Wednesday, 26 March 2014

The Chinese and MH370











Sebastian Weetabix said...

Having lived in both, I couldn't resist chipping in since Mainland Chinese behaviour can be quite entertaining. (It is an important distinction; Taiwanese and Singaporean Chinese do not behave like the mainland Chinese, and indeed, tend not to much like them.)

I would say the Japanese are like us; reserved, largely very polite - in fact 'negatively polite' in the sense of if you step on their foot, they say 'sorry' - and just like us British, they don't really mean it, it's simply a social convention that oils wheels. They are also diligent, hard working and extremely well organised, as prejudice may well lead you to think.

The Chinese are more open emotionally. They laugh very easily (all my Chinese friends and acquaintances have a great sense of humour) but they are also quick to anger. When things are not going according to plan they are much given to disorganisation and panic. An American friend of mine in China used the phrase "Chinese fire drill"; not being familiar with the phrase I asked what it meant. The answer came "when a fire alarm goes off, everyone jumps out of their seat, runs several times around the building in panic and then gets back in their original seat - and in the meantime, no one deals with the actual fire". Having seen quite a few trivial business excitements in China this struck me as very apt. One example should suffice:

"The customer is angry, the product doesn't work! It is causing electromigration! What do we do?!"
[for those who are interested: essentially short circuits in electronic equipment - usually a complex problem with many causes, requiring thoughtful, diligent investigation to find the root cause or causes]
Answer: "we will run the industry standard test on our retained sample. This will take 168 hours. If it passes this test we will know for certain our product is not causing the problem. If it fails then it is certainly at least partly our problem. Until then tell them what we are doing but under no circumstances admit fault. It is too early to say."
24 hours later: "the customer is angry! Where are the test results?"
"Er.. It's a 168 hour test. We will have the answer after 168 hours, not before."
"Too slow! We need it now!"
"It's already an accelerated test. It can't go quicker. It just takes 168 hours. We can't change the rules of physics."
"They were really angry so I admitted it is our fault! We must pay compensation!"
"You what?!"
"Otherwise we will lose the customer!"
After much arse kicking and western invention, sanity was restored. Naturally, the test was passed.

To summarise:
In Japan, it is important to get it right first time, every time. So people do.

In China, it is important to do it quickly, be seen to be doing it quickly, and when it screws up be seen to be running around trying to fix it. So people do. In China it is MUCH better to spend 6 weeks doing something 6 times until you get it right than to spend 6 weeks to do it right first time. Also, when it does screw up, it is ALWAYS someone else's fault, otherwise you lose face.

Sebastian Weetabix said...

Btw, my Chinese chum in the example above was a graduate of Zhejiang University (probably the best in China) with a first class degree, and the highest possible certification as an accredited English-Chinese interpreter. He wasn't cheap as Chinese staff go!

Jan said...

My immediate thought was that it was interesting that the default position seems to be that no-one believes anything from "the authorities".

Anonymous said...

Perhaps in China as citizens have few enforceable rights they use this approach to embarrass the government office concerned, and gain redress.

I heard recently a story of similar individual behaviour in China after a traffic accident, to try and gain more compensation from the govt employee involved. Loss of face meant he soon gave in after a few days wailing and shouting at the front entrance.

Unknown said...

The Chinese physician was Huang Huiyou(Chinese: 黄會友; in Japanese: Kou Kai Yuu). He first refused to teach surgery because it was a secret, but finally agreed to teach surgery due to the eagerness of Tokumei. Beijing Interpreter