Straight Talk: Taiwan

Introduction

I'm writing this with the hope to enlighten and share acquired information and insights
from my over 20 years of living in Taiwan and China. Mileage will vary accordingly for
each reader!

I grew up in New York City so I had contact with Chinese people from when I can
remember. Many of these people were really Chinese in America as opposed to Chinese-
Americans (which many of their children were or later became). It was very obvious to
me that Chinese culture was very different than Western culture and became a point of
fascination for me. I also loved the food so that didn't hurt either. Many years later I
got into this much more deeply by studying the language, culture and history at the
University of Arizona. It was quite fascinating and some of the examples of their history
and culture opened windows which I gazed through with great interest. One of these was
"2-legged mutton." My professor taught us that this was the euphemism they used in
the capital during the Sung Dynasty. There was a great famine and many died from
starvation. Meat was so scarce that some vendors began selling the meat of the
deceased, hence "2-legged mutton." While it was only a point of curiosity and fascination
then, I feel there are 2 key points that can be understood in light of my now 30 year
exposure to Chinese society:a)they are extremely practical in many ways rarely letting
feelings or romantic ideals get in the way; b) they are masters of euphemism.

The former no doubt due to their many thousands of years of having the most populous
and crowded country, one which was rife with competition for food especially as
peasants farming rich landlords land with little or no benefit, and the latter due to their
sensitivity about face and the resulting indirectness when talking about sensitive issues
and wanting to put even disturbing truths into the best light possible. What these 2
examples indicate is that while being people just like any in Holland, Europe or
Holland,Michigan they have a different culture and assimilate and share information in a
slightly different fashion. Early on in my Taiwan experience I had a problem with my
eye,what appeared to be an infection. Several different friends enthusiastically gave me
information on the best eye doctor in Taipei. All of them were different but I digress. I
went to one of the best eye doctors office and was shocked. I was in a room full of
people that ll pretty much stared at me. In fairness this was 1988 and most of them had
probably never seen a foreigner(westerner) up close and personal. I waited a while and
was summoned into the doctor's office. I was shocked to behold that there were at least
a dozen patients in there who (are you ready for this/) all stared at me. The doctor
began his examination and then stopped and looked at em and said,"you know you could
go blind from this." When I smiled at his obvious exaggeration he admonished me saying
that he was serious. As you can imagine I was more than slightly aghast at his bizarre
bedside manners. The piece de resistance was when I got numerous little paper parcels
of medicine each containing differently colored and shaped pills with every color of the
rainbow. The kicker was the one round green one stamped "New Drug." I of course
instantly thought of the Huey Lewis song while feeling a little nervous.

So what are some of the challenges in setting up a Greater China presence,whether it be

factory, branch office etc., or just doing business in China with locally based suppliers/
customers? Isn't it enough to let my hair down at the karaoke/KTV and go for it over a
few bars of "The Green Green Grass of Home"? Well as you can probably guess by this
point I'm inferring the whole daunting issue of communication. Yes the process
between 2 people where they attempt to successfully share ideas and information
between each other. Communication is no easy feat or safe bet even with people from
the same culture,age bracket,similar life experiences,language,etc. Now add on different
culture life experiences, priorities, level in the socio-economic structure and language
and you can see the potential for disaster at the worst or for headache at the very
least. An interesting note about language. One of my friends pointed out to me after
probably better than a dozen years of living here in Taiwan, that I had a good grasp of
language. I need to explain-the common expression for language is 語言
(Pronounced-yuyan) but my friend said to me that my 語文 (Pronounced-yuwen) was very
good. You are probably wondering what is the difference? The first more commonly used
one just means language in general. The second one means language with a deep
knowledge of it's related culture and relevance. My point here is that English and
Chinese as language and cultures are about as opposite as can be and offer little
common ground in many areas.
Here are some examples of the consequences of these differences

1) Handling and communicating problems. In the Chinese classroom after the teacher is
done making a point or teaching a lesson he or she will ask are there any questions. No
hand is ever raised. Why you might ask? Well first it would be a loss of face for any
student to admit to not understanding or needing clarification. The student would be
afraid that the teacher and students would view him/her as an idiot. Secondly, the
student wouldn't ever discuss a point or offer their own view since that would offend the
teacher's pride making him/her lose face and risk possible revenge on your report
card.Can you see how this might present a problem in business? You or one of your
management staff go to great pains to communicate a critical issue or some company
policy. Now the speaker asks for any questions or are all points clear...Wrong! Never do
that or ask that because you'll never get a response. Probably the ones that understood
the lease will give you a nice smile when you look at them. We'll get to the significance
of smiling later though. What needs to be done in this scenario is to go over the key
points by having the staff in attendance explaining to you in their words what you said.
This way it'll become apparent who understood what and where there needs to be
additional explanation for clarity's sake. So due to the sensitivity and potential for
embarrassment, don't expect much transparency or self-initiated questions. I mentioned
the smiling before. Smiling in western culture is usually from a feeling of satisfaction or
comfort, however in Chinese society it is often a mask that is worn when the wearer is
feeling awkward.Like when they are clueless about what you are asking due to language
or cultural barriers. In western culture our proverb states-"the squeaky wheel gets
the grease" in Chinese their equivalent proverb states-"the nail that sticks out gets
hammered down." From these 2 proverbs focusing on the same situation you can
clearly observe that western society is saying that if you need some help speak up while
Chinese society is saying keep your mouth shut or else! These 2 meanings are virtually
opposite! Are you starting to get the picture here?

Here is a personal example of this kind of cultural impact on the thought processes of
Chinese people. I was working in an American-owned factory in Taiwan. The department
I was involved with managing had a serious back-order problem on a series of hardware
accessories. When I did some investigating I found that there was no capacity or
production problem within our factory as had been suspected. In fact the problem was
due to vendor requesting certain order quantities for plating the metal parts. When I
asked the colleague responsible for coordinating our parts with plater if he ever
considered coordinating with the vendor what numbers he'd need and batching orders he
gave me a puzzled look. I explained to him that this would enable us to meet our order
obligations to our home company but require us to carry a little extra inventory on hand.
I got the back order problem which had been accruing for the better part of a year
straightened out in 2 months. Why did my colleague not think of this or if he did, not act
on it? Well I can only surmise here, but I'd venture to say that he and many Chinese
people have adapted to not thinking unless they have to. remember what the teacher
would do if you raised question or comment? Similarly, many Chinese come to feel that
thinking is both tiring and potentially dangerous. The scolding one will get for being
"dense" is milder than one will get for being "too clever."
2) English language skills and their related value. The guy who speaks good English is
the better staff? In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king... In China often
times the staff that speaks pretty good English or more correctly, bold enough to speak
up in English is perceived as the more adequate/able staff and usually gets more
opportunities. Sadly this is not the case. Usually in Chinese society the ones that dare to
be more outspoken or have that kind of drive are the very ambitious and have an
agenda. Hence,many capable staff are shy or insecure about their English skills and lose
out on this basis for judgement. When an expatriate manager away from the home
country is dealing with a staff that is able to speak his native language he can easily
ascribe much more weight to this ability simply due to the relief from the pressure of
just for a few minutes of having someone local he can actually talk too. Sadly many
times quality staff and even more capable staff tend to get overlooked because of the
grand standing of their nervy countrymen with better language skills or the boldness to
use poor English skills unabashedly. The flashy English speakers vying for the bosses
attention know they have some fish in a barrel prime for shooting. There are of course
better English speakers that are good workers as well and those are the ones you want
to try and cultivate.

I was hired to help turn around production control problems in a large American-owned
factory in Taiwan. The manager of the department was a very hard working decent guy.
One of his main weaknesses was poor English skills and being more of a quiet stoic
personality type. The new General Manager fresh on the scene saw this manager as
being weak. Probably in contrast to the production manager who also was new in the
company and was a very slick talker albeit with decent English skills. The GM grew to
like the production manager and never bonded with the production control manager.
This was sad and the clever production manager manipulated this to his advantage since
certain problems stemmed from production management problems in the first place
before they ever became production control issues. So if there is a morale to this section
I guess it would be that it is important to try to get beyond the language issue even
though language is the greatest filter to do this. Kind of a tough Catch 22 type
paradigm.
3) Cockiness and idealism. Many times the problem is the Chinese #1 son syndrome
since cockiness is almost exclusively a male staff issue. In Chinese society sons are
highly prized. They are welcomed into life like little princes. From the time they are born
they are pampered and coddled. Many Chinese families have several daughters but only
one son; inevitably the son is the youngest as the parents kept trying until they had a
boy.Boys have stronger backs for working in the fields (from the time of agricultural
days) and marry and gain a pair of female hands for the family. Girls are viewed as more
of a liability since they'll leave for the husband's family when they marry. Doting Chinese
mothers are always telling their sons how they are the "best and the brightest" which
they tend to believe. The Chinese have a saying,"Give a person a little color and they
open a dye factory." What that means is if a person gets a little compliment or has a
little bit of pride it'll inevitably balloon up into a big head-this is very typical among
Chinese males particularly the oldest son.A big problem in China now due to the 1 child
only policy is that almost all the boys are not just the oldest but the only son(and only
child for that matter).

The idealism enters in to the equation from the Confucian ideals that are taught from the
time they are old enough to talk. This is the whole basis for relationships in Chinese
society. Even the Confucian concept of DaTong talks about the ideal society as one big
family. Forget about the fact that this has never been realized it is still programmed
deeply into the hearts of Chinese. Even their name for everybody:大家 (pronounced Da
jia) literally means big family. So much of their thinking is very idealistic in nature and so
much of their thinking is complicated due to the myriad of relationships that must be
thought about before making decisions. They are terribly apprehensive about making a
decision or doing something that will adversely affect their relationships. First and
foremost is their relationship to their family. One point of interest is that they tend to be
more demanding of others and require little of their selves. I have often been amazed
how a friend who is fairly humble and kind of low key can hit me up with a really nervy
request, one that if were made on him would surely irritate him. To put it in other words
they expect people to cut them a lot of slack but they can be petty demanding of others
and picky about the way the actions towards them are executed.

These Chinese #1 son alpha males can also be very know-it-allish and stubborn. They
profess to be knowledgeable on any topic mentioned when in fact it is usually just
bravado. Possible solutions? If you are hiring perhaps consider 2nd male if an option or
consider a woman.That being said you can get some good work out of some men but
generally speaking women in China are much easier to manage and tend to have a more
cooperative attitude than their male counter-parts. There is also another dynamic that
affects communication with non-Chinese. That is the "5,000 years of history and culture"
DNA in the mix. While it is a fact that China has a very lengthy and noteworthy culture
and history with a bevy of technological and scientific accomplishments, most of them
are from hundreds if not thousands of years ago. Therefore while not irrelevant they are
often not relevant to today's business problems at hand, or in other words-"what does
any of this have to do with the price of tea in China?" However, the Chinese are so
inherently proud of this heritage it almost carries across to if there is a difference of
opinion with a foreign person the Chinese is probably right, or at the very least the
Chinese way is probably better.

I can think of no better illustration than my initial flight to Taiwan when I was moving
there in 1987. The China Airlines staff was very friendly, courteous and attentive with
one small anomaly. I asked a vivacious stewardess for a glass of ice water. She returned
with a glass of warm water. When I discovered my water didn't have ice in it, nor was it
even cold I politely chimes, "Miss, I'm sorry but I asked you for ice water." She politely
replied, "Ice water is not good for you so that's why I brought you this warm water." I
was gob smacked and explained to her the obvious that while my destination was
Taiwan and I could easily infer Taiwanese people don't drink much ice water (then any
way) the flight originated in America where we Americans drink it with gusto, and I was
also a paying customer that would appreciate a replacement glass of ice cold water with
ice chips in it, with her concerns for my health previously noted. She of course obliged
and we were one big happy family again. Remember my incident with the eye infection
earlier? Well I didn't mention that several of my Chinese friends made jokes about my
eye while I was obviously suffering from pain and discomfort. Several joked about
"eating to much ice cream with me eyes" until it became sore. Eating ice cream is a
euphemism for a man ogling pretty girls. Well I can tell you I was pretty irked by the
insensitivity of these friends and even asked one of them why would they make jokes
with me when I was obviously not feeling well and in pain? He replied that Chinese
people feel by joking around with friend when they are sick or uncomfortable helps take
their mind off the discomfort and makes them feel a little better. After being thus
enlightened I informed him that in our culture this appears to be a dire lack of sensitivity
for a friend suffering duress or even some disrespect for me as a person.

In my early days of working in a trading company in Taipei I had occasion to pick up an

English class on the side. This class was very special one comprised of young men from
ChienKuo High-the top high school in all of Taiwan. All of the high ranking graduates
there were shoe-ins for the top universities like Taiwan University and Political University
the Harvard and Stanford of Taiwan. One time we got into a discussion about a Chinese
historical matter. My students were quite dismayed when they found out that I had some
reasonable knowledge of Chinese history. I pointed out that I majored in Chinese studies
and had studied a fair bit. Then one of them got a very dubious expression on his face
and asked smugly how a foreigner could possibly have anything but an extremely
superficial knowledge and understanding of Chinese history? I informed him like any
other subject that had books on record it could be studied and there was no special
mystique involving the study of history. I illustrated this by asking him if he ever heard
of our President's George Washington and Abraham Lincoln? He replied, "of course."
Then I said "but you're Chinese.." He got my point. In my early days of Taiwan living I
got so tired of hearing this 5,00 years number one time after mentioning it to another
American living here he replied sarcastically,"Are you sure it's 5,000 years of culture and
not 1 year repeated 5,000 times?" Well I guess it goes to show there can be cultural
arrogance on both sides of the fence and it's important to keep things in perspective.
4) Knowing best what is good for you. Often in business a manager (or superior)
dealing with staff will give instructions to them expecting that their request will be
carried out per instructions with possibly some minor variations. A lot of times in China
the staff will make changes to your instructions, not out of insubordination but out of a
feeling of knowing what you want (or need) is more important than what you asked for.
Unfortunately, often staff give themselves too much credit for knowing what you need.
There is also the almost exact opposite of this scenario that occurs. What I mean is that
some staff will do exactly what you asked and only what you asked. For example-if you
send someone to get a hamburger and french fries for you, you wouldn't bother to
specify napkins or ketchup or maybe even salt and pepper. If you wanted extra ketchup
you'd probably make a point of asking for that. Many Chinese will do only exactly what
they were told because they are not pro-active by education or nature and they are
afraid of making a mistake and getting chewed out. It's amazing how these 2 different
variations seem diametrically opposed. There is yet another part to this dynamic. The
Confucian education system is one of wrote memorization. It is based on ideals which
are standards. There is no need to improve on the ideals only the need to memorize
them. Add to that the Chinese language is a language made up of ideographic characters
and not an alphabet. Many characters differ by minor brush strokes only(Chinese writing
is taught with a brush pen and ink and is close to painting in execution). Much of their
memory has been taxed by the memorization of thousands of characters and intuition
and deductive reasoning weren't taught in school or by society. In fact they were
frowned upon due to their potential to provide an idea or concept different from the
ideals taught by the masters. It is this kind of traditional thinking that creates a history
of copying and repetition which can be fairly stagnant. The Chinese and other Asians
don't feel bad about being predictable or even a little dull.

When I first arrived in Taiwan I was amazed by how every young working person I met
had basically the same reply when asked what they did with their free time, "Stay at
home and watch TV or sleep." I can still remember vividly the first time I met a
Taiwanese with a hobby? I must have scared him. He looked at me with puzzlement
when I was incredulous over his having a real hobby. An impressive one at that-
mountain climbing. I was so happy to find someone with what I considered to be a
normal outside interest like a hobby. In fairness, the work schedule was pretty relentless
and many Taiwanese had only 4 days off per month as their Chinese counterparts do
nowadays.
5) Lazy thinkers (頭懶) is probably something that is acquired from the cram/stuffed-
duck style education system here in China. It is called that because like the duck you
just jam as much stuff as will fit inside. Students here grow up cramming continually for
tests(test hell) and memorizing facts and details for tests without ever analyzing the
details. They become lazy and fearful of analytical thought since they're rewarded for
regurgitating the answers the test requires not for coming up with their own opinions.
There are hardly any essay questions in the Chinese school system. This aversion to
proactive thinking prods them to opt to play it safe almost all the time. They are not trail
blazers or out of the box thinkers but excel at playing it safe. They are good choices for
research positions or accountants for this very reason. An interesting anecdote about the
Chinese is that their meetings have no agenda while their parties do. Generally at a
Chinese business meeting the head of the meeting goes on and on about whatever he
feels like talking about. Usually some rambling emotional over-reaction to some minor
point. Perhaps how the staff are performing less than "ideal" (see how the Chinese love
their ideals) and how everyone needs to take their responsibilities more seriously and
work harder. At the end he'll inevitably ask if there are any questions. Of course, just
like in school where the teacher asked the same question, the manager or boss gets the
same result-no hands. "Any questions" is not a real question any way. It's simply a
signal that the meeting is adjourned. Per chance someone were to raise their hand or
offer a question the stare they'd receive would easily cure any global warming problems
for years to come.

Since the education system changes little over time and is based on rigorous cramming
it breeds conservatism. Why should you be opened minded when it is only the proven or
established things that work. There is no new idea that will help them do better on their
tests short of cheating, and that is hardly new. The education system also fosters a
sense of entitlement on the part of university graduates especially if they graduated
from one of the better schools. They'll expect to be paid more and want to work in a nice
air conditioned office. They don't have any better reasoning or analytical facilities per se,
just did better on memorizing for the exam system. Since they were treated like little
gods due to their test performance their attitudes are usually much more self-centered
and feel that the world owes them something. As a manager that "world" would be you.
6) Double checking and not paying attention are another couple of phenomena while if
not totally unique are certainly more prevalent here. People all fail most often at the
most important action in their lives:communication. The Chinese are no exceptions and
according to my observations might even be worse in this category than others.The
problem comes from wanting to be heard more than wanting to listen. You could say it is
not really talking that is going on but more reciting. Chinese are pretty prone to
adhering more to their pre-conceived notions than actually listening and learning.
Remember these are people that are used to having a script like cramming for tests to
learn the right answers. Communications for them are not much different. Here are two
examples which hopefully will better illustrate my point. I was working for a local
company helping them with sales on their industrial tooling services for carbon fiber
tennis racquet's. One of my associates and the only one that spoke English asked me
once and in fact half asked me and half told me (a very common occurrence on the part
of Chinese since it's usually never a true question just them trying to get you to confirm
what they already believe is true) that, "You probably eat a lot of hamburgers..." I
politely informed him that actually I ate mostly local food and didn't care much for the
Western food around town since it ws expensive and not that good. I also mentioned
that I'm not a big hamburger guy and dislike McDonalds. Several months later while at
lunch he looked at em and said, "So you probably eat a lot of hamburgers..." OK next!

Another time after I had already started my own business a friend and customer of mine
from a large US branded tool company were having lunch. His cell phone rang and he
asked me if I minded if a couple of his Taiwanese business associates dropped by. I said
that would be fine and he gave me some back story on the 2 guys that would be joining
us. He said one was a really good salesmen but was determined to get in the
manufacturing game where he had little experience. The other one was his assistant that
didn't know very much but spoke English fairly well and served his boss by translating.
Initially my friend told me to play dumb that I spoke Chinese and I obliged. The main
point of the meeting was that my friend told the sales guy in no uncertain terms that
he wouldn't buy from him because he knew he is not an experienced manufacturer but
that he wanted to hire him to come sell for his company. He simply wouldn't give up
because he wasn't hearing what he wanted to so it was as if my friend were blowing
colored bubbles instead of telling him "No way in hell" in plain English. Finally, after
biting my tongue for most of the meeting I said something in Chinese. Then the
assistant looked at me and asked me if I didn't feel that English was very difficult for
Chinese people to learn.I thought this question was a little bit inane in terms of what
had just transpired but I answered and said that yes I feel it is very challenging for
native Chinese speakers to learn English and for English speakers to learn Chinese since
both languages had no common base. However what I felt was even more important and
challenging for Chinese people even in their own language was listening to the person
speaking.The Chinese even have an expression that translates,"The speaker said what
he wanted and the listener heard what he wanted." That is why it is so common for
misunderstandings and resulting gaffs here. Because of this most Chinese conversations
that are seriously trying to communicate will consist of many of the elements being
repeated and questioned to try to make sure they understand what the other person is
saying.

In summary. while I have been pointing out some areas that differ somewhat or even
significantly from Western culture all people are people. In fact Chinese people are some
of the hardest working and sincerest people I've met but of course you need to work at
finding the best just like any where else. Chinese society has had many hardships over
the last couple of hundred years and the end of the 20th century and early 21st century
was and is a time of big change throughout the society.

For more information please contact Mark Forman at Marlin & Sons