HEC Paris in China participates in "The Gobi Challenge"

HEC Paris News: HEC Paris in China participates in "The Gobi Challenge"

In May this year, HEC Paris in China participated in the 10th annual, "Pilgrimage of Xuan Zang - Business School Challenge in Gobi." The event welcomes Executive MBA participants and alumni of business schools in China and takes place in the Moheyanqi Gobi Desert, which lies on the border between Gansu and Xinjiang. 

History  

The Gobi Challenge has been held every year since 2006 and commemorates the pilgrimage made by Master Xuan Zang 1,300 years ago. Master Xuan Zang was a distinguished Buddhist Monk, who decided to travel to India in order to study the original holy writings. He crossed the Moheyanqi Gobi Deserts - or, as he called them in his chronicles, "the flowing sands of 800 kilometres" - and, for five days and five nights he travelled completely alone. Despite the extreme temperatures, harsh conditions and the scarcity of food and water, he vowed "I would rather die by travelling to the west than live by staying in the east." His endurance was rewarded, and upon reaching India he achieved spiritual enlightenment. 

HEC Paris in China successfully completes the 10th Annual Gobi Challenge

The most recent Gobi Challenge included nearly 2,000 participants from 43 business schools in China. Participants trekked across 112 kilometres of desert over three days, and endured the highest recorded temperatures of the year. The objective of the Challenge is to provide participants with a unique and rigorous experience that enables them to approach their personal and professional lives in a more active, healthy and sustainable way. The key values of the Gobi Challenge are "dream, action and persistence." One participant who attended the event said that the experience provided him with valuable perspective and enabled him to understand "man's role as an integral part of nature." 

Master Xuan Zang 

Xuanzang (Chinese: 玄奘; Wade–Giles: Hsüan-tsang; c. 602 – 664), born Chen Hui or Chen Yi (Chen I), was a Chinese Buddhist monk, scholar, traveler and traslator. His chronicles detail the rigorous and political relations between China and India during the early Tang dynasty.