While Internet guru Nicholas Negroponte was sitting in a plane over Russia on his way to Beijing last week, he sent an e-mail agreeing to an interview with a city newspaper. On arrival in the early morning, he met its two reporters at the airport.
It was the appropriate electronic way to enter China for a visit where he was treated more like Michael Jackson or soccer star Roberto Baggio than the director of the Media Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
'The Digital Hurricane Has Risen Again' proclaimed the China Youth Daily, saying the Chinese translation of his book Being Digital at the end of 1996 was largely responsible for pushing the number of Internet users in the country from a handful to more than two million.
His only public appearance, last Friday at a Beijing hotel, was a speech that was almost overshadowed by the hullabaloo surrounding it. Hundreds wanted to attend and produced every kind of letter and invitation to sceptical security staff in their attempts to enter.
When the guru finally appeared, he was mobbed by still and television photographers and fans seeking an autograph in his book. The compere was a woman with a high-pitched voice, working the crowd as if it were a pop concert.
Mr Negroponte's speech was on why the Internet is growing faster in some countries than others. 'East Asia is behind Europe and the US,' he said, 'because its languages are based on characters and not Roman letters. But China will be the exception because of the enormous value parents place on the education of their children. They will buy computers for them and encourage them to learn the Internet.' Sitting next to Mr Negroponte on the podium was Charles Zhang Chaoyang, chief executive of Sohu, China's most popular Internet search guide.
'He is a genius, a prophet,' Mr Zhang said. 'He has a special significance in China. His book is the key for Chinese to understand the digital world. We have a Negroponte complex. He belongs to the world, but belongs more to China.' Why such praise for a professor who has been just twice to this country? For millions of young Chinese, the Internet and the computer skills associated with it represent their best way of joining the modern world.