So are you Hunanese or Sichuanese?

A couple of really good articles that indirectly have some significance for business in China.First, of course, if you didn’t know, gas prices in China just went up 18%; but they are still relatively lower than the EU or the US because of remaining government subsidies.  While the domestic consumer market is not expected to revolt, the impact to prices for everything manufactured here is going to go up.  In addition, if you’re working inland and you have to truck in either materials from other provinces or you have to truck product out to a sea port your through-port costs just went up.  By the way, the fact that 18% increase in gas prices is not expected to cause massive revolts nation wide gives you an idea of how “non-Chinese” the big East-coast cities are—meaning you see photos of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Hong Kong, but these really aren’t the “reality” for most Chinese.Second, why being polite is more than just an 0lympic trend.  This article explains very clearly the business environment that most Chinese are familiar with—close personal, inter-provincial relationships.  Historically there has been very little movement between provinces (hence the hundreds of regional dialects).  What this had bred in addition to language variations is both a mistrust for other (Chinese people from other provinces) and an real inability to communicate with strangers on personal level.If you’ve worked in a factory for any length of time at all you probably noticed the province and regional cliques among the workers.  These are not just for convenience in communicating or because they like the same foods.  But there is a tangible mistrust for “others” that these groups guard against.  When things go bad, when bad news is shown on TV, when someone tells of getting ripped off, one of the first things that happens is people are “stereo-typed” by where the perpetrator was from.  “All Funan people are just like so and so,” or “All Hong Kong people are such and such.”  It can get down right nasty and racist (can you be racist within your own ethnic group?).  Certainly this is not unique to China, but since most foreigners don't speak Chinese and have a hard time telling the difference between the various Asian ethnicities it blurs the degree to which this happens.  This happens all over Asia (and everywhere else too, I know)—every province in China looks down on some other one, none of the other Chinese like people from Shanghai, Taiwanese in the North look down on their Southern “country” cousins, Thai’s look down on the Lao, Cambodian and their own Esean (northeastern) neighbors.Quick comedic sidebar.  This is the one and only episode of King of the Hill I've ever seen.  My brother showed it to me once after I told him about one of my trips to Laos.Quotes from "Westie Side Story." Written by Jonathan Aibel & Greg Berger, Directed by Brian Sheesley.

BILL: They look Japanese.DALE: Nope. I think they're Chinese.BILL: How can you tell?DALE: Japanese guys usually have glasses and a suit and a tie, and stuff like that.BOOMHAUER: Yeah, man, them Chinese, man, you can't understand a dang-ol' word they say, man, just try, dang ol' whole upside-down and whatnot.HANK: So, are you Chinese or Japanese?KAHN: I live in California last twenty years, but first come from Laos.HANK: Huh?KAHN: Laos. We Laotian.BILL: The ocean? What ocean?KAHN: We are Laotian. From Laos, stupid! It's a landlocked country in Southeast Asia. It's between Vietnam and Thailand, okay? Population 4.7 million.HANK: So, are you Chinese or Japanese?

OK, so what does this little anthropological foray have to do with business? Specifically, it means that if you are working in Jiangsu and you have someone from Jiangsu you’ll get more attention and probably better pricing.  If you are working in Guangzhou and your project manager speaks Cantonese you’ll get much more of what’s going on that if you rely solely on Mandarin.  If you are foreigner working with (any) Chinese the affect is magnified.  So does this mean that you need to hire a person for each province where you are working?  Yea, it probably does.  And why not?  If you are going hundreds of thousands of dollars of business in Guangzhou but your office is a mandarin only office in Shanghai you might want to rethink you positioning.  Ditto for a Shenzhen based Cantonese speaking office doing work in Ningbo and Jiangsu.  If you are moving into China’s second and third tier cities you’d better really study your positioning before you move.I double-checked this article’s theory with my resident Chinese expert (my Chinese wife) and she agreed and volunteered a few of my Chinese cultural missteps as examples (so helpful).  She says that when we first got married that I said “please” and “thank you” so much to my in-laws that they thought I didn’t like them!!   In Chinese society, the more polite you are to people the larger the relative social distance.  She says they understand now that I’m being police because I do like them, not the opposite.  She also pointed out that I am way too polite to line workers and office employees.  I try to always proceed a request for work with a “please” and end all emails and most conversations with a “thanks.”  Managers/Owners just don’t talk like that to people on lower economic/professional/educational/social levels.  It not only is contextually not appreciated by the thanked parties, it can also be misinterpreted to mean more than was intended.Finally, I was sent a map of Chinese development that I really liked.  I don’t agree with all the analysis and there are some cities that are now expanding the edge of the “west coast” of the Isle of China (reclaimed land?), but it’s a very visual way to express the relative development of China.