About
One of the things that annoys me the most is when “consultants” take advantage of the ignorance that exist about China. Doing business in China is not more (or less) difficult than doing business in Europe (or just EU if you like) but one seems to forget that China is a very big country (bigger than western Europe) with a lot of internal differences in both underlying culture and customs… Only the language is the same, and that is in any case a “forced” similarity.
So, for the same reasons that you would not approach a business negotiation in Holland the same way you would prepare for a business meeting in Sicily, you should not think that doing business in Beijing is the same as doing business in Shanghai or Guangzhou… If you do not approach the different regions in China with the notion that these are “independent” territories within a collective (in much the same way that the EU has brought a myriad of business cultures together), you are doomed to fail, and you only have yourself to blame.
I established this blog to shoot down some of the myths presented by consultant that have only their own pockets in mind when selling their services, and to repel so many of the idiotic statements I hear over a beer or two when novices (or uneducated fools in many cases) to China talk about doing business in this vast country.
By novices I mean people with less than 5 years on the ground and no direct business experience outside of the expat enclave they cocoon themselves in.
Guanxi and Mianzi is just Chinese words meaning relations and face… There is nothing strange about them… You use your network to do business back home and you try to avoid making an ass of yourself and the people you do business with in public as well… If you do not like someone back home, you are not going to do business with the person (unless it is to try to screw him over of course)… Ditto China…
The examples are many – too many to write about in the ABOUT section…
Over time it is my hope that this blog will become the home for a sensible debate on the idiocyncrasies of doing business in China.
Jorn
Seeing China for what it really is...