This is an experience that my friend conveyed to me when he came back from a business trip in China. He has his own start up company established in Singapore and he has plans to collaborate with China business men to further establish his business. For this reason he accompanied his father’s friend who was a business man in China, for 2 weeks to gain first hand experience about business ethics in China.
His first shock came when he realized that many dealings have bribes involved, bribery in terms of money or in terms of material goods. The manner in which bribes were handled was unique too. Apparently the number of cigarette boxes placed on the table equated to the amount of bribe that is given. When his father’s friend was carrying many boxes of cigarette packs he was confused as to the reason why. He later realized that people use cigarette boxes to show the amount of bribe they were going to offer instead of reaching a verbal consensus.
Another shock came when he travelled to a different part of China (I am not sure about the name of the province). In this part of China, to show that you enjoy the food you have to eat noisily! You should for example slurp your noodles loudly to show your appreciation to the chef for the good food. This was a true shock to him as under normal circumstances eating quietly with minimal noise is considered to be good manners.
This directly contradicted with a French hotel that my friend went to, where the slightest of noise or tinkering of your forks and spoons is considered to be bad manners.
What surprised me when I heard his experience is that, he is a Chinese and he did not know that such customs exists in China. Though his a Singaporean born Chinese I believed there would not be much differences between the customs of Singaporean Chinese and China Chinese. However this does not seem to be the case.
I believe that it is important to understand and appreciate different cultures even though they might be very different to our own.
Different people view culture differences differently, either with a
Negative attitude – Withdrawal and refusal to accept the foreign culture ORPositive attitude – Willingness to understand, to embrace, and to creatively interact with the new culture
I believe taking cultural differences positively will help us adapt to different cultures more easily.
Cheers,
Keerth
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Hi Keerth,
ReplyDeleteVery interesting i must admit. I know that a lot of business in the "Main Land" involve in bribery but i dont know that they are using cigarette box to represent the amount of money. I thought it is an "open secret" and just another "norm".
One day, when i was paying for my fuel in a petrol kiosk, a Chinese ask me to translate that he wants to buy 3 cartons of cigarette (the cashier was a Malay lady). Me and the lady were shocked and i asked: "3 packets or 3 cartons?!". "3 carton will cost you S$348!". Now i understand why he wanted to buy so much of cigarette. LOL.
Well, i really dont like this kind of intercultural competence and i rather give up on the idea of being a successful businessman than having the risk of being caught by anti-corruption organization.
Thank you so much for you sharing and i hope people can stop corruption now.
Cheers,
Ryan
Hi Keerth
ReplyDeleteI believe every country would have some people that are involved in bribery cases. However, to some extent, there is nothing much we could do about it especially if we are of a lower ranking. I feel that sometimes it can't be helped and we had to quietly accepts it unless we can find another job.
For your friend, if he wants to continue doing business in china, he may need to adapt to such culture or if it's possible he could find another company to work with.
In addition, you mentioned about the way people eat. I feel that different country have different culture and one has to learn to adapt and more accomodating to it. It may be tough initially but soon I think we would be able to blend in.
Eileen
Hi Keerth,
ReplyDeleteAs "business partners", that is not called "bribery", more like "tips" or "year end bonuses". My mom works as a supplier, supplying clothes to departmental stores. Most of the time, she will import them from China, cheapest sources. She will have to pay the suppliers extra "year end bonuses" every year, sometimes in the middle of the year for no reason.
Doing that will ensure quality of the goods. If not, for example when she takes up a new source, they will supply clothes with holes in them or poorly sewn seam lines etc.
Even in Singapore, that happens. Not mentioning the companies :).
To Ryan, China is too big to stop any corruptions. It is like asking America to reduce the amount of ghettos or reduce hate crimes, it is not quite possible.
Like my parents always tell me, to enter the trading world, one must not have any friends, everyone is at the most, a colleague.
Regards,
Pak Ming
Hi all,
ReplyDeleteThis is very very interesting but also very sensitive.
In fact, i have a lot of comment behind my mind but i dont think i can post it here.
Well, (base on Keerth's entry and the news lately from China) all i can say is "some" modern Chinese has gradually forgotten what Confucian had taught us few thousand years ago--礼(good manner),义(treat parents, siblings, everybody well),廉(no corruption),耻(willing to apologize and learn from mistake). These 4 words are my primary school's motto and i think this should be the "real education".
If you cannot stop bribery, at least, please remember the rest of 3.
Signing off with sorrow,
Ryan
Hi Keerth,
ReplyDeleteI guess bribery is quite common in alot of Asia countries. We are considered lucky that we are living in a country with the least bribery incident:) it was quite interesting to hear how they bribe in terms of offering cigarette as a indicator.. ohh, i thought only Japanese will do the slurping of the noodles. so do the Chinese? i always thought it will be rude for the Chinese to eat this way.
sorry forgotten to leave my name down. i m Gail..
ReplyDeleteHi everyone,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments :)
I also think this is a controversial topic. I believe there are situations in which bribery may actually be considered to be necessary and other situations where it is considered bad.
Though most of us happily would like to say that we do not give bribes… I think bribery is not just for businesses, politics etc. it exists in our everyday lives. There are times when people help others expecting something in return. Don’t we all do something expecting some benefit in return; don’t we all try to impress others who are important to us? I think these are some subtle forms of bribery. So I cannot say that bribery in a sense is fully negative, especially in cases where it’s unavoidable like the situation Pak mentioned above.
Pak: That’s an interesting concept. I never knew such a model of ‘yearly bonuses’ existed. However, I guess it is a subtle form of bribery, it’s more like bring forced to pay the ‘yearly bonuses’ if not the suppliers do not give proper goods. I guess in some situations it is unavoidable.
Cheers,
Keerth