Conformity Magazine - March 2009 - (Page 13) amount of English in most of the western hotels, it is not something that you need to rely on. Repeated trips allow one to open up a network of connections that can facilitate local logistics, figure out where the heck the hotel is, and make meetings happen. Travel Tip: Take a card from the hotel before you hop in a taxi so you can find your way back. We’ve never officially used interpreters, relying instead on the local contacts that we have made. This is really part of growing the knowledge base too, as setting up contacts, and returning to them shortens the learning curve and allows continuity between visits. It’s really all about building a little “guan xi”. “Guan xi” Much is written about the elements of “guan xi” in China business. It’s really no different than here, though. What is it? Roughly, relationships, connections, networks and friends. Not much different than the West, really. Most folks do business with people they know and like. And you can’t get guan xi without going there and tossing back a few “pi jius” with the people you want to make a connection with. There is a darker side to guan xi, which manifests itself in our society, too. The oft-negative connotation means “good old boys” clubs, wherein it is difficult to break in if you’re on the outside. Language It would be wonderful if you learn a little bit of Chinese. You’ll get a lot of smiles from the simple “Ni Hao.” But necessary? Not really. English is one of the fastestgrowing foreign languages in China. Travel Tip: Some common necessities of the Chinese language: • • • • Ni Hao (Knee-how): Hello? Wo jiao name (Woe jee-ow name): My name is Pi jiu (pea-joe): Beer Xie xie (shay-shay); Thank you! and the Nationalists; and 5) Mao Ze Dong’s “innovative” programs that left millions dead of starvation. With this in mind, it is stunning to observe the rate of development in the markets and in the systems supporting the markets over the past thirty years. For example, at the end of Mao’s reign, the country had no real legal system, and all decisions under the Communists arbitrarily benefited the Party. The transition to market-based governance started when Deng Xiao Peng broke with Mao’s brand of (disastrous) socioeconomic engineering after Mao’s death in 1976. Invoking a Sichuan proverb, Deng pronounced “No matter if it is a white cat or a black cat; as long as it can catch mice, it is a good cat.” That is, the old way didn’t work, and we need to find something that will. With that change in thinking, a new phase of China’s economy (and ultimately social structure) began to emerge. But the new cat that Deng unleashed needed new ideas to make the country stronger, starting with experiments in managed capitalism in special economic zones (SEZs) in the southern part of China. These zones offered special tax and tariff treatment to firms that started operations there. They’ve been so successful that many of these tax holidays and other incentives are being allowed to expire. There. Two thousand more words to fluency. History A little history puts some of the mystery of the Chinese system into perspective. Consider that, since 1900, China has had no less than five economic and power structures in place, as follows: 1) failing days of the Qing Empire and the sting of colonial influence; 2) Sun Yat-sen’s republican government; 3) the Japanese occupation & WWI; 4) Civil War between the Communist marCh 2009 Conformity 13
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.