Similar to what happened in the west during its fast growing process, China has its costs behind the fast growth. Put aside the economy development costs such as over consumption of natural resource and pollution, which I will elaborate down the line, the cost in culture alone is huge. On the top list are destroyed trust system and lost respect to privacy.
The trust crisis started from the notorious Cultural Revolution which happened between 1966 and 1976, the darkest 10 years after the People’s Republic of China was established. To survive the nationwide political storm, millions chose to trade their soul for personal and family security. Since then, trust among people was severely damaged and went straight to freezing point. Unarguably, it's the most devastating event to the trust system in China's history. The second wave of attack actually came with the reform. When the whole country suddenly opened up to the world and the market oriented economy was at its infant stage, chaos was an uninvited friend. Money changed the original simple relationship among people and all sorts of frauds only accelerated the breakdown of trust system. When a society dramatically switched from “Trust talks” to “Money talks” mode, the people’s paradigm shifted – a side effect and a big cost of economy development.Today’s North America has gone through pretty much the same process and is rebuilding a healthy trust system which makes China look bad. In fact, many Chinese immigrants agreed that they don’t have to be so alert when living in North America.
[Image above: A classical example of the Red art from the early Cultural Revolution - a worker crushes the crucifix, Buddha and classical Chinese texts with his hammer, saying: "Destroy the old world; build a new world" (1966). In reality, the revolution went way beyond culture and became a countrywide political storm reshuffling the power and positions at every level of government and the society. It eventually went rampant and out of control until Chairman Mao's death and arrest of the Gang of Four in 1976."]
To those who do business in China, they must understand the importance of building a good network. It sounds pretty similar to North American businessmen. However, the difference is at How. In China, a whole lot of business relationships are built and maintained at dinner table or over Karaoke microphone or in steamy bathtubs, after work. No matter you like it not, business life is blurred with personal life. Even the social events between coworkers only happen after work. It's not a surprise at all if a company’s employee gets a call from his/her boss or client at 11:00 on a weekday night or on 10:00 on a Sunday morning. The aggressiveness of Chinese younger generation (see the last post) only made the situation worse. Many of them choose to work extra hours to get more done. In many cases, I witnessed them voluntarily working until 2am or even 3am, up to three times per week. Literally, their cell phones are on 24/7. Feeling the pressure? You bet.
In contrast, except a few coffees and golf games, I haven’t treated my clients a single meal after working as sales and running my businesses in North America for over seven years. Seldom did I get calls from my clients or coworkers for business after 6pm or on weekends.
Huawei Electronics, China’s top computer networking equipment manufacturer (some say China’s Nortel), had multiple employee suicide cases in the past two years. Mostly the tragedies were caused by overstress at work. Was Huawei alone? Definitely not. Similar cases happened in almost every developed countries before. Japan would be the best example featuring many employees died of exhaustion and overstress in the 70’s and 80’s.
To the talented Chinese who are tired of such blurred business-personal life and who aspire for peace of mind after work, North America is no-doubt a nice hideout, if not heaven.
To be continued.
No comments:
Post a Comment