Seeing China for what it really is...
Mostly everyone you come across in China will tell you stories of how important both face and relationships are… As it says in the headline to this post, overestimate it at your own peril. I will have to deal with one at a time as they are not really connected, but “the giving of face” is also important when building relationships, so they kind of overlap too…
Also, since my fundamental belief is that you will need to build a personal relationship with someone prior to doing business with them to the extent claimed when people talk about “guanxi” is bullshit, I am not going to write much about it in any case… There are already a few blogs on my site dealing with this, so read those instead.
What do you think “face” is? Have you ever sat down and thought about it? In my view face is a matter of showing people the necessary level of respect that they deserve based on their position alone. If you meet a female CEO in Europe, do you slap her on the ass and call her a little piece of ass? Of course not. You address her with her last name (at the least) until she tells you to call her by her first name if the society you are in does that. In Germany I would expect a male PhD holder to be addressed as “Herr Doktor”, while in Norway I would expect his first name to be used. Same in China, you call a new business contact with the family name and appropriate title until they tell you otherwise or get familiar enough with them (i.e. a personal relationship has been established) to simply use their family name (sometime prefixed with some term of endearment e.g. “lao”) or simply an English name they have adopted.
For a foreigner in China, giving face to a Chinese is not that important in my view… Being there and being respectful is more than enough… As a matter of fact, “token white guy” seems to have become a job position in some of the less internationalized Chinese companies seeking advice from well meaning consultants when they deal with foreign firms in the beginning as some believes it gives face… Forget about them as it shows they are not really ready to do anything on the international stage yet anyway.
When it comes to face, if you act with a level of decency, “do onto other what you want others to do onto you”, and avoid making an ass of yourself and the people you are with, you are pretty much set. Well you might say, that is face in a nutshell, and by being respectful, you are giving face… Really? I am from Norway, we do not talk about face at all n our society, we talk about acting properly around other people, and in most cases people that were raised in a semi decent home in Norway got that as part of their upbringing. I.e. there is nothing to be concerned about for most people when it comes to face in China.
What pisses me off are all these moronic consultants who insist that doing certain things will give face to your Chinese counterpart… They just don’t get it. You do not give a Chinese person face by pouring tea into his cup and kissing his ass… He actually loses respect for you and laugh about the “stupid foreigner” trying to “be Chinese” later with his friends. You are giving face by accepting the food they put on you plate and the drink that is in your cup – as long as it is reciprocal… If you are out drinking with a Chinese business contact and they keep trying to drink you under the table it has nothing to do with face… It is simply them having fun with the foreigner and checking how much they can make you drink. That is not face giving, that is simply a game some like to play. Once you have established yourself as a trustworthy person, and the Chinese host pours two cups, one from himself and one for you, and you drink it together after toasting, then that is better, he is “giving you face” in other words, and by reciprocal action you can give face back a little later during the same evening… Now you are looking at the beginning of a relationship between two business people that at the least can stand each other enough to consider doing business together.
In Shanghai business is handled a bit more directly than many other places in China though, so face is of more important that relationships, as you seldom need the “guanxi” in its true form to get a business deal going. There is little or no wining and dining (or at least not excessive as might be the case in e.g. Beijing), and therefore first impressions, i.e. “your face” that you bring to the table becomes somewhat more important. My thoughts? Make sure you leave a good first impression… That goes for anywhere in the world… Many “could have been great relationships” never came to be because of the first 5 minutes of interaction.
Now then, personal relationships… Can they help you (ease some of the pains) do business in China? YES!!! Can personal relationships help you do business in all other countries in the rest of the world? HELL YES!!! I.e. there is nothing new under the sun… For those who tell you that it is impossible to do business in China without first having a personal relationship with a long string of people, they are full of it. As I wrote in a previous blog, people are going to do sustainable business with people they like… If they do not like you there will be no sustainable business with them.
That is if the business case is not ridiculously good for them of course… Like in all societies, business people in China are first and foremost pragmatic. If they make huge revenues and incredible profits on doing business with you, you can be as much of an asshole as you like and they will continue to do business with you. If there is no economic incentive, then you need the relationship to get business by favoritism… If you are in a line of work that is not producing enough revenue or profits to be of interest to your (potential) business partners, then the business case doesn’t exist and you should get out of your line of work.
So, in conclusion. Be aware of both, and understand face as being respectful. You are not Chinese and will never be Chinese, and the Chinese understand that, so they do not expect you to act in a Chinese manner either. As for personal relationships, let me tell you this, most foreigners living in China will NEVER have the RIGHT personal relationship that the Chinese talk about when they talk about “guanxi”… Yes, they know people, but there is a limit to how far a Chinese will stick his head out for a foreigner… And as for Chinese with “guanxi” those that really have it – and that you should want to deal with – do not flaunt it, and it will not be easy for you to assess if it is really there. Read more on the previous blogs.