Another lesson learned in China

To be honest, I wanted to write this blog for a very long time out of frustration, but I wanted to wait for more encounters to be sure my observation is not pure accidental. It happened repeatedly over a period of many months on similar circumstances. In another word, I did my research.

This week, I decided that I couldn’t wait any more, my patient just ran out, instead of running to my masseuse to relief my frustration (ok, no dirty thought here. I know you are naughty and thinking about…), I did the next best thing write about it, it is great therapy, you should try it, and spare your pets from your abuses.

This is how it begins…

People in this country generally pay little attention to details. I don't know what is the cause of it. The water? Perhaps it is the air? It is very frustrating to deal with them. I am not here to making any judgment only by observations. I remembered two years ago I wrote about the youth in China that never pay attention on what you teaches them. It felt like information flowing through their brain like water in the river, never stop for a minute, just keep on moving downstream.

I often show my staffs on how a certain task can be perform more effectively if they follow a certain procedure. At the time it seems everyone was understood. The fact is no one ever follows through or even remembers what I told them time and again.

I was on a on a business trip earlier this year to US, I encounter a fellow manager, He start telling me how frustrated he was with his factory managers. He made many trips to Asia in a year to check on the progress and quality of the goods because some time at states side, the quality control have to reject the entire shipment, wasting time and money. He told me the same thing happen to me is not unique. His encounter to his staff is no different than mine. All the factory mangers seem to listen and understood his instruction on improvement that had to be made, as soon as he is out the door, business as usual.

That is only one example out of the many stories I had heard, established the undeniable fact that majority of the Chinese are not very attentive to details, and they are not interested in knowing beyond what is on the surface, everything is about “getting by” is good enough. Unfortunately they even fail to accomplish that. Of course there are many exceptions, especially those return home after an overseas education, they are smart, but those are in very small numbers, most of them once they are out of the country, they try not to return home, so where China is going to lend their weight on in the next 20-30 years?

However this is just a little background I try to establish. In stead I really wanted to talk about the expats. That is when the story gets interesting.

Majority of my friends here are expats. We are a tight knitted community, we reliant on each other for support in a country that the language is not easy to learn, and the custom is foreign. Therefor we usually had a lot of communication between us. For example if we decided to have a pool party on the weekend everyone is invited let say about 20 people. What gets interesting is that I found these expats beginning to show the same annoying behavior like the locals does, lack of attention paid to detail.

You can announce a get together on text message, followed by an email, with information on direction using the metro, some times even with a location map, follow by an updated text message a couple of days before the event, in both English and Chinese languages for taxi instruction and more chats on the chat line up the date and the time of the event. That is full proof correct?

Unavoidably three days before the event someone will ask where and when the event going to take place? What to bring, what kind of event, who else going to be there etc. As if all the information being sends out never happened. The worst, it never failed that some one will ask a bunch of same question, other may already ask or answered over and over again.

All 20 people trying to be helpful, answering with out even read who else already send out the responses, no exaggeration some time I will get up to 80 messages in any hour. The worst, the person started it all may response saying that “Sorry, Can’t make it, I have another event promised to attend.” Why ask all the questions when you know there is a scheduling conflict. What would you do to that person, that is personal, I do not want to know in this blog.

The fact is these expat are starting to acting like the locals, they only read there is an event, and skip all the details, in the end they do not know what time, and when the event is going to happen, on the other hand too lazy to go thru the message to find out the details, because it is too much work

In the office many time people set up a meeting and skip to tell you where and when it is going to happen, especially why, and what we are going to talk about. They think that the organizer knew it that is good enough you could just sit there and listen in. Therefore detail is not needed. I f it is a client meeting, that is OK too, you just need to sit still like they do let the client talk and keep on knotting their head as if they know what all the points the client wee making, in my case it is even worst these meetings are in Chinese, I only catch half of the point, even with that I am doing better than most.

Back to the expats; I don’t know why give the order that calling the host at the day of the event to ask for detail and information is acceptable. There was time I saw many of my expat friends would send the same info to the same group 5 times in one week. Some time to get matter worst, I will join the chat and told everyone event canceled. Never mind, I am the bad guy. What would you do?

Mysteriously some one might have tip of my friends, they all somehow find their way to the event, may not be on time always late, because that is another annoying things here, being an hour late is acceptable for anything. Except at my dinner, when I am ready, I start serving, if it is in a restaurant, I ordered.

I waited in restaurant like a fool for an hours before, after I learn my lesson, I started sending out text messaging every 5 minute after the time set for our meeting time, demanding to know their estimated arrival time and location. Although I know they are not telling me the truth. There is no traffic after 8:30 in Shanghai.

I am not afraid to share this direct attack to my friend in the public because to prove my point none of them will ever read it, even if it is sending to them in the form of email, and the blog address is on the bottom of each email had been for years. No one notice it is there and active.

Some of my friends here ask me so may I have the address of your blog? I love to read it. I send them a blank email and the subject is blog address. It has fail once to get an email back asking me where is it?

What about you, my US friends? Are you guys the same? Not too far from it actually, that will be another encounter, I am experiencing it now with my New York friends.

Time here had been fun for the last two years. I made my announcement last night my phone was ringing non-stop for hour. My best friend on holiday back home in Italy called and asks if I were joking. I told her, read the text, and the email, and the chats.

Some one ask me recently why did you wanted to stay in China, from the encounters on my blog, she thought I do not like any of the experiences.

The matter of the fact is that I felt in love with this country the city, my friends from all over the world, the neighborhood, and the energy. I wrote the blog out of love, passion for the encountered. Not trying to penalize the country, her customs and her people. It is their way of live, we live in their world, we should learn to adopt it, but my expat friend find the worst example of bad behavior and adopted it like a pro. That is what worth writing about. It is not a melting pot situation, rather a bad imitation.

If I am misleading all of you, I apologize. I wanted to share with you what I saw, and whom I met, All so foreign to me, and yet so familiar human behavior.

Two years ago when I had my first holiday here, I told you that China do not have turkey, they do not sell it, my boss felt so bad, he ask my colleague to buy me a roast duck instead for the Thanksgiving holidays. But now, I knew where they are hidden in the expat grocery store, believe me, they even have butterball turkey for sell. However the problem remain that most household does not equipped with an oven, Chinese do not bake food, on the other hand they have plenty of deep fryer. Cheers, I am going home soon.

Chance Encounter Shanghai

We want the foreigners out of here

Who is out and who can stay.

If you have not came across the article on “Foreign interns flood China seeking back door entry level management inter position.” This blog may give you some hard facts I had encounter through my friends in this city.  According to the news article: the explosion of job seekers are following the advice of the BBC and Forbes Magazine and are headed East - to China to search for the opportunities.

The fact is, under the current European financial crisis and the slow job creation in the US, where would all the recent university graduates turn to get their foot in the door to some of the worlds largest corporation, plus a chance to experience life aboard and gain valuable international business exposure? It is an attractive win win opportunities for the bright minded grads.

In China, most foreign companies were grabbing up these flocks of educated and eager young western graduates knocking on their doors. Even more graduates from around the globe were being persuaded by recruiter’s online or at their school’s placement office to start their career aboard.

There are many reasons for foreign companies operating business in China wanted native speaking employees:

1. Most of these international companies doing business with foreign companies require minimum Chinese language skills, but fluent English speaking skills.

2. Most Chinese university graduates may have some English writing skill, but no communication skills on daily conversation, let alone language skills on the international business level.

3. From my observation, most of these young foreigners came to work in China also took it on their own to learn the language of their host countries. As a result 90% of them can speak enough Chinese within the first year of their stays to communicate with the locals.

4. Young foreigners are more likely eager to learn new skill on their own and became proficient in a short period of time, while their Chinese counter part on the other hand usually consider learning new skill as an extra burden to their life. My team told me once, when they were ask to learn new program, they told me that: “Boss you are giving us too much pressure.” I am ruining their life. If that is the reward I got from teaching a team of young graduates new skill, how disappointing that was. Will you do it?

Therefore if you were the manager of an international company in charge of hiring entry-level staffs, which way would you choose to hire? Local or foreign?

Many of the Chinese university students were angry at these foreign companies chooses to import foreign students for their internship program rather than hire them. They also realize these internships are important because it can help them get their foot into the door of some of the world’s biggest and the best companies in turn the first step leading to a long term employment and they wanted it.

The other fact that lead to the conflict is the current generation of young people; (of course there were exceptions); are the products of China’s one child police. These young people grew up knowing getting what they desired is simple by making demands to their parents and it will hand down to them, no need to work too hard for it; when they apply their same attitude to their career, instead of facing the fact their skill does not met the minimum requirement for the entry level position with mo0st of these international companies, they accuse these companies being discriminatory on their hiring practice giving preferential treatment to foreign students and they are at the disadvantages. Instead they were pressuring their government step in to stop the invasion of foreigners coming to China stealing their very best management jobs. These are no exaggeration these are known facts.

In the past 2 years I saw an increasing young foreign faces on the metro and on the neighborhood streets going to work in the morning, but the day of easy access of China internship programs for foreigners I am afraid are numbered. Under public pressure for job creations and open more opportunities for domestic university graduates, as for July 1^st 2013, China changed the entry Visa law. The law became very restrictive.  

The new visa restrictions make it difficult for foreign university graduates to remain here for internship or come to work here in China, after their academic year is finished, because the law stated that if the internship is a paid position, foreign students will be given a one month visa, If the position is a non paid position, then the maximum stay for employment is three months. If you want to enter China as an individual, you will need a letter of invitation by another individual who is legally live in China, without that, your Visa will not be granted unless you come here with a tour group.

At the same time many of the managerial positions currently held by expats were considered by the government as non-technical position, therefore they will not issue renewal to their visas. That resulted in many companies loosing vital leaderships for their operations.

The slowing of the economy also forces some companies to reduce their operation cost and yet try to maintain the efficiency of their work force, these companies often try to offer their foreign employee a local contract if they wish to stay, which most expats found unacceptable, and choose to return home. 10 of my friends already announced that they are leaving on this month and every day we heard that some one would be leaving soon.

China’s action trying to slow the foreign work force invasions, and hope this reaction will create more work for the Chinese work force is in full swing this summer. The good old ways will soon be a footnote in most of our expat’s life here in China. There may be a little time left on the clock, the Chinese government did not order all foreigners must go to the airport immediately, like what happened in the past. Rather it is a rapid action with the goal to replace management positions with domestic workers as quickly as possible.

The only expat communities are increasing in numbers are the foreign language schools, and the demand of native English speaking teachers. They are in demand at the highest level, and yet the pay is worst than minimum pay back home. Most teachers leave within one or two seasons. If you want to try this, you should apply for teaching position, let it be warn, you will be working a lot for about two thousand dollars a month.

On the flip side if United Sates is in the same position, I am sure similar action would be impose to protect it’s own job market, (similar situation like we were trying to stop the invasion of migrant workers into the southern states, those position were not even valued by most Americans, and yet there were out cry to stop them from coming.) The different is we have a highly educated work force to fill any voids in the market, and China does not.

Just like many examples in Chinese history, this seems like another calculated desperate act to maintain stability in the Nation. China can use their power to force foreign companies to hire all domestic work force, however if these work force are not qualify, that will only slow down productivities and proficiency. Did China think about that? What do you think?

I had encountered many business leaders and product managers across all sectors of industries. The story I gathered from each individual is almost identical. Everyone is frustrated because they felt that their Chinese workers are not the highest quality, they did not take pride on their work or the product they produces, they can’t drop the communist mentality like “Job is just a job, if it failed no need to stress over it”. Compare to the west, workers strive for the best and constantly try to improve themselves.

Chinese workers will never loose sleep over loosing their foreign bosses, (for them good old days are back), business as usual, not to worries; by law their government will protect their employment. No one will ever get ride of them; their thinking is “Want to fire me? Show me the proof I am not productive”. Is this what China really wants for their future work force? Or they are into a rude awakening?

The opinion expressed is base on my personal encountered in the city. Does not reflect any political view or trying to project negative image on policy of China

Chance Encounter Shanghai