The Challenges of Starting a Business in China – Part 5 (Getting to know the Chinese Business Cultur)
In the past, I have written about my experience of opening a business in China, and at this point I have learned a good deal about Chinese culture. Below I’ve outlined some different observations I’ve made during the process.
The language barrier when you’re working with people in China should not be underestimated. One thing I found out from traveling back and forth between America and China so many times is the differences in communication styles. You may find you can communicate well with people while in China, but whenyou use mail app sending and receiving emails with the same people, communication starts to get more complicated. While many Chinese people can hold a conversation face-to-face, their reading and writing might not be as strong. I found myself reading mail app a dozen times just to guess what I thought they were trying to express. If unsuccessful I would have to email back to ask for clarification and the time zone difference would require another 24 hours before getting further explanation. Phone calls are difficult also because the call quality is not perfect and you can’t read body language or expressions when communicating over the phone. Using vpn app store for download Skype to have conversations works better, but the inconsistent quality and call drops are frequent. Being someone that only speaks one language I find it hard to comprehend the mechanics and thought process that takes place for someone that speaks more than one language. When talking to Chinese people I found myself putting a filter on my thoughts and the words. It was easier to simplify more complex words or slang to help get my point across. Spending time with many Chinese people I learned several things about the English language as well and how it can be very confusing. For example, take a simple word like “too”. Younger Chinese professionals learned English in school and although they can speak pretty well they might not have had a lot of time conversing with native English speaking people. The definition for “too” that Chinese primarily learn is as follows: To a higher degree than is desirable. When using the word “too” in America it’s commonly used as a synonym for ‘also’. Additionally I often say something is ‘too good’ or was too quick to indicate something better than I expected, but Chinese people are thinking the level of good or the speed of service was “too” much and needs to be reduced in the future. I had a Chinese person ask me, how you know when “too” is positive as opposed to negative. This question caught me by surprise, but after thinking about it I couldn’t come up with any simple rule to help answer the question. This comes from experience, and without going over every example I couldn’t really offer a solution. The best I could do is if someone is smiling while saying it, then it’s positive.
As with a sarcastic sense of humor I quickly realized that even this would not be received in the same manner as it is in the U.S. If you tend to be sarcastic like me I recommend taking special care to limit the facetious remarks along with any slang, buzzwords, or other out of the ordinary words that could cause confusion, and possibly anger, from the other party. I also found if I used words that Chinese people didn’t understand, normally they would not ask for clarification. Their general stance is that they don’t want to sound unintelligent so they will try to guess the meaning of the word based on the context rather than asking. Often they will simply think they know the definition of the world and won’t even question it, and only later would I realize that something I said was not understood.