Kong! It is literally the other side of the world.
