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