A China Tale

Noise

It’s a developing trend I’ve been noticing in my communication with others, and my preference for communications from others. Is what your saying useful? If it’s not why are you bothering to say it in the first place. If what you say serves absolutely no purpose that either you nor the intended listener can immediately discern why are you bothering to open your mouth in the first place. I call this type of talk and communication (phone, e-mail, chat, instant messaging, etc.) noise. More and more I notice that when i get fatigued my tolerance wanes quickly for this type of useless chatter.

China, in my experience, is notoriously aggravating when it comes to noise. So many times I ask a simple question that can be answered in one or two sentences and in return I have to comb through two to three paragraphs of fluff to get to the meat of the matter. The language barrier is helpful when it comes to talking to some Chinese through mediums such as e-mail but if I dare approach them with my Chinese that is a horse of a different color indeed.

It’s funny because I used to be and still occasionally am a noise-maker. As I’ve gotten busier and my perspective on life has adapted in this new environment I’ve learned the uselessness of some of the things I used to bother talking about. There simply is not enough time or energy to go around to waste blabbing about things people don’t want to hear about. If I ask you how much your product is – just tell me how much the goddamn thing is. I don’t want to hear about minute details of your products quality, that your family has owned this shop for generations – that the shop down the street underselling you by 10-15% is no good. I don’t care if you think my Chinese is good or that you think it looks good on me. Shut up – just tell me what I need to know!!!

Ah that reminds me of another thing that really gets me going. I love Chinese people you can ask anyone that I know on a first name basis – but one bad habit that tends to push my buttons is their avoidance of saying “I don’t know” when they don’t have the slightest clue what your talking about, looking for, asking about, etc. You don’t know how many times I’ve walked in 3 or 4 different directions only to find out when I asked the next person that my destination was nowhere near where I was walking. I literally need to stress 2 or 3 times + “are you sure” to figure out if they actually know what they are talking about. I have to soften them up to the idea of saying “I’m sorry I don’t know.” I understand some of the why behind the habit – but my soft skill capacities are better spend on profitable endeavors… I guess its difficult to realize that by telling me false information due to inexperience is actually more aggravating and makes you look like a bigger asshole than telling me you have no idea. Maybe I’ll make a T-shirt about it – write it both in Chinese and English.

Anyway back to my Noise rant. I think this is a lesson that can be applied liberally pretty much everywhere. Get to the point – order your sentences to reflect their relative importance and keep all the useless fluff to yourself. Maybe I’m too hard – thinking too much like a company man than an accommodating human being, but really, who has enough time in life to examine the minute details and nuances behind every interaction and exchange of information. I think like a businessman. My time is precious and my mind is already full of other shit I have to deal with and when I take the time to ask you a question I am looking for the answer to the question so I can solve that problem and move onto the next. If you want to be successful you need to be useful – not loud, not overly informative, not well-spoken, nor attractive, not even accommodating and filled to the brim with soft skills – first and formost you need to be USEFUL. Nurture the mindset of solving people’s problems and you’ll have a lot less trouble getting ahead in life.

Anyway I need to get back to pumping out this worksheet for my Chinese corners this afternoon. Hopefully I’ll have enough time to eat properly – that way I can take the inevitable noise-storm of bs I’m going to run into as soon as I step outside in stride. -end rant-

Burning the Incense at Both Ends

I’ve been telling people my head popped off earlier last week and I’ve been kicking it around ever since trying to keep everything in order. Here’s a taste of what the fixed portion of my schedule looks like:

Aside from this schedule I also need to prepare materials for the Chinese and HTML classes I teach as well as do a good deal of online marketing work for the Volleyball and Chinese Corner event’s I run. Of course this doesn’t include my nightlife activities which usually occupy me at least twice every weekend.

I’ve been trying my best to break up my week and responsibilities in a manageable fashion but boy let me tell you, it’s a bit of an intimidating task. I guess it’s worth it though, I’m young I’m supposed to run around like a crazy person trying to make the right connections, put things together, and suck up as much as I possibly can on the way. I’ve been thinking to restructure my commitment to Topnotch Partners as I don’t think I’m going to have sufficient time to develop myself in that direction while I’m taking classes. I guess my thought was simply place “learning Chinese” as my commitment to the company. It is after all a critical skill to have in order to successfully expand our business here and maintain the relationship with our current portfolio of suppliers. I wonder if my Dad will buy into that .

I guess everything considered what I’m putting myself through isn’t in any way, shape, or form uncommon here. Long hours, poor sleeping/eating habits, obsession with making money, allowing myself too much ethical leeway… hehe. I wonder sometimes about what we do to ourselves – being here you get to take a glimpse back into the past of developed countries. Everything’s moving, looking in one direction with the majority of people disconcerned with some of the big problems they create in their ignorance. Can the world afford populating a nation of 1.4 billion with automobiles and all those wasteful trinkets we developed country folk can’t bear to live without.

Internet Marketing in China – A Horse of a Different color

I’ve been thinking as I’ve been encountering more and more customers in the market for SEO work in China. The voice of the customer can be summed up in a short sentance “I want it to look this way!” Why is that a problem you might ask? Well I’m not in the business of web design – I’m in the business of online marketing. Not to say that a flashy user interface and eye-catching graphics and imagery are going to harm the impression on your customers.. but your not going to have any eyeballs on your site if it’s not properly marketed. It’s much like having an attractive storefront without any windows for people to see your work through. The Chinese seo marketplace seems, to say the least, underdeveloped.

People don’t care about marketing aspects of their site, actually it’s worse – they are completely unaware that aspect of site development even exists. Educating a customer to a place where they are comfortable enough to sign a contract for that service takes quite a bit of time. *Cute the light bulb!* Why not create an informative site, commodified for this market that isn’t selling anything. A site designed to bring in people who have a website or who are interested in one that know very little to nothing about the wonderful world of websites. A site to build GuanXi and network amongst the reputable sites and key figures in the local SEO industry. Not selling something directly on the site would be a huge differentiator.. however monetizing that arrangement is something I need to consider more fully.

There is also the issue of very similar to “scope creep” in the programming world which seems to be effecting some of our web design projects. Communication is key and that is obviously something that always needs to be worked on when we’re dealing with people who speak English as a 2nd language or worse yet those that we have to speak to through a translator. We try, but there always ends up being miscommunication that results in us having to do more work. Manage Expectations I always say. We’ll have to keep working on the clarity of our work proposals. We also need to properly advise when we run into ambiguity and idealists. Many are looking so far down range they can’t see what they need to focus on now to get to where they want to go later. It’s all our responsibility, a challenge, something I dread and look forward to everyday – there’s money to be made if we can get our formula right.

Crazy China – Another Day in Paradise

Every day I feel a little less motivated to do this

China is crazy. That just about sums it up. I’ve been running several events in the Nanshan area this past month including Volleyball, a Chinese language corner, and a weekly social event. This past Sunday I learned one of my participants was late because his bus broke down. Nothing unusual about that right? Wrong! One need only ask what do you mean by ‘broke down’? Turns out the buses audio system had some wires crossed and was blaring a high pitched sound regardless of what volume the driver set it to. He was actually covering his ear with one hand while driving the bus. Everyone on the bus was holding their ears. Every red light the driver turned the bus off to ease the suffering momentarily but he eventually dumped everyone on the bus off in the middle of the street to fend for themselves.

Today, another glorious Monday was more of the same, it’s funny now there doesn’t seem anything wrong with carelessly bumping into people, spitting, getting scraped in the head by an umbrella arm end, watching a little girl drop a deuce onto a crushed plastic bottle, or seeing children cheerfully run around with no bottoms on. I remember last week when I finally managed to get a bank account set up in HK I managed to receive several disapproving gauks and scoffs when I bumped into people or accidently did something “uncivilized.” I thought it was hillarious – I guess I’m turning Chinese.

Then again I do get angry because some people can’t figure out how to use my toilet… and worse yet not having the common sense to clean it up afterwards. The shower is right there, you just need to turn it on and rinse the mess away – is it so difficult? Then again I must admit I’ve never seen some of the “accidental” spillage I’ve seen here before… how do they do it?? Perhaps I should post a sign on my door, “if you use it, leave it cleaner than you found it” Probably wouldn’t change anything but I’d feel a little better.

Gotta run for now but I’ll be sure to post Mondays and Thursdays moving forward – sorry for the 3 weeks of silence!!

HongKong and Back Again

Well I’m off to Hong Kong again this afternoon (hopefully) and I thought I would share the experience with you. In order to get across the boarder besides having your passport in order with the proper visas you’ll also need to fill out the following forms. o.. btw I’m going to open a bank account and attend this social / networking event

A. 1x Chinese Immigration Departure & Arrival Card (slightly less convenient)
B. 1x Hong Kong Immigration Arrival & Departure Card (small & convenient)
C. 2x Shenzhen – Hong Kong Entry/Exit (aggrevatingly inconvenient and useless)

I usually fill these forms out beforehand as it can be quite a pain to do it while standing in line or running from bus to boarder to bus. I usually go through Huang Gang boarder (there are several ways to travel from SZ to HK you can see a thorough list of them here) The process is pretty straight forward, if not a little cumbersome, you first pass through the immigration at the Chinese boarder (leave china) – hop on the bus that takes you about 1/2 a mile to the entry station into HK (enter HK) – after your through there you get back on the bus which takes you to your final destination in HK. Rinse, Reverse, and Repeat for the return trip. You buy your bus ticket after passing through the Chinese border (you can buy 2 way tickets at a discount – tickets range in price from 35-55HKD one way & 50-85HKD two way)

Anyway, now that the logistics have been handled lets examine what I’m actually interested in sharing. Though I’ve gotten used to it more or less there is one phenomenon that seems to pervade no matter how meticulously I try to avoid it… the loud Cantonese cell phone user. You see once you get through the boarder hubbub you get to enjoy a nice 40min+ bus ride into HK wherein you would think you could take a quick nap or at least relax quietly by yourself. This is what happens – no matter where you sit he who knows not how to control the volume of his voice sits behind you. He then proceeds to receive or initiate a phone conversation a few minutes after departure that does not end until just before you arrive if not afterwards. Perhaps you think I’m being to sensitive or complaining unnecessarily… consider this – I covered my ears with my earlobs and shoved my fingers down my ear canal and I could still clearly make out every phenome these guys say. My pulse and his conversation as clear as a bell. I guess thats one vote for me against the Cantonese .