Time for hotel

Summer is coming, it's mean we have to think about accommodation on holiday :) I am not sure if Hotel Pekin (Hotel Beijing?) really exist. Maybe it was created only for writing book by Santiago Gamboa.
In this hotel stay two men. We get to know them in plane during their travel to China. One of them is journalist from U.S., who want to find unusual story about ordinary people. The second is American (born in Columbia) who has Polish name - Michalski (I don't know why!) He come to Beijing to teach Chinese businessmen western way of making business. He is arrogant and conceited. One of his students is Li Qiang, manager of very big IT company. Finally American and Chinese are friends. We can see how they change their point of view of different nation and culture.
Two sentence which I remember from this book, were said by Li Qiang: "Laughter Chinese is rarely results from an amusement" and "In China exist the cult of self-sufficiency". It is really Chinese point of view or maybe only writer opinion?