By William Dodson

A simple taxi ride from Shanghai to Suzhou put me very much in mind of developing contracts with Chinese – even the simplest of contracts. Very seldom in business do Chinese adhere to the Letter of the Law, while they exorcise its Spirit at their earliest convenience. And if the agreement is verbal, then watch out!

The deal was this: for 300RMB – including tolls – the Shanghai driver would take me to Suzhou. Assumptions: the taxi driver with whom I made the deal will be the one taking me; only the taxi driver and I will be making the trip; the trip will be direct, along the HuNing Highway that connects the two cities; the trip should take about an hour, since it was already 8pm, past Shanghai rush hour. Train and bus tickets back home were sold out.

I explained to the police in Suzhou the reason I refused to pay the taxi driver the 300RMB – instead, offering 200rmb – was that the driver and the taxi ring had deceived me, wasted my time and scared me half to death. Mind you, it was I who had called the police, because a Deal is a Deal and by golly this interpreting agreements Chinese Way was seriously getting on my nerves at the end of the trip, near 11pm.
Read the rest of “Terms of frustration in China” or post a comment

In terms of human resources, the current debate is focused on the continued need for multinational corporations in China to increase hiring of local staff, particularly for operations management, while decreasing or completely removing expatriate staff. Reasons for this shift away from expatriate staff include the high cost of salary and benefit packages, questionable value (in terms of productivity and ability to drive the business), high failure rates and most recently, the large readily available talent pool of expatriates already based in China (“halfpats”).

Read the rest of “Halfpats: the New Expatriate” or post a comment >>

By Nannette Ripmeester

In this issue I am venturing beyond European borders to China, a fast growing marketplace. But starting operations in a new market is not easy.Will you move your own people to the new location or will you start hiring locally? And if you hire locally, how do you attract the best candidates and what do these new recruits expect?

Campus recruitment

Kevin Ng, Partner at the Beijing office of Deloitte, is clear about the type of graduates Deloitte targets. “We will only approach the first-tier universities in China to be assured of quality graduates,” he says. “We conduct campus recruitment to introduce our firm and the attributes of graduates we are looking for.” Read the rest of “Eastern Promise?” or post a comment

Get 100 RMB off by mentioning China Success Stories!

CultureFish Media will host a one-day trio of charity events designed to raise awareness and generate funds for the China Dreamblogue and its associated charities. The three events (YOU CAN COME TO ONE OR ALL!) include:

1. A One in a Million Charity Golf Tournament,
2. The China Digital Media Workshop,
3. and the China Dreambash featuring international hit singer and Capitol records artist Che’nelle. Read the rest of “China DreamBlogue Dream Bash” or post a comment

By Lisle Veach

The more I learned in China about the contrast between the way folks in the East and the West make use of their names and titles, the more fascinating it seemed, maybe because I think it implies something about the deep differences between our two cultures.

In China, one first identifies oneself in relation to the larger group, then the smaller group, then within the family, and only after that, as an individual. To illustrate this very clearly we only have to look at Chinese names and addresses. When you write someone’s address in China you first write the country, then the province, then the city or locality, followed by the business unit or location of the home. Only after all this, at the bottom, comes the person’s name. And in China, the family name – or surname – comes first; and at the very, very end is the individual’s given name. Just the opposite of us. And confusion abounds when Eastern and Western names collide. Read the rest of “What’s in a Name?” or post a comment