Confident and ready for the New China

They are learning English, they are able to surf the internet, they are confident, they are curios and they are very proud to be Chinese! There are many subtleties of the Chinese culture that are now becoming more clear for me, as I get deeper into the Chinese culture of today and as I become more accepted. Of course many things are improving because I can speak a few basic sentences in Mandarin and understand quite a few, in return people also open up a lot more to me.

I suppose that it is no surprise to find that the older generation still gawks at me as if I came from another planet, but young (I mean children) people readily will approach me to try out their best “hello” in English. Many of the older generation Chinese still believe blindly that Europe, the USA or Australia are the promised land. I mean this in the sense that they believe these countries are the panacea to poverty, sickness and lack of opportunity for the poor. The “Hollywood” view of the world.
The generation in the middle for the most part feels that being in China right now is a good option, however given the opportunity would love to visit these lands were the streets are paved in gold, everyone has a mansion and three cars and there is no poverty. However, they rarely talk about wanting to live outside of China, in many instances because they are terrified of having to learn English. As an interesting point that many of us westerners are not aware of, the vast majority of Chinese younger than 60 years of age are fully bilingual and in many cases trilingual. For country, business and education sake they all have to learn Mandarin when they enter elementary school, but for family and tradition sake they have to learn the parents “country language” or in some cases two, one for mother and one for father. In essence this family language is the birth language and is what is spoken at home with the family.

They are ready to try their English on any foreigner.

Young Chinese women in their teens have been targeted by exporting businesses to be their customer service, sales, translators and negotiations representatives. Occasionally you find a young man in this type of job, but generalizing the young women are more fluent and also less afraid to engage in conversations in English beyond the required. Most notable of the young Chinese (late teens early twenties) is that they very often sing while doing their jobs, no matter how mundane their job is. When asked why they sing, they reply because they are happy, I actually doubted this, so I asked a few older people why someone making $200 USD in one month, no car, family 20 hours away, sharing a bedroom with 4 or 5 other people, would want to sing? I was told two reasons, one they have a job and two they have a future.

Children 7 to 12 years old, I have call them the “new” Chinese because they are noticeably very different. They exude confidence and often will engage a foreigner in conversation at the supermarket or anywhere. This young Chinese boys and girls are growing up with internet access, some foreign television and an extreme influx of influence from Japan, Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan. You could say that they are getting a flavor of the western world “second hand”. I actually though that Chinese children would be like most children in other countries and that they would express their wishful desire to live in the USA, England or other foreign countries, but I found quite the opposite, they speak respectfully of foreign countries, but have an exuberant and very firm love for China and no desire to leave it.

They are very proud to be Chinese

I have been able to speak to a few children and although it is not a scientific poll, this children believe that they have a bright future in China, they love their culture (old and new), they are proud of their country and will openly state how lucky they feel to be Chinese. It is true that the central government in Beijing does a phenomenal job at marketing their “open-transparent” government, maybe only rivaled by new president Obama’s approach to politics. On a daily basis people are informed via all media of every project that has been approved, meetings on this and that and almost what Mr Hu Jintao ate for lunch that day. The Chinese army has its own TV channel and has a regular schedule of entertainment with singers, choirs, opera and documentaries, all produced and presented and performed by the military.

The interest in old Chinese culture is actually on the rise, many Chinese are still discovering many cultural facts that had disappeared decades ago, so the final face of China maybe something no one can predict, even the Chinese government. But, China is changing and is happening very fast and this is well before this “new” Chinese generation reaches the point of effecting change. It will be very interesting to see the effects of the new “open China” once this generation that was born in it reaches adulthood.

Cultural Revolution

Well, after reading many blogs about many things, some great and some well, not so great… I decided that I would launch my own. My goal is to be one of the “good-ones”. So, I will begin with a straight forward introduction to the purpose and reason for the blog.

If you are interested in reading about me and my background you can click on the “About” tab. In a very brief summary, I am an American-Business man and as such I will follow a few simple business rules in this blog, hence my urge to state a “purpose” and a “reason” to launch the blog.

The PURPOSE is to help “newbies” on the subject of doing business and navigating through life in China. I will endeavor to bring as clean and neutral of a perspective as I can, with the clear “caveat” that it is “my personal perspective”. The REASON is because I feel that there is room for an additional blog that looks at China from my perspective. I was born in south America, but relocated to the USA when I was 17 years old, finished my schooling and began my career in Printing and Communications. I made my way through various roles in Sales and Marketing until I became Vice president of Digital Technologies at the largest Printing and Media Communications company in the World.

I entered the global market, well before the word “globalization” was even fashionable, although I am only half a century old, I had a cup of coffee at Starbucks when it was a “one-store” company in Seattle and I attended meetings at Microsoft for production of the DOS software. These references are part of the foundation that gives birth to my perspectives looking at China’s growth and current swing from being heavily dependent on the US and other countries for it’s economy to an internal “self-sufficient” economy.

My first post is titled “so Differently the same”, because I want to explore the perspective that we “Americans” are so different from the Chinese and vice versa. I highlight Americans, because that is what I am, but the cultural shock of arriving in main land China (even only a few miles from the border or Hong Kong) is applicable to most western countries including Europe and Australia. Yes, I know once you are in China basically there is China and the “outside” countries, which are broadly categorized as west. I will try to be blunt in my approach to subjects as my intent is to present perspectives on life, business and views of China and from China, however I will also try  clarify statements when they represent a view that may be prejudiced or a generalization.

Lastly, I want to also set the stage for my readers with three different expectations that I have of my blog. One, I clearly understand that I will most likely incite not only positive responses or comments, but on occasion probably some negatives opinions, it is OK, I have done business now for over 25 years and in 11 countries, I have thick skin. Two, If anyone asks me to say my which is my, I always respond “is tied” (LOL), then I clarify is tied with number two. OK, so my native language is Spanish, however today I speak, read and write English better than I do Spanish so they are tied, suffice to say that I am a business man who can write not a writer by trade. Third, this is a commercial blog, there will be advertisements from companies or products or services that have relevance to the blog. I will try to keep these as noninvasive as possible.

I look forward to your feedback, questions and certainly if you need one-on-one help I can be reached through my contact page. Also if you would like to advertise on my blog it is best done through Google Adworks/Adsense. I will eventually launch a page for leads or mart like advertising.

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