2) English language skills and their related value. The guy who speaks good English is the better staff? In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king…In China often times the staff that speaks pretty good English or more correctly, bold enough to speak up in English is perceived as the more adequate/able staff and usually gets more opportunities. Sadly this is not the case. Usually in Chinese society the ones that dare to be more outspoken or have that kind of drive are the very ambitious and have an agenda. Hence,many capable staff are shy or insecure about their English skills and lose out on this basis for judgement. When an expatriate manager away from the home country is dealing with a staff that is able to speak his native language he can easily ascribe much more weight to this ability simply due to the relief from the pressure of just for a few minutes of having someone local he can actually talk too. Sadly many times quality staff and even more capable staff tend to get overlooked because of the grand standing of their nervy countrymen with better language skills or the boldness to use poor English skills unabashedly. The flashy English speakers vying for the bosses attention know they have some fish in a barrel prime for shooting. There are of course better English speakers that are good workers as well and those are the ones you want to try and cultivate.

I was hired to help turn around production control problems in a large American-owned factory in Taiwan. The manager of the department was a very hard working decent guy. One of his main weaknesses was poor English skills and being more of a quiet stoic personality type. The new General Manager fresh on the scene saw this manager as being weak. Probably in contrast to the production manager who also was new in the company and was a very slick talker albeit with decent English skills. The GM grew to like the production manager and never bonded with the production control manager. This was sad and the clever production manager manipulated this to his advantage since certain problems stemmed from production management problems in the first place before they ever became production control issues. So if there is a morale to this section I guess it would be that it is important to try to get beyond the language issue even though language is the greatest filter to do this. Kind of a tough Catch 22 type paradigm.

I was planning to release these posts as one e-book. What I decided to do is post each chapter as a blog post here and at the end I’ll publish as an e-book. Please feel free to share this with your business friends that are doing stuff here in China or would like to talk to someone here that has been doing business here for a long time  and can help them.

Here are some examples of the consequences of these differences:

1) Handling and communicating problems. In the Chinese classroom after the teacher is done making a point or teaching a lesson he or she will ask are there any questions. No hand is ever raised. Why you might ask? Well first it would be a loss of face for any student to admit to not understanding or needing clarification. The student would be afraid that the teacher and students would view him/her as an idiot. Secondly, the student wouldn’t ever discuss a point or offer their own view since that would offend the teacher’s pride making him/her lose face and risk possible revenge on your report card. Can you see how this might present a problem in business? You or one of your management staff go to great pains to communicate a critical issue or some company policy. Now the speaker asks for any questions or are all points clear…Wrong! Never do that or ask that because you’ll never get a response. Probably the ones that understood the lease will give you a nice smile when you look at them. We’ll get to the significance of smiling later though. What needs to be done in this scenario is to go over the key points by having the staff in attendance explaining to you in their words what you said. This way it’ll become apparent who understood what and where there needs to be additional explanation for clarity’s sake. So due to the sensitivity and potential for embarrassment, don’t expect much transparency or self-initiated questions. I mentioned the smiling before. Smiling in western culture is usually from a feeling of satisfaction or comfort, however in Chinese society it is often a mask that is worn when the wearer is feeling awkward.Like when they are clueless about what you are asking due to language or cultural barriers. In western culture our proverb states-”the squeaky wheel gets the grease” in Chinese culture their equivalent proverb states-”the nail that sticks out gets hammered down.” From these 2 proverbs focusing on the same situation you can clearly observe that western society is saying that if you need some help speak up while Chinese society is saying keep your mouth shut or else! These 2 meanings are virtually opposite! Are you starting to get the picture here?

Here is a personal example of this kind of cultural impact on the thought processes of Chinese people. I was working in an American-owned factory in Taiwan. The department I was involved with managing had a serious back-order problem on a series of hardware accessories. When I did some investigating I found that there was no capacity or production problem within our factory as had been suspected. In fact the problem was due to vendor requesting certain order quantities for plating the metal parts. When I asked the colleague responsible for coordinating our parts with plater if he ever considered coordinating with the vendor what numbers he’d need and batching orders he gave me a puzzled look. I explained to him that this would enable us to meet our order obligations to our home company but require us to carry a little extra inventory on hand. I got the back order problem which had been accruing for the better part of a year straightened out in 2 months. Why did my colleague not think of this or if he did, not act on it? Well I can only surmise here, but I’d venture to say that he and many Chinese people have adapted to not thinking unless they have to. remember what the teacher would do if you raised question or comment? Similarly, many Chinese come to feel that thinking is both tiring and potentially dangerous. The scolding one will get for being “dense” is milder than one will get for being “too clever.”

I was planning to release these posts as one e-book. What I decided to do is post each chapter as a blog post here and at the end I’ll publish as an e-book. Please feel free to share this with your business friends that are doing stuff here in China or would like to talk to someone here that has been doing business here for a long time  and can help them.

Introduction

I’m writing this with the hope to enlighten and share acquired information and insights from my over 20 years of living in Taiwan and China. Mileage will vary accordingly for each reader!

I grew up in New York City so I had contact with Chinese people from when I can remember. Many of these people were really Chinese in America as opposed to Chinese-Americans (which many of their children were or later became). It was very obvious to me that Chinese culture was very different than Western culture and became a point of fascination for me. I also loved the food so that didn’t hurt either. Many years later I got into this much more deeply by studying the language, culture and history at the University of Arizona. It was quite fascinating and some of the examples of their history and culture opened windows which I gazed through with great interest. One of these was “2-legged mutton.” My professor taught us that this was the euphemism they used in the capital during the Sung Dynasty. There was a great famine and many died from starvation. Meat was so scarce that some vendors began selling the meat of the deceased, hence “2-legged mutton.” While it was only a point of curiosity and fascination then, I feel there are 2 key points that can be understood in light of my now 30 year exposure to Chinese society:a)they are extremely practical in many ways rarely letting feelings or romantic ideals get in the way; b) they are masters of euphemism.

The former no doubt due to their many thousands of years of having the most populous and crowded country, one which was rife with competition for food especially as peasants farming rich landlords land with little or no benefit, and the latter due to their sensitivity about face and the resulting indirectness when talking about sensitive issues and wanting to put even disturbing truths into the best light possible. What these 2 examples indicate is that while being people just like any in Holland, Europe or Holland,Michigan they have a different culture and assimilate and share information in a slightly different fashion. Early on in my Taiwan experience I had a problem with my eye,what appeared to be an infection. Several different friends enthusiastically gave me information on the best eye doctor in Taipei. All of them were different but I digress. I went to one of the best eye doctors office and was shocked. I was in a room full of people that ll pretty much stared at me. In fairness this was 1988 and most of them had probably never seen a foreigner(westerner) up close and personal. I waited a while and was summoned into the doctor’s office. I was shocked to behold that there were at least a dozen patients in there who (are you ready for this/) all stared at me. The doctor began his examination and then stopped and looked at em and said,”you know you could go blind from this.” When I smiled at his obvious exaggeration he admonished me saying that he was serious. As you can imagine I was more than slightly aghast at his bizarre bedside manners. The piece de resistance was when I got numerous little paper parcels of medicine each containing differently colored and shaped pills with every color of the rainbow. The kicker was the one round green one stamped “New Drug.” I of course instantly thought of the Huey Lewis song while feeling a little nervous.

So what are some of the challenges in setting up a Greater China presence,whether it be factory, branch office etc., or just doing business in China with locally based suppliers/customers? Isn’t it enough to let my hair down at the karaoke/KTV and go for it over a few bars of “The Green Green Grass of Home”? Well as you can probably guess by this point I’m inferring the whole daunting issue of communication. Yes the process between 2 people where they attempt to successfully share ideas and information between each other. Communication is no easy feat or safe bet even with people from the same culture, age bracket, similar life experiences, language,etc. Now add on different culture life experiences, priorities, level in the socio-economic structure and language and you can see the potential for disaster at the worst or for headache at the very least. An interesting note about language. One of my friends pointed out to me after probably better than a dozen years of living here in Taiwan, that I had a good grasp of language.  I need to explain-the common expression for language is 語言 (Pronounced-yuyan) but my friend said to me that my 語文 (Pronounced-yuwen) was very good. You are probably wondering what is the difference? The first more commonly used one just means language in general. The second one means language with a deep knowledge of it’s related culture and relevance. My point here is that English and Chinese as language and cultures are about as opposite as can be and offer little common ground in many areas.

I was planning to release these posts as one e-book. What I decided to do is post each chapter as a blog post here and at the end I’ll publish as an e-book. Please feel free to share this with your business friends that re doing stuff here in China or would like to talk to someone here that has been and can help them.

Yesterday was an afternoon full of green tea drinking with 2 friends: one new and one old. We were at the new friend’s house-Baron, who is a green tea connoisseur as many Taiwanese businessmen are. We were chatting about various life issues, family, philosophy, tea, etc. before the discussion came around to marketing. Specifically a product that Baron discovered on a a China business trip.

The product was a Soy Bean Milk machine. Soy Bean milk is a staple in Asia usually enjoyed as a breakfast drink. It can be served hot, warm or cold in sweetened, unsweetened and savory forms. Byron was all bubbly over his little contraption that made great bean milk. After having consumed a fish pond worth of tea each we checked out hi machine. Baron added cold water and a variety of beans in equal proportion, pressed “click” and away we went. The machine began to whir and bubble and hum and steam and churn and voila, ten minutes later we had some fresh bean milk which in fairness I’d say was really more like fine bean soup since the bean milks I’ve had are all much finer (with no pulp included) than the mix Baron’s machine provided. I’d say it was  great little gadget.

The real fun part,  for me at least, was when the subject turned to marketing this device. Baron said he checked into agency rights for this product in Taiwan but that had already been taken  by another company. Then the discussion turned to marketing this device in America. That’s when the bigger wheels in my head began to turn. I began to point out to baron some of the key differences in Americans and Chinese and for that matter Asian diets. One key point I made is that Asians thrive on hot and warm drinks and foods. Americans eat and drink hot things as well but nearly in the quantity or frequency of Asians. We bantered back and forth on a few other points until we came up to the big one:Americans are too lazy(definition:hooked on convenience). This was stated by me an American.

I went on to point out how Americans are fascinated by gadgets and excitedly buy: waffle makers, blenders, microwaves, popcorn poppers, dishwashers, yogurt makers, ice cream machines, bread bakers, etc. Oops, almost forgot salad shooters. Other than dish washers and washing machines which are far easier to operate than manually performing the actual task of washing and drying dishes or clothes, most of those gadgets get used a few times or sporadically at best and are usually  stuck in a closet or stuck on a table at the next yard sale.

A few more sips of green tea and banter inspired me to comment that I really do like the machine. The major market I could see would be making fresh baby food. However, the major obstacle to that is the convenience of all the little jars with a cute baby on them and fluorescently colored mashed substances inside of them.

We concluded with several more cups of delicious green tea, this one from Ali Shan, and concurred that if we only could get this to the TV Sales people we might have something. Sunday afternoon’s of tea drinking and conversation with friends are one of life’s pleasures in Asia. You should try it sometime.

When I saw this article the other day on how there is a plan to bring a Universal-like(key word being like) theme park to southern Taiwan my snark meter went off the scale. I’ve been here too long and heard to0 many idealistic glorious plans only to see them all become glorious mud fences in their execution.

Firstly, the best of the local amusement parks are mediocre with the worst being totally lmae and that si the majority of them. Here in central Taiwan the big myth for years was how Disneyland was coming to Houli where there is a huge tract of TaiSugar land(TaiSugar being the largest property owner in Taiwan and also owned by the government of Taiwan). Of course I never believed that knowing only too well that Disney was way to savvy to locate there. However, the real possible deal was with Warner Brothers. They actually sent people here and were getting close to going forward when the whole thing was submarined in red tape because a favor was owed to Yang Tien Sheng who really wanted to do a racetrack but was surreptitiously floating a plan for his own amusement park on that site. His racetrack dream probably took too much power of positive thinking and payoffs, much more than he had budgeted no doubt and was scotched. We did in fact get the underwhelming Mala Bay Yamay Resorts a water park not quite on steroids-yawn. No pizazz or sizzle of an internationally successful entertainment company to wow the rubes. No Disney not even a Warner’s. Sad because the Taiwanese are such family people and don’t mind spending money on their families. It’s too bad they get so few quality options locally and usually have to go overseas to enjoy something decent.

So here we are again(full story here):

“We will build a theme park next to our film studio. It will something like Universal Studios, ” said Tsai Yueh-hsun, who is currently turning his award-winning police drama Black and White into a full-length motion picture.

“We have already sent people to Universal Studios and other theme parks to learn from their expertise, ” the director of Taiwan’s first Hollywood-style TV drama said during a recent interview with Taiwan’s Chinese-language daily Liberty Times.

OK color me cynical not even guardedly optimistic that this thing even if it happens and I sense it probably will, should just be another empty box or fizz-less can of soda. One can only hope…

..what did they say? Well here in Taiwan with four seats up for grabs in the National Assembly the DPP got 3 while the ruling KMT only got 1. The DPP are claiming this as a mandate”

Su Chia-chuan, said the results were a demonstration of voters’ trust in the opposition party.

Well maybe or at least partly. I feel more strongly it is a trend which is due probably more to the immediacy of mass communications via the Internet than political strategy superiority of a given party or candidate. We live in the era of what I like to call “mayfly politics.” Where you win your election and need to hit the ground with your feet running as fast as a broadband connection. The stop watch starts ticking the moment you win and the people don’t have patience for anything anymore. So if you can’t maintain whatever spin, or momentum, or charm that got you elected you will be replaced by the other guys just like with the Democrats losing a seat that was fixed in granite it was so secure: Ted Kennedy’s to Scott Brown.

Who knows maybe what the people of  Taiwan will get is something better than what they were offered. Sadly, I feel what the Internet makes ever clearer everyone is playing the same old game and money is hard to beat anywhere.

Waking up like a previously sleeping Tiger. Each year I get to go through two sets of separate but un-equal year end holidays: one for the west and one for here in Greater China. To say this is distracting would be an understatement. It can be fun although having 9 out of 11 days of cold rain and grayness is not entirely my idea of fun. The Blockbuster man was the winner this holiday with 15 rentals from us.

I’m exhilarated I have work to do in these challenging economic times  and am about to go visit with one of my factory partners on a new order. I hope everyone has a great Year of the Tiger as we all try to make a little more sense of our new age and present reality.

I hope Taiwan and China’s relations continue to improve as well as China with the rest of the world. Hopefully there will be a little more Peace and Understanding happening although that will surely be spun and manipulated for someone’s political agenda.

Adult reality is so complicated and can cause headaches. I want to go back to a more innocent time. Like when the characters in the picture would have amused me, but alas…

Today over on Peking Duck I read some disturbing news about one of my favorite authors from pre-Internet days: John Naisbitt. He wrote Megatrends which was kind of like the Freakenomics of its day, answering many questions you’d never think to ask but were fascinated knowing the answers to. I had no idea he and his wife were even living in China.

According to the Duck’s post they are coming out as “we really drank the koolaid” everything in China that is official must be good cheerleaders. That is sad. I know John and his wife are both very intelligent people with their spheres of influence. I’m not purporting that they be China haters since there is so much to be impressed by over China, historically and of late. However, it’s sad how many people will turn a blind eye to some significant problems or become a tour guide and point you to the fake Disneyland town diorama like Pyongyang has for the outsider to glimpse their contrived utopia.

I would truly love to see China demonstrate it’s greatness as a world citizen and leader but know that nothing is gained when we pretend the elephant isn’t in the room. It is encouraging to me that 1,000 brave souls from Shanghai have ventured to Beijing to protest the demolition of their houses to make way for the World Expo grounds. Hopefully they’ll be given some consideration by the government and a fair and reasonable plan can be made.

I wonder how the Naisbitt’s would handle,”Quake activist jailed for 5 years?”. It seems rather appalling when the man was speaking on behalf of the tens of thousands of unfortunate souls who lost lives, livelihoods and property in the devastating earthquakes.

I look forward to China’s increasing role as a world power and hope that there will be more and more meaningful dialogs with the Chinese government and it’s greatest resource-the  one billion plus people that it represents.

One of the saddest incidents during my stay in Taiwan was the kidnapping and subsequent murder of Bai Bing Bing’s (local singer and TV variety show star) daughter-Bai Hsiao-yen.

One of the most macabre details of the highly publicized event was Bai’s public threats and and taunts directed at the kidnappers while her daughter was in their possession. As a father it was hard for me to rationalize why a parent would dare to be so provocative when dealing with hardened criminals. Unfortunately, they raped and killed her daughter and mentioned that Bai’s goading was a motivating factor for having it end this way. This case also enabled DPP former Presidential candidate Frank Hsieh to steal the spotlight from Bai as a self appointed negotiator for Chen Chin-hsing’s surrender. Hsieh later used it to gain attention to begin his political career.

Bai’s attitude and actions seemed like a real disconnect for a mother who’s child is in serious danger. I encountered Bai Bing Bing once at the air port and she strutted around like a peacock so that might give some insight into her detachment. Anyhow, now she is outraged over talk of abolishing the death penalty mentioned here.

In an interview with local media, popular singer and entertainer, Bai Bing-bing said she will commit suicide if the majority back the policy during a national referendum.

Bai, who is currently taking law courses at the National Open University, even said she is willing to take up the job of executing convicted offenders sentenced to death.

I am not advocating the removal of the death penalty but this is a sensitive issue. I don’t think Bai’s histrionics are the appropriate forum for dealing with the deep array of issues that this encompasses. I only hope the people of Taiwan’s voice is heard clearly on this important issue.

This is classic. Hey George did you see that big elephant in the room? What elephant? Hey Hank did you see that big elephant? Ok The R.O.C. Navy claims to the press here that they didn’t see a Chinese submarine off souther Taiwan. Why would a Chinese submarine be there? What could it possibly hope to find?

The R.O.C Navy denied yesterday a media report that the nation’s naval battleships detected a suspected Chinese submarine off southwestern Taiwan during a military exercise on Jan. 27.

Quoting unnamed sources, the United Evening News reported that the submarine belonging to China was spotted at an area 24 nautical miles or 45 kilometers off the Zuoying naval base in Kaohsiung City, last Wednesday morning.

According to the report, the submarine was first discovered by one of the navy’s anti-sub S-70C helicopters, but the submarine was allowed to leave later on.

On this topic I’ll have to defer to my Chinese friends common sense approach to discussing the obvious,”If you already know why do you need to ask?” Indeed…