9 Months of Observation


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September 14th 2007
Published: October 4th 2007
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MuduMuduMudu

A small town outside Suzhou. Here a group of old ladies play cards and drink tea in a garden.
After 9 months, I feel we are getting a better grasp of things here. I thought it would be appropriate to share some reflections about Chinese culture in Suzhou. I am sure my impressions aren't exactly right, but hopefully our understanding has been enhanced or improved at least a bit after almost a year.

1. Cell phones. Wow, I thought Americans were dependent on these things. Now, I know that we aren't so bad. Everyone in Suzhou seems to have a cellphone. From the farmer to the fiduciary. People are addicted to sending texts and chatting.

In the US, I have been taught that it is rude to answer your cellphone when you are with a guest or are in a business meeting. In China, there aren't such unwritten rules. I don't know how many times, and how many situations we have seen people use cell phones in what we consider to be inappropriate times, but it has been a lot.

Examples. We have demo classes where 5-15 students show up and see what our classes might be like. After 30 minutes, our boss talks to them in Chinese to convince them to join. If his phone rings,
MuduMuduMudu

It is another small water town.
he stops in the middle of his sales speech and answers it, sometimes more than 2-3 times in a 30 minute talk. Ely and I think this is crazy. It is perfectly acceptable here.

In a small class, our students often answer their phones during exercises. It is very strange, don't you think?

Also, Chinese people are big spenders on their phones. They like all the gadgets, MP3, MP4, camera, everything. We think that phones are sort of like cars for 16 year olds in the US, kind of like a status item. They will spend anywhere from 500-2500 RMB on a phone. But most teachers like me and Ely only spend about 150 RMB. We have already gone through the phone craze and aren't so interested in the gadgets and doohickeys.

Consumerism is an interesting topic as it relates to China. Many people these days are consuming more than ever. However, foreign countries still view China as a penny pinching country, especially the older Chinese generation. Despite the fact that China has increased consumer spending greatly, in total, they still only spend 12% of what Americans spend. Not on a per capita basis, total. So, 1.3
Company TravelCompany TravelCompany Travel

Ely and I in Yangzhou with some of our Distance Education students. They are a lot of fun and are mostly eager to learn.
billion people spend 12% of 300 million people.

The greatest sign of consumerism I see is in our little Lotus community-- when we see the grandfather listening to an MP3 on his cellphone, we definitely know the wheels are moving here.

2. Chatting. Another seemingly huge problem for companies is QQ, the Chinese equivalent to MSN messenger. From what we have seen, the productivity of office workers is very low. They spend a lot of time chatting, surfing the web, and talking with friends...and that's ok! It's crazy! We feel like if we acted as they did in the US, we would be fired immediately. We have only visited a private company, but from what we have heard, long standing government companies are even worse.

3. Overcapacity of workers. You know, China has a lot of people, really too many people. Scientists say, based on the amount of resources China has, that only about 900 million people should be living here. There just aren't enough jobs. Plus, with more and more people going to college, the expectation to get good white collar jobs is getting higher and higher, when realistically it just isn't possible. Everywhere we go,
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Old Suzhou Pagoda
there are extra workers. There are security guards everywhere. I am not talking like 300 pound muscle men named Butch and Bruno. Most of them are kind faced and weigh no more than 125. But really, security officers guard the entrance to some restaurants, all apartments, grocery stores, universities, plaza's, shopping centers. The sad thing is they don't really do anything. They get paid to just watch people.

If you remember the haircutting story, it was all apparent there too. Extra people for hair washing, cash register, hair styling, cutters, senior cutters. I guess when you can pay your workers less than $1/hr, it is feasible to do, but we just don't think it makes very good business sense.

Maintainance workers. During the process of re-inventing the capitalist-psedo Communist China, many older people got hung out to dry. From what I know, Mr. Mao preached about returning to a simple agrarian life. People followed him and did agricultural work. After the cultural revolution in the 70s, the new president declared, "to be rich is marvelous." In 30 years, China may have had a transformation that took other countries hundreds of years. So, I imagine for the people who
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We have always seen this at any temple we have visited. Some very large incense sticks!
lived through all these transitions, adjustment is difficult, and confusion ran rampid. Many of the older people now maybe don't have marketable skills other than farming. In our area, many of these older people are hired by the Suzhou government as "landscape professionals." Many of them are 70 year old women. They wake up with the sun and go to work, landscaping the areas along new roads. It would be a tough job for a guy like me, I can't imagine what it is like for them. So I feel something on both sides of the spectrum--1. When I seen an old lady who is hunched over so bad that she barely stands 4.5 feet, I think, why should she still be working? 2. The other part of me thinks, maybe without work, she can't eat, so the fact that the government chooses to employ her is a pretty good deal. Who knows. Either way, when I drive past them on my e-bike with my sunglasses, North Face backpack, and iPod, I feel pretty lucky.

4. From a foreign perspective, restaurant service is poor. One might think, well, maybe they are too busy and they can't tend to every
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Here is a view of our city and the temple behind North Pagoda.
tables' needs. This isn't the case. Restaurants are also victims of overcapacity. Many younger people seemingly get paid to stand around and bring out rice and pour more tea. Sadly, many rice bowls and tea glasses are left empty, with the staff chatting away with their friends.

Maybe a reason for this is the lack of tipping. In Chinese culture, tipping is never expected or necessary. We have tried to give taxi drivers a couple RMB tip. They always refuse at least three times, but eventually accept it. Some bars around town put tip jars out, expecting to pick up a few extra bucks---it just isn't happening yet.

5. Chinese people are nicer than Americans (when dealing with foreigners, that is). If we are anywhere in public and we have a confused look on our face, chances are that a Chinese person will come to our rescue. Is it a form of altruism, or do they just want to practice their English? I think altruism.

Our students invite us to dinner, to play sports, to travel, basically anything and everything. They go out of their way to make us comfortable here. It is pretty darn nice, and the sad thing is, I don't know that I could say the same thing about Americans. We are too busy and occupied to offer selfless help. I hope I am wrong, but am just not convinced.

6. We all have the impression that product quality in China is not good. Sadly, from our experiences this is exactly true. I have read a lot of Business Weeks lately sent from the US, and China really gets a bad wrap--faulty rubber tires, acid traced sandals, poisonous tooth paste, tainted food, I have seen it all. Chinese car companies have been trying to push into other markets, many experiencing difficulties passing the safety tests.

It is so sad buying things at Auchan. Maybe Wal-Mart has a similar reputation in the US, but compared to our local hypermarket,Wal-Mart is at least a couple steps up. We buy things, like sandals, clothes, shoes, etc., expecting them not to last. But they are soooooo damn cheap. I don't know the numbers, but Wal-Mart makes gobs of money. They sell cheap sandals from China (maybe the higher quality ones if sold in China) for $10. At Auchan, similar sandals go for 60 cents. I don't know what percentage of things in Wal-Mart are shipped in from China, but I know it has to be a lot. Ticker Symbol, WMT-take a look at it.

There was a recent book published by an American who tried to boycott Chinese goods for a year. Everything China was out of the question. After 1 year, her conclusion---It was very, very difficult. Basically impossible for an American consumer to avoid Chinese products.

I sometimes talk about cars with my students. I bring up the question of a dream car. Never once has anyone said anything about a domestic car. They just don't compare. I wonder how long it will take for the consumer and business mindset to shift to high quality, not quantity, and innovation, not duplication. It could take a while. I just started a Thomas Friedman book, The World Is Flat. Pretty interesting stuff about how established foreign companies use developing countries to increase profitability. He says, "America and Western Europe are on the first wave of innovation, with India and China behind. In my opinion, these developing countries are observing Western business practices in hope of establishing equally competitive domestic enterprises."

7. A Hate for Japan. So if you have studied a little Chinese history, you probably came across something called the Nanjing Massacre. An American just came out with a movie, Nanking...which tells the story of how Japanese troops brutally killed several hundred thousand Chinese people. To this day, Japan has refused to acknowledge their wrongdoing and has yet to submit an official apology. Maybe the same sort of thing happened in WW2 with Germany. But these days, I read that in the EU if you denounce the atrocities of the Holocaust it is punishable by law. Anyways, Ely and I have a hard time understanding the pure hatred some students have for Japan. Here are some examples:

Many students refus to buy things from Japan. It is sort of a life long boycott. Some of them are convinced that companies like Honda and Toyota sell second tier quality cars to China, while America gets the top tier. I argue with my students, well, what if the best quality things come from Japan, and you value quality? They reply, "I don't care, Made in Japan, no buy."

I ask some of my college students, if they brought home a Japanese girlfriend, what their parents would say. I remember one student saying, "Well, my dad would first probably kill me, then he would consider himself a terrible father. I didn't exactly know how to reply, "Great job, good use of the second conditional verb tense. Keep up the good work!"

Another interesting story. One of my Kulicke and Soffa students, Damon, is an engineer. Before his current job, he worked at another company designing manufacturing machines. At this previous job, his boss gave him a proposal from a Japanese company. The company needed to have a machine built to produce something. Damon's boss let him know that this would be a very important project that he would need to work on for the next few months. Damon could not accept this, so he quit the job and found another. I guess I can't say I understand the feelings involved, so all I can say is that this was an interesting conversation.

So...good news...we told our boss that we would finish our contract at the end of this year and would not re-sign. Should be home sometime after the first of the year. Hooray!



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18th October 2007

umm
hi Aaron! such an interesting blog u wrote ! umm, i dont know if i could add one more heading for ur passage.. lol that is: 8.most chinese men not willing to be house husbands even if they are not up to their future..:) oh, i am so sorry about the way most chinese people use their cellphones.umm,well, i have to say most of young guys as my age like to spend quite a lot of money on it.. they enjoy chatting on qq with cellphone.. and do a lot of entertainment stuff on their phones.. which makes me feel not gooood as well... but i dont think its acceptable to answer phones whenever u want here.. maybe u just happened to see some guys did that .. i think they didnt aware of that is unacceptable in public situations.. and besides that.. oh i think u might wonder why chinese people are always hating the Japanese..hm, i think it doesnt only have something to do with the history about the 2 countries.. but also have a big relationshop with the attitudes most japaneses have towards the past..unlike german, most japanese dont want to admit the evil things they have done to us.. and even to misrepresent the history and make the young japanese generation think it was just a right self-defence war between us!! that reallly bad!:(( so i think this may prabably explain why chinese have a hate for japanese in such a long time... hehe sorry if i said something wrong.. i like ur blogs because u use quite a lot slangs here.haha and i looked them up or ask friends ,which makes me feel happy to learn the slangs..hehe:P keep up the good work.. :) bean:D

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