许多事业极其成功的中国企业家看起来并不像是会去读MBA的人。他们是闯荡过商海、白手起家的男人（当然也有一部分是女人），往往没受过多少正规教育，更别提拥有商学研究生学位了。

 But increasingly, Chinese businessmen and aspirant entrepreneurs are gravitating towards the country's rapidly growing business schools, eager for a formal education in modern management and the network of contacts they need to make it work.

然而，中国商界人士和渴望成功的企业家正日益受到在这个国家迅速发展的商学院的吸引，他们渴望获得现代管理学的正规教育、以及能够加以利用的人脉。

Some have been in business for decades and have already made a fortune before registering for an MBA or Executive MBA (an MBA for working executives). Yet they are still willing to pay up to Rmb538,000 ($85,000) to put the letters EMBA on their business cards, or Rmb150-350,000 for an MBA.

有些人在报考MBA或EMBA（后者为在职高管设立）前已从商几十年，并且已经发家致富。然而，为了在名片上加个EMBA或MBA头衔，他们仍然愿意支付高额费用。前者的费用最高达53.8万元人民币（合8.5万美元），后者的费用在15万至35万元人民币之间。

After rising at an annual rate of about 20 per cent for several years, MBA applications rose by 25 per cent last year to 90,000, according to the state news agency, Xinhua.  

据新华社报道，数年来，中国MBA报考人数一直在以每年20%左右的速度增长，去年更是增长了25%，达到9万人。

Many yearn for the education they missed as children — in some cases, because of the Cultural Revolution which forced many to leave school. Others did receive higher education, but in the days when Chinese universities taught little in the way of business courses. "Now most Chinese universities have a pretty good business curriculum," says Charles Chen, head of the EMBA programme at Ceibs in Shanghai. "But current EMBA students who started their career 15 or 20 years ago had nothing in terms of management knowledge, they learnt only by doing."

许多人渴望补上他们在年少时错过的教育——其中有些人是由于遇上了文革，那场浩劫导致许多人被迫中断学业。还有些人虽然受过高等教育，但他们在校的时候，中国的大学还不怎么教授商学课程。“如今，大部分中国高校都开设了相当不错的商学课程。”上海中欧国际工商学院(Ceibs) EMBA课程主任陈杰平(Charles Chen)表示，“不过，15至20年前开始走上职业道路、如今回来读EMBA的学生是没有学过任何管理知识的，他们完全是从实践中积累经验的。”

Many entrepreneurs think they can no longer get by with on-the-job skills. "Before you could make a profit not because you did the right thing, but maybe you did the wrong thing while other people were doing things that were even more wrong," he says. The current crop of EMBAs expects competition in China to intensify "so it will be more important to do things the correct way".

许多企业家认为，他们再也不能完全仰仗从工作中获得的技能生存了。陈杰平说：“以前你能够盈利，可能不是因为你做得对，而是因为虽然你做错了，但别人比你错得还离谱。”如今的EMBA们认为，中国国内的竞争将会加剧，“所以，以正确的方式做事将变得更加重要”。

Tony Zhang is one of those who is convinced that graduate business education is not just for investment bankers: he studied for an EMBA at Ceibs when he was already a successful entrepreneur with his popular Tony's Restaurant chain. What could he possibly learn in business school that he did not learn on his mother's farm or in his restaurants' kitchens? "Classmates can be a mirror," he said recently, sitting in the converted shipping container that serves as his ultra-chic office on the organic farm he owns outside Shanghai. "We can't see our own weak points".

许多人都相信，商学研究生教育并不只是适合投资银行家。张同贵(Tony Zhang)就是这些人中的一员。在中欧国际工商学院攻读EMBA时，张同贵已然是一位成功的企业家，他经营的连锁餐厅“多利川菜馆”人气颇旺。他在商学院里到底能学到哪些在他母亲的农地、在他餐厅的厨房里学不到的东西？最近，在上海郊外他经营的有机农庄，张同贵坐在用集装箱改装的、时尚味道十足的办公室里这样说道：“同学可以作为一面镜子。我们自己是看不到自己身上的弱点的。”

His EMBA taught him what many in China fail to recognise, he says: "A lot of Chinese entrepreneurs blindly choose a business and then just make it bigger and bigger. They ignore the natural limits of the business."

EMBA教给他许多中国人没有认识到的一条道理。他说：“许多中国企业家盲目选择了一项业务后，就会把它做得越来越大。他们忽视了这项业务的自然局限。”

"You might be able to carry 100 pounds of weight on your shoulder pole, but if you have to carry 300 pounds, it will crush you," he says, using a suitably agrarian image for China, where farmers carry heavy burdens on opposite ends of long poles. Applying that lesson to the organic food market, he says the maximum penetration of such foods in China is five per cent — and he will not aim higher than that.“

你或许能挑得动100磅重的东西，但如果你非要挑300磅重的东西，你肯定会被压扁。”他用挑担这种中国农民常见的劳动做了个形象的比喻，来说明有机食品市场的情况。他说，这类食品在中国的渗透率最多也就是5%，他不会抱比这个数字更高的期望。

Mr Zhang insists that networking was not the main reason he opted for business school though, for many Chinese MBA and EMBAs, networking is paramount. Still, a quick look at the client list of Tony's Farm shows that the contacts he made were invaluable — starting with Ceibs itself, which buys vegetables from him.

张同贵坚称人脉不是他选择商学院的主要理由，尽管对许多读MBA和EMBA的中国人来说，人脉才是第一位的。不过，扫一眼多利农庄的客户名单就可看出，人脉给张同贵带来了很大的利益——首先，中欧国际工商学院就从他的农庄采购蔬菜。

But having a business degree is no longer the magic ticket to high salaries that it used to be, says Zhou Xinhua, who works in the internet industry and has an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. "A lot of companies now don't care about an MBA, they are much smarter than before," she says, noting that an MBA is a plus — but only for those with experience in a relevant industry.

不过，从事互联网行业的周新华（音译）表示，形势今非昔比，商学学位再也不是神奇的高薪“通行证”。她本人拥有宾夕法尼亚大学沃顿商学院(the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania)的MBA学位。她说：“如今许多公司并不在乎MBA，他们比以前精多了。”她指出，拥有MBA学位是一项优势，但前提是你必须具备相关行业的经验。

And there is no longer the rush to go overseas to study, says the head of Ceibs' MBA programme, Lydia Price. Lynn Jiang, a Ceibs MBA student, chose Ceibs over Insead because she says if she starts a business in China, she will need a network in China.

中欧国际工商学院MBA学术主任白诗莉(Lydia Price)表示，如今的中国人不会一窝蜂跑到国外读MBA。Lynn Jiang就在中欧国际工商学院和欧洲工商管理学院(INSEAD)这两所学院中选择了前者，她目前正在攻读MBA。Lynn Jiang说，如果她要在中国创业，她就需要在中国建立人脉。 Ms Zhou spent Rmb1m on her MBA and she still thinks it was worth it. "For that money, I could only buy a restroom in Shanghai," with its stratospheric property prices, she says. With that as a yardstick, Chinese business schools have nowhere to go but up.周新华当时读MBA花了100万元人民币，但她至今仍认为很值。她说，在房价高企的上海，“这些钱只够买个卫生间”。基于这一点判断，中国的商学院必将蒸蒸日上。