For some reason, I’ve been brought to a number of business meetings even though I am in no way a businessman. Yet, I’ve been a part of making decisions related to hiring and forging partnerships. Today I thought I’d share a few cases that may prove of some use to those of you looking to succeed in China. The case of the effusive businessman An older white man sits down at a table full of Chinese faces. With a strong Aussie accent he manages to say in Chinese, “Hello, I’m very happy to be here with you today.” The meeting begins with laughter, and whispers of how good his Chinese is (even though it really isn’t). Over the course of the meetings and meals he […]

In this article, Jonathan Poston finishes the story he started last time about how his kung fu film project collapsed without him ever seeing it coming… …the lead student (and there is almost always one in every group—the outspoken, respected one) came to my office to let me know that the students felt uncomfortable with the contracts they had signed. Granted they were pages long, covering everything that the attorney said they should for me to feel comfortable that I owned all rights. I told the lead student (whom I’ll call film supervisor) that was managing the other students and coordinating the film team, to just find some other students who were interested, and let anyone go who was disagreeable to the terms of the […]

In my three years in Chinese schools, teaching 20 different groups of students, nearly every class told me that “In China, the customer is God,” which left me dumbfounded because in my experience, customer service in China is practically non-existent. Today I’ll be sharing a few of the more extreme examples of this, and hopefully they will help prepare you for some of the frustrations awaiting you in the middle kingdom. My first inkling that customer service might not be as fine as the students claimed, came during a role play. One student was the hotel manager and their job was to address the complaints of the hotel guest. It went something like this: Guest: I’m sorry, but there is a mouse in my room, […]

Yesterday we started to look very generally at China’s efficiency problems. Today I would like to introduce you to a few of the most pointless jobs in China that highlight the practices inspired by low wages. Bus Line Monitor I see these people standing at each of the bus stops on my way to work each morning. They stand around with their yellow or red arm bands and watch the masses cram in to buses. While their title might imply that these people are in some way responsible for making sure getting on the bus is an orderly process, I have yet to see them do anything to improve the situation. Receipt Stamper A common sight throughout China, the receipt stamper is the bored looking […]

A lot of words come to mind when thinking about business in China: “Booming”, “Exports”,  “Walmart”, “Cheap Labor”, “Outsourcing” – You’ll notice “Efficient” isn’t one of them, and this doesn’t just apply to manufacturing. Over these next few days we’ll be looking at the Chinese workplace, and a few interesting jobs, that seem to be unique to China. When I first arrived in China I noticed that even the smallest shops were staffed with dozens of employees. My Chinese friends explained that this was because Chinese businesses wanted their customers to have excellent service. I was skeptical as to whether or not this was true after my first trip to a Beijing Starbucks. There were at least 6 employees standing behind the counter and it […]

A few years ago I was reading a pirated copy of “The Undercover Economist: Exposing Why the Rich Are Rich, the Poor Are Poor–and Why You Can Never Buy a Decent Used Car!,” that I had picked up at the book stall next to a large university. In the book I found an interesting discussion of used cars, and only months later realized that this is the exact same problem we are facing in China with pirated goods. Let’s start with an obvious example of this principle. Imagine you are walking down the streets of Shanghai, and you want to buy a real Rolex. The first place you visit is an actual Rolex shop, and since it is in the middle of an upscale shopping […]

Intellectual Property Rights are a constant issue in China, and you know it is bad when People’s Daily devotes a special button on the front page to help you find the official information (Tibet gets a special button too). ChinaLawBlog.com says that IPR is one of the top 4 concerns companies should investigate before coming here. It’s no secret why, Chinese companies are infamous for stealing plans, duplicating the product and then undercutting the people who they agreed to do business with in the first place. The official story is that the government is “unswervingly implementing” policies to protect IPR. They like to talk about how they have cracked down on 30,000 copyright infringement cases, and are insulted when the US lists Chinese websites as […]