"The English of China"

At a birthday dinner for my suitemate Omar that Lucas and I attended, I was seated to the immediate left of three of his Chinese classmates. It was both fun and humbling trying to hold a conversation in Chinese with the three of them, who were all from different parts of China; thankfully they knew some English, which kept the dialogue from coming to an abrupt halt on several occasions.

Anyways, at some point during the meal, all ten of us fell silent as one of the Chinese waitresses was loudly and angrily communicating something to one of her co-workers. I didn’t understand a word of what she was saying, and chalked it up to the fact that my Chinese still kinda sucks; but before I could ask my new friend what was going on, he leaned in and said, “Wo-men dou ting bu dong ta—We all have no idea what she’s saying!”

The reason none of us could understand her was because she was not speaking Putonghua (Mandarin Chinese) at all, but Shanghainese, the language native to the area; it is actually one of the 292 languages and dialects that are currently being spoken in the nation of China (ethnologue.com).

It was a little while ago that I learned the somewhat disappointing fact that when I had been told, “Oh everyone speaks Mandarin in China,” that was really only half true; I know now that that is kind of like saying, “Everyone speaks English in the West”—I guess it’s true that most do, especially the young people, but it certainly is not everyone’s first language. As a percentage of the total population, not very many people speak Putonghua as their first language, but most—especially the young people—have learned it as a second language to communicate with those outside their small region.

By the way, here’s a related fun fact: despite there being just short of 300 spoken languages, there is only one writing system. Well, two I guess: Traditional and Simplified—but simplified directly comes from traditional so I don’t think that counts. I think that’s crazy though, that two Chinese people who may not be able to verbally communicate with each other at all, can both look at the same written sentence and understand it perfectly. 

If You Could Go Anywhere ...

As we were exploring different places on a globe, I asked the three eight-year old kids I tutor, “If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go?”

They excitedly, simultaneously cried out, “America! America!”

I’m not exactly sure why they want to go to America so much, but I reckon it has something to do with the fact that many of their elders, from college students to their parents, would have answered that question with the same word.

The most obvious reason for this is the mountain of difference in average wages between the two nations: in 2010, the average wage in Meiguo was about $47,000 per year, whereas in China it was about $7,600 after you adjust for differences in purchasing power (World Bank). Although income per capita has been steadily improving, China still has way too much labor and not enough demand. 

Besides financial concerns, there is also the fact that in America there are, well, a lot of Chinese people—more than triple the amount in all of Europe; the trend of immigrating from the “Middle Kingdom” to the  “Beautiful Kingdom” has already been fairly well established (Wikipedia). It also seems like a fairly large percentage of the American expats here are ethnically Chinese. When native Chinese students meet these individuals, I think it serves as evidence that immigration to a particular developed country is definitely within reach, which makes that country look comparatively more attractive.

Finally, there is the whole getting-to-say-whatever-you-want thing; as it turns out, most people don’t like having their speech limited. I think a wonderful contrast can be found in the song American Idiot by Green Day, where Billie Joe Armstrong expresses in no uncertain terms his disdain for our country’s leader at the time. It’s funny to think what would happen if a Chinese artist released a comparable song over here; they would be behind bars before the first record sold.

And of course, there is the fact that many of their favorite TV shows and movies were produced and take place in America. I mean who wouldn’t want to live in the Californian paradise you so often see in theaters??

Disclaimer: I picked all of this up from conversations with various Chinese people in Shanghai-- it may not be representative of China as a whole. I know there are also many natives here who like their home country just fine, and don't want to go anywhere!

Finance Hotshots

A supremely important concept in the Chinese business and political world goes by the name of guanxi (关系). A close English translation may be “professional network.”—from everything I’ve learned about guanxi, though, that phrase doesn’t come close to capturing the reverence Chinese businessman and women have for the concept; I guess in the current economic environment if you want to get anything done here, you gotta have awesome guanxi—you need to be connected.


Something I have been wanting to do even before arriving in Shanghai is get to know some fellow foreigners involved in the vibrant finance world here. I wanted to hear from someone with first-hand experience how to get involved myself, and what it was really like being, say, an investment banker in this dynamic city. Last week, I had the opportunity to do just that.

It was maybe a couple months ago that I met a guy in his mid-twenties named Rob at a club called Sky Bar. We got talking somehow, and after asking the requisite, “why the hell are you in China?” I learned that he is an investment banker for a nearby boutique investment firm. After getting his card and sporadically staying in contact, we had the opportunity to grab burgers and Tiger beers at a cool Western restaurant last Monday, where I got to hear all about his experience here; from how he got started, to the challenging subtleties of the Chinese financial sector. Towards the end, he invited me to a semi-monthly get together he was in the process of establishing for young expats in finance, so the next evening, my friend Eric and I found ourselves sipping Guiness at the same table as five Shanghai finance hotshots in their mid-twenties to early-thirties, who were having an invigorating back-and-forth about the latest in the Shanghai finance world.

Most of the time, I sort of felt like I was listening to Chinese—catching maybe 60-80 percent of what they were saying; but from what I did understand, it really is a much different world than back home (not that I have had any experience in the finance world back home; some of these guys had though).

If I record my favorite quote of the night, I may run the risk of the Man kicking me out of the country (yes, I’ve heard of foreigners receiving that penalty for lesser petty speech-related crimes). But in a similar, though milder, spirit, I think my biggest takeaway was how prevalent coruption still is in the highest levels of the Chinese government and finance world. In my opinion, it seems like that is only the natural consequence of such a strong emphasis on guanxi, but for whatever reason, strong-arming, bribry, and under-the-table dealings are very much alive and well. I suppose you could make the argument that similar shenanigans probably happens at the highest levels of most governments and companies, so it's just a matter of degree. And I'm sure it's not as bad now as it was. But still, it's a bit unnerving hearing stories to this effect.

Another interesting thing I learned is there is a cap on the number of foreigners a given firm in China can hire; it varies by sector, but for almost everyone it is well under ten percent. Although this is no doubt hurting China’s productivity in the here and now, I suppose this kind of law serves to provide many more training opportunities for otherwise professionally inexperienced young Chinese people. So I guess it makes economic sense from a future-oriented, nationalist perspective.

It was cool hearing lots of other tidbits, as well as interesting anecdotes about some foreign companies that have succeeded over here, and others that haven’t. As for my overall impression, it seems that doing finance in Shanghai is a crazy, exciting, and challenging endeavor, and I was certainly inspired to step up my efforts to find a way to get my feet wet.

Anyone Have A Turkey??

An interesting thing about Chinese cuisine is that it is completely devoid of turkey of any kind. Nowadays in Shanghai there are plenty of restaurants that specifically cater to the foreign palate, so turkey isn’t all that hard to come by. This was not always the case, however.

The youth leader at our church told a pretty funny story that happened a little while back in Shanghai. Some missionaries were coming through around Thanksgiving time, and they really wanted to have a traditional American turkey dinner. The family that was hosting them, however, hadn’t the first idea where they could track down the desired main dish.

They thought long and hard about where they might find some turkey meat, considering all the foreign pockets and markets they knew of. Finally, they were struck with a brilliant idea.

They headed over to the zoo.

They found the turkeys.

They bought them.

They had an amazing, traditional American Thanksgiving dinner. Now that is dedication!

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! It was of course a bummer not eating delicious sweet potatoes and turkey with my amazing family this year; but that considered, Thanksgiving in Shanghai was actually super fun. Some 20+ of us threw on our freshly made, fitted (and incredibly cheap) shirts and suit coats/dresses, then headed over to the Big Bamboo sports bar and grill where we had a whole room reserved for our group. After some fantastic Western food, passable Carlsbergs, nice cigars, a McFlurry for dessert, and overall great times and conversation we finally took the sixty-cent subway ride back to our dorm just in time to cram for our quiz this morning.

At some point last night, Vince asked me the requisite “what are you thankful for?” question, adding that he was looking for an unusual answer. I immediately thought of my awesome family, and how great it would be to be home with them for this meal. But then I thought I would answer differently: I told him I’m thankful for the opportunity to miss my family. For one, because it signifies their value to me, but also because my inability to join them this week means that I am somewhere far from home; I had been blessed with the opportunity to explore new places, meet new people, and allow my perspective to be molded and influenced by a new section of the Almighty God’s beautiful creation. As the conclusion of this trip draws nearer, I am recognizing more and more just how priceless of an experience it has been; and for that, I am extraordinarily thankful. Happy thanksgiving!

Oxford Christianity

One of my favorite aspects of living as an expat in Shanghai is that you experience not only Chinese culture, but also the full spectrum of cultures from around the world.

One of my new friends that I met through SCF, the expat church we’ve been going to, is an awesome British dude (Chinese word: Ying-guo-ren) in his mid-twenties who works at the British Consulate here in Shanghai. He is quite the stereotypical Englishman in speech, mannerisms, and also in his level of intelligence (This was confirmed a few weeks after meeting him when I learned from someone else that he studied Politics, Economics, and Philosophy at Oxford.)

We had the chance to grab some coffee not too long ago, and during the course of the conversation I learned that while at Oxford, he had the opportunity to lead the Christian fellowship there for some time. I was curious about the Christian presence at elite universities in Britain, so I asked how many students typically participated in this fellowship. He told me that it was probably quite a small amount by American standards: for the 15,000 strong university there were approximately 200 students participating in the fellowship’s activities at any given time.

This number was much larger than I was expecting, especially considering the somewhat bleak state of the Church in Europe as a whole; also as far as I know, the Christian presence at elite universities in the States are not nearly this size. For example, one of my buddies at Stanford was involved in a Christian fellowship there for a bit, and it couldn’t have had much more than twenty or thirty students.

My British friend explained that back home the more elite the university you find yourself in, the larger the Christian influence tends to be (In jest, he said something along the lines of, “we figure that if you’re smart enough, you just tend to work it out somehow!”). I wondered why this was, and why this doesn’t seem at all to be the pattern back in the US.  I suppose it may just come down to the apparent fact that God works in different people in different ways; when this point-of-view is broadened, it makes sense that he would also work within different cultures in unique ways. But I recognize that's a very general statement ... what do you think about this?

Red Light Revolution

So yesterday, my buddy Eric proposed that we attend a screening of the independent film “Red Light Revolution;” It was supposedly a comedy about a Chinese sex-shop startup in Beijing.  Myself, about twelve of the kids in our program, and our program director (awesome Chinese lady in her thirties) couldn’t say no to that tagline, so tonight we headed over to the hosting restaurant/venue and checked it out.


Trailer (warning: just a bit on the risque side ...)


The film will not be winning any Grammies anytime soon, but it was a very enjoyable watch. The silly, clever humor was consistent throughout the ninety minutes, and the cinematography was (as far as I can tell) quite well done. Also, it was not nearly as crude as one might expect when first hearing about it; the humor is mostly based off the protagonist’s previous innocence to the world of the sex shop. So besides a somewhat abrupt ending and the absence of a definable climax, the movie, as well as the complimentary gift bag (!), were certainly worth the $9 entry fee.

Those Freaking Tones ...

So one of the most foreign—some might say most annoying—features of the Chinese language from the perspective of a Western learner is the importance of tones; the meaning of a certain sound completely changes depending on the inflection you say it with. For example, take the sound “yo.” If you say it with an upward tone it means oil, as said when describing food or something with petroleum; a downward tone means the direction “right”; and a short downward, then immediate upward inflection means “to have.” Remembering not only the sound, but also the specific tone for each word can be maddening.

I had assumed this was something that people who learn Chinese as their first language just pick up naturally, but I found out recently that they sometimes get this wrong as well. While in Xi’an, we had some extra time at one of the tourist spots so we were able to converse with some of the native Xi’anese. During the course of the conversation, I asked them what their favorite place in China was; one answered that he liked a particular town, which he gave us the name of (I forget it now, let’s say it was Guangzhou). Almost as soon as he told us though, his friend jumped in and corrected him; the name wasn’t Guangzhou, it was Guangzhou. This man was probably in his thirties and had likely spoken nothing but Mandarin Chinese his whole life, but he made a mistake with the tones. I laughed out loud and instantly felt a connection with the guy.  It is a huge relief to know that I’ll never have to know these tricky inflections absolutely perfectly!

As difficult as learning the tones is, however, I do have to say that I actually really enjoy that aspect of the language. I think this could possibly be because I have a somewhat extensive musical background. Now I can’t quite say that the use of specific tones makes Chinese sound more beautifully musical, but it does add a sort of melodic element to conversations. Normal, mundane sentences became much more dynamic and can be quite fun to say once you have them down. And, like memorizing characters, the more words you learn the easier it becomes. So while the existence of tonal differences certainly puts the brakes on the process of learning Mandarin, I can’t say I mind too much.

Waiguoren Drink Free

For Halloween a few weeks ago, a bunch of us in our program dressed up and headed to a club that was right on the river that cuts through Shanghai.  It was supposedly inside a huge warehouse-type setting and there were going to be a few well know DJ’s there. This sounded cool, so despite the $15 entry fee, we thought we would check it out.

While we were waiting outside for the rest of our group, however, the hosts at the competing club next-door kept telling us that if we came inside—for free—they would give us unlimited free drinks. Why? Because we were foreigners (Chinese word: Wai-guo-ren). At first we laughed it off, but as we waited there longer we eventually decided it couldn’t hurt to check it out, so we headed in.

And sure enough the free drinks came—but not for everyone in our group. Whites, Blacks, Middle Easterners, Mexicans—everyone heralding from one of these races was taken care of by the house, but the bartender refused to give anything to the Chinese-Americans in our group. It was really one of the most blatant instances of racism I have ever seen. But this was the strange thing: every single person working in that club was Chinese; the hosts, the bartender, we even talked to the manger for a bit—they were all Chinese. But they would only give free alcohol to those of us who were visibly not from around here.

It seems the truth is that if you are an ethically Chinese person living in China, you may or may not have money; but if you are a wai-guo-ren, you almost definitely do. This means that some managers of the clubs, bars, restaurants, etc. will bend over backwards to attract foreigners to there establishments, as in their minds that will automatically add an air of sophistication to the environment. In Shanghai, we benefit from this from time to time, but in other cities in China the wai-guo-ren benefit is just ridiculous.

For example, we recently reunited with some of the Chengdu (huge city in Western China) study abroad students while touring Xi’an for a couple days. One girl in particular told me that over the course of their almost-two months in the city, she and a certain group have been going out and drinking liberally three or four times a week (they're animals!). In that time, she has spent about $30 on alcohol. When they enter clubs, bars, and karaoke bars, either the management or their fellow customers invariably cannot wait to shower them with drinks. (Also, in Chengdu, they generally behave the same way towards the Chinese-Americans in their group; they just have to open their mouths, making it instantly plain they are culturally American!)

I should also mention that while bar-managers may just be seeing walking dollar signs (or RMB signs) when they see a wai-guo-ren, most of the Chinese that I’ve met are also very friendly towards us foreigners but for a different reason. For the most part, they seem to be genuinely curious about the world and lifestyle outside the country they have never had the opportunity to leave; conversing with and getting to know these people has been an opportunity I feel considerably blessed to have.

As Easy As 1, 2, 3

Only two years after Mao’s death in 1976, Deng Xiaoping’s call for a transition to a “socialist market economy” was met with widespread enthusiasm. Though everyone knew pure communism had failed, everyone also knew they couldn’t embrace the open market overnight—it had to be done slowly and deliberatively. The period from 1978 until the present day can be divided into three phases:

First Phase: 1978-1984

The first important step during this initial period was to allow the managers of the State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) increased, albeit still greatly limited, autonomy. They just had a little more say in the allocation of the SOEs profits, as well as their production targets.

I think that a brilliant innovation by the Chinese government during this time was their dual-pricing system. Here’s an example to illustrate how it basically worked. Lets say we’re running a TV factory; the Man has given us a certain production quota we must meet, and the TVs within that quota must be sold at a certain price. If we produced any TVs above and beyond that quota, however, we were free to sell them at whatever price we wished, or in other words, the market price. This sort of system allowed for a relatively smooth transition from planned prices to market-based prices.

Second Phase: 1985-1993

During this time, further independence was granted to the SOEs—the idea was to transition them into independent economic entities. Additionally, private business flourished; their comparative efficiency revealed the weakness of SOEs.

One problem during this time came as a result of the “contract responsibility system.” Under this system, managers signed 3-5 year contracts with the relevant government agencies, and simply reported to them; this was good because it further separated the actual management of the SOEs from the ownership of the government. However with such short contracts, firms tended to be overly focused on short-term goals rather than long-term.

Other big steps during this time was the expansion of shareholding companies, as well as the listing of large SOEs on the stock market, allowing them access to external sources of funding.

Third Phase: 1993-Present

During this phase, the reform goal became setting up a Modern Enterprises System, or in other words, transforming SOEs into modern corporations. This can be further explained by a series of catch phrases:

“Do some things, leave some things undone,” “Some develop and some recede,” and “Manage large enterprises while easing control over smaller ones.” As can be gathered from these slogans, the general idea was for the government to focus on the large, strategic, industries, while leaving everything else to the market—to put some numbers to it, the government is focusing on the top 1000 SOE’s which account for about 40% of total assets in the economy. For example, currently power and cell service is provided through the state, while clothes and dining are not.

From 1993 on, economic reforms were much more systematic and fundamental. They have also been extensive, including reforms in property rights, SOEs, factor markets, prices, goods distribution, social security, foreign trade, and government functions.

Privatization also commenced on a mass scale during 1995; by the following year, over half of small SOE’s had been privatized.

Result?

Over this time period, from 1978 until this minute, China has averaged a 9.8% annual growth rate. It is absolutely unreal how well these policies have worked.

Moving forward, there has been much speculation that perhaps China’s growth is about to hit a plateau. This is of course more than possible, but in my opinion my current host country has quite a bit of “easy” development left in it, for the following reason: it seems that most of their growth has come from a combination of privatizing SOE’s and liberalizing those that the government retained control over. The privatized companies have been flourishing, while the liberalized SOE’s are doing better. In spite of this however, the SOE’s performance is lackluster compared to their privatized counterparts; The Economist had an article about this recently, how SOE’s overall performance has been unimpressive at best. I think that if they stay the course, if the government stays disciplined in it’s pattern of letting control of their own economy go, then China will continue growing spectacularly for many years yet.

(Source: Professor Mao Zhongming)

Where Did Mao Go Wrong?

As many of us know, it was not all that long ago that China was a fully qualified communist country. It was between the years of 1949 and 1978, under the leadership of the venerable Mao Zedong, that they took a shot at this whole planned-economy thing. Here are some of the salient features of the Chinese industrial world during this time:

-       -State and local governments owned virtually all of the enterprises within the country. The transfer of ownership happened mostly during the ten years following the revolution in 1949; the government bought out private factories in installments, until by the early sixties, they basically owned everything.

-       -Managers were appointed by the government and responsible to the government.

-       -The government only invested in industries as informed by social concerns, not business concerns for a particular SOE (State-Owned Enterprise).

-       -SOE’s assumed two roles: production, and providing welfare for their employees

-       -Production was strictly controlled by the state plan; products did not go to the market directly

-       The state provided grants to enterprises, and enterprises submitted profits to the government

After some years the centrally planned economy brought along the following five general consequences:

-       1. Stagnation of industrial production and a shortage of industrial products

-       2. Waste in resources

-       3. Widespread market failure (planning an economy for a billion people is hard!)

-       4. Broadly speaking, SOE’s were sluggish, ineffective, and inefficient.

-       5. The automotive, machinery, and steel industries in particular could not take full advantage of economies of scale, seeing as their only source of funding was a tightly stretched government. This prevented them from becoming competitive globally.

The decrepit and backwards economy China found itself with after Mao’s death in 1976 set the stage perfectly for Deng Xiaoping, the economic savior of China, to swoop in to the rescue. Reforms implemented on his watch led to the explosion of growth in the Middle Kingdom (Chinese word for China, “Zhong-guo”) that is continuing through today. My next post will touch on what exactly that smart guy did.

(Source: Professor Mao Zhongming)