Healthy Boosts From Chinese Connections

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For Bob Parker, life has taken some dramatic turns recently.

Just three years ago, the Malibu business consultant, former financier and Fox News Channel contributor interviewed Xi Jinping, then vice president of China, as he swung through Southern California.

Xi admired Parker’s forthrightness and insights into American business practices. The two bonded; Parker invited Xi to a Los Angeles Lakers game and Xi invited Parker to speak with leaders in China.

Xi thereafter become China’s president and named Parker “Honorary Business Ambassador.” Parker was tasked with giving the heads of massive state-owned companies an injection of American entrepreneurial acumen.

“I was surprised by just how willing these Chinese business leaders were to work with American businesses,” Parker said.

Then, nine months ago, he received a diagnosis of terminal metastatic melanoma. He was given a few weeks to live, but thanks to new drug treatments, he has made it past his 55th birthday. He has begun immunotherapy and hopes to defy the odds again this summer so he can meet with Xi when he travels to Washington and New York in September.

Somewhat surprising to Parker has been the response from his new friends in China, even at the highest levels of government.

“They’ve offered to share any medical insights they might have that can help me fight this,” Parker said.

The diagnosis has also forced him to step back and treasure life.

“Until you have cancer and you’re dying, you don’t realize how little you’ve actually been living,” he said. “You get so much appreciation for life when you’re confronted with death.”

Global Perspective

Though he lived in Montclair, N.J., until the age of 15, Kiel Berry’s parents always made sure he had an international upbringing.

For starters, the 32-year-old attended an elementary school that put a strong emphasis on global studies. Then, when he was a teenager, his family moved to France, where he attended the American School of Paris.

“A lot of my friends are foreign, because I grew up around diplomats’ kids,” said Berry, who now serves an executive vice president of Machine Shop Ventures in Beverly Hills, a venture capital firm started by rock band Linkin Park.

“My best friend is half-Japanese, half-white, and was born in Islamabad, Pakistan,” he said.

That multicultural worldview has resulted in eclectic tastes when it comes to movies. Berry will often spend time trolling Netflix for smaller, independent films from around the globe that probably didn’t get a wide release in the United States. Some recent favorites include gritty South Korean film “The Yellow Sea” and a French biopic about Yves Saint Laurent.

“I mostly like the really hard-to-find ones,” said Berry.

Staff reporters Howard Fine and Omar Shamout contributed to this column. Page 3 is compiled by Editor Charles Crumpley. He can be reached at [email protected].

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