Guanxi (关系)

As I mentioned in my previous post, I have been accumulating Guanxi during my time here in China.  For those of you who do not know what Guanxi is (and I'm assuming that's just about all of you, this post is going to be all about Guanxi: what it is, its use, and probably a list of phrases that use Guanxi.

Guanxi.  (For those of you who are lazy and want to stop reading this post right now, you can click on this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guanxi)

While there is no direct translation of Guanxi from Chinese to English, the best way to describe Guanxi is that it is a form of Networking.  In the US, when you are looking for a job, you network.  You reach out to friends and acquaintances and see if they can help you find a job opportunity.  In China, Guanxi is much like that.  Guanxi is networking on Steroids, Crack, and Adderal all at the same time.  If you 'Have Guanxi' that means that you know someone who can owe you a favor and can provide you support in a time of need.  

The primary difference between Guanxi and Networking is that Guanxi can be far more tangible.  If you are unemployed, but you 'Have a lot of Guanxi' you will not be unemployed for long because your connections will feel obligated to get you a job.

Example.  I was at a bar about a month ago and a group of us were all talking and we met this guy named Benson.  I have no idea what his real name is, and I think Benson sounds kind of lame, so for the sake of this story, let's call him Mr. Guanxi.  As I was talking to Mr. Guanxi he asked me if I had ever been to this one club called Propaganda.  I said that I had and in fact, I even had a VIP card to get in.  He was impressed and said that me and my friends should meet up with him at Propaganda sometime.  He then offered to drive me and my roommate home (he had not been drinking) and I said OK.  As we walk out of the bar me and Dennis see this guys car.  It was a REALLY nice car.  I forget the model, but he told us that he bought it for the equivalent of 40,000 USD.  He then went on to explain that he is going to buy another car in the next few weeks.  He starts telling is that he works for Cisco and that he does sales (or so he said) for them.  The next part of the story is where Mr. Guanxi truly shows his Guanxi power.  He tells me and Dennis that if we ever need a job, to give him a call and he can get us a job at Cisco.  Ka-Blam. Guanxi.

(Caveat to that story is that a week later I gave Mr. Guanxi my VIP card to that club and I haven't heard from him since)

The ability to have Guanxi is especially important in a country like China where there are so many rules.  People who have Guanxi can use said Guanxi to gain them exemptions to these rules.  These exemptions can range from getting a table at a restaurant to getting permission to build an apartment complex where it is against zoning code.

Having a good vocabulary pertaining to the word Guanxi is very important (if you are a foreigner and generally think the entire concept of Guanxi is moderately ridiculous... like I do.)

As such, here is a taste of some of the phrases that my friends and I have taken to using when talking about Guanxi:

"Dude, I rocked some mad Guanxi earlier"

"I'm dripping in Guanxi"

"Can I get a napkin, I think I spilled some Guanxi"

"I'm rollin' in Guanxi"

"I bet that person showers in Guanxi"

... and so on and so forth, you get the idea.

Moral of the story:  If you don't think you have enough of this awesome Guanxi, you probably don't.  Tough.

Planes, Trains, Automobiles, and Gondolas

Traveling around China is much more of an adventure compared to traveling around The Glorious United States of America.  For one thing, there are very different options for traveling and all the options have their pros and cons.  This post is devoted to the (less) awesome aspects of different modes of transportation in China.

Planes.

Planes (飞机) are one of the dominant modes of transportation in both the United States of Awesome and the People’s Republic (what makes it a Republic?) of China.  The government has recently finished building a massive (marginally smaller than Jupiter) new terminal at the Beijing airport.  It’s very nice and clean (which is very different from the rest of China).  The one downside to traveling on planes is that it is far and away the most expensive way to get around China.  I’ll let you know how it goes when I take my first domestic flight.

Trains.

It is important to realize that there are two different kinds of trains in China.  Let’s first focus on the Subway.  The subway is the cheapest way to get around the city and depending on the time you go it is even possible to get a seat!  It costs the equivalent of $.30 every time I go on the subway and all I have to do is put my wallet near the scanner at all subway stations.  Since there is a subway station right by my apartment (公寓), it is very convenient to take the subway everywhere around the city.  Sometimes though the subway is packed and there are people whose job is squishing as many people onto the subway as possible.  Lets just say you get to know the people standing next to you far better than you would ever want to.  On the other hand, I was taking the subway a couple days ago and there was a man who was just sitting there folding origami animals and handing them out to people.

There are also the trains that take you from city to city.  You can either take a soft sleeper (an actual bed. AKA the best way to travel on the train), a hard sleeper (a bed, but not as comfortable), a soft seat (like an airplane seat except it doesn’t recline), a hard seat (terrible.), and then worst-case scenario is standing only.  This past weekend I went to Tai’an to go to the mountain Tai Shan.  The train ride was 8 hours each way.  I unfortunately did not have a soft sleeper, or a hard sleeper, or a soft seat.  I got stuck in a hard seat next to a Chinese woman who was monopolizing all my leg space with her massive bags that were filled with some kind of juice.  We’re just going to call it “China-Juice” because I have no idea what it was.  Then she got up and left and I finally had space to actually sit comfortably.  Then some man came down and sat in her seat.  He proceeded to hawk up loogies, smell terrible, and basically embody everything that makes me angry at China.  I therefore left my seat and stood for the rest of my trip because I couldn’t stand that guy.

On the way back to Beijing, I was stuck standing.  Imagine a time you had no fun.  Got it?  This was worse.  I was standing for a couple of hours before some Chinese guy decided that I could take his seat.  When I sat down, the Chinese people around me proceeded to teach me Chinese card games, ask me about America, ask me about China, and also had some very weird requests.  They asked me to sing and dance.  Ok.  Let’s think about this.  A bunch of random Chinese people asked a foreigner on the train to sing and dance.  DO I LOOK LIKE I’M AN ENTERTAINER?  I DO NOT LIKE SINGING.  I DO NOT DANCE (To all family members: please skip to next line.) UNLESS I AM ‘NOT SOBER’.

I was moderately offended but I decided to keep talking to these people because it was great opportunity to practice my Chinese.  We ended up talking about everything from Swine Flu to Skype.  At one point I was drawing a crowd because so many Chinese people wanted to see the foreigner speak Chinese.  It was weird.

Automobiles.

I am not allowed to drive in China seeing as I don’t have a Chinese drivers license.  However, I have extensively taken part in the ritual of taking a cab.  Cab drivers are… either awesome… or… assholes.  There truly is no middle ground.  Some cab drivers will be jolly, get you to your destination the fastest way possible, and not spit or smoke in the car.  Other drivers will: get lost, spit and smoke while driving, not talk, and blatantly rip me off for being a foreigner.  I somewhat know my way around Beijing so if I know that a driver is deliberately ripping me off, I will direct him or her to the right street.  Other times, the driver will take the longest route possible and when that happens, I get angry.  The drivers don’t like me when I’m angry.  I grow to 50 feet tall, turn green, and crush their car.  Kind of.  I just end up paying them a lot less than the meter in the cab says and tell them that I’m not an idiot and that it was too expensive and just walk away.  They don’t like this.  They can fricken deal with it.  Just because I’m a foreigner doesn’t mean they can rip me off.

Gondolas.

The preferred way to travel.  For sure.

While at Tai Shan, I realized there was a far easier way of getting down the mountain than walking down.  Any guesses as to how I got down the mountain.  Hint: I didn’t ride a yak down the mountain. 

I took a gondola.  It was awesome.  Granted, I did have to wait about 2 to 3 hours to get on the gondola during which time I would have made it to the bottom of the mountain had I walked.  The gondola ride was about 10 minutes long and allowed me to get amazing pictures of the surrounding area.  Plus, while I was waiting in line, I met a tour guide who spoke English and he offered to help me find a hotel for the night (I was homeless for a few hours) and also offered to help me find other places to visit around China.  I was rockin’ the Guanxi with him.  I’ll explain what Guanxi is in a later post and also describe the extent to which I have Guanxi.

 

I hope this was an informative narrative on how travel in China works.  I’ll see you all in a couple months!

Tai Shan

This weekend was the first weekend that I did not have class on Sunday evenings, so I took advantage of it and decided to go visit the mountain Tai Shan. 

(Side note: I didn’t have class because it was International Workers Day.  I went to arguably the most famous mountain in China.  On Labor Day.  In a Communist country.).

Taishan was amazing.  There is absolutely no other way to say it.  The climb up the mountain took about two and a half hours at least which sounds long, but it was worth it.  There were tens of thousands of people climbing the mountain the same day as me and absolutely none of them were foreigners.  I felt like I was in “Real China.” 

Along the way up the mountain there were incredible views.  I was able to look out over the entire mountain range and see for miles (or kilometers as they would say here… stupid metric system.  Dumb.).  There were huge rock formations and some of the formations even had characters on them, though I was unable to read them because my Chinese skills are somewhat limited. 

After getting to the top of the mountain, I needed some water and ice cream.  I have never felt more relieved in my entire life after getting water and ice cream after the treacherous climb up the mountain.  After walking along the top of the mountain for a bit, I got some food at some random restaurant.  Fried rice, potatoes, and noodles were all we got.  It was also one of the most filling meals I have eaten since I have been here because I was so exhausted.

The top of the mountain is a lot bigger than I thought it was when I was climbing.  Walking around I quickly realized that there were tons of smaller sites to see on the top.  There were famous rocks (it sounds boring, but its not) and famous vistas.  I even got to climb up and stand on the Immortal Bridge, which is exactly as cool as it sounds.  I don’t think I was allowed to climb on top of it because I quickly drew a crowed of Chinese people who began to point at me and speak quickly.  Nonetheless it was still awesome (see my photos to see me on top of the bridge.  It’s the picture with me standing on the three rocks over a ravine).

As I mentioned earlier, there were no foreigners at Taishan.  Also, many of the Chinese people that were at the mountain were not exactly the most traveled people ever, so many of them had never met a non-Chinese person before.  Many Chinese people would randomly come up to me and ask if they could take their picture with me.  I obliged, and then got a picture for myself with them because I found the situation funny. 

Getting down the mountain was quite difficult and that will be included in my next blog post that will be all about traveling. 

I’m looking forward to seeing all of my friends that are coming to China this summer!  See you all soon!

What Happens in China... Goes on my Blog.

Living in China is very different from living in a country like America.  For one thing, there are about 1 billion more people in China than America.  Aside from all the cultural aspects that showcase those differences (check my last blog post for some of the… less glamorous differences), there are other aspects to living in China that make for excellent, if not odd, stories.  These are those stories.

 

The Lobster Story.

 The Context:  I am walking to a meeting with one of my professors in the business building on the opposite side of campus calmly listening to music and generally being foreign.

The Place:  Sidewalk outside of the journalism building (not near any restaurant, lake, or aquatic anything)

What happened?

Pictured:  Sebastian Rockin' Out in China

This happened.

WTF?:  I don’t know how this happened either.  There, in the middle of the sidewalk, a lobster.  Was it lonely? Was it lost? Was it staging a breakout from a secret communist lobster prison intent on making delicious buttery gourmet meals?  I have no idea.  What I do know is this lobster was: 1. Big enough to freak me out. 2. Lobster-y enough to freak me out. And 3.  Probably really hungry (Do lobsters eat Chinese food?  Probably not.).

What did I do?:  I casually took a picture with my phone from a distance (so the lobster wouldn’t attack me) and walked away wondering if I should have taken it as a pet.

 

The “I want you to be my language partner” Story.

The Context:  I am not feeling that well, so I go outside to get some fresh air (or as fresh as you can get in Beijing).  I decide to walk around Beijing Language and Culture University because it is really close to my apartment.

The Place:  Beijing Language and Culture University park as I am walking back to my apartment after getting moderately non-carcinogenic fresh air.

What Happened?  Some random Chinese girl very creepily walks up and asks me if I want a language partner to practice my Chinese with.  She is switching between speaking English and Chinese yet I still understand her.  I tell her that I don’t have time for a language partner this week because I have too many exams but that I will have time next week.  I give her my phone number and name.  I then walk back towards my apartment.  About half a mile away from the initial encounter as I am about to cross the street to enter my apartment complex, I look behind me and see the Chinese girl running towards me with another Chinese girl in tow.

WTF?:  I thought I had made myself quite clear.  In multiple languages.  I. Don’t.  Have. Time. Now.  That was apparently lost on these Chinese girls.  The Chinese girl I had first talked to chastised me for walking so slow and then proceeded to introduce me to my soon-to-be language partner. 

What did I do?:  I had the exact same conversation with her as I had with the previous Chinese girl and had bust out my not that impressive Chinese skills to explain that I didn’t have time and that she should call me next week.  They were not ashamed at all for chasing me a half-mile down the street.  Weird? Yes.  Odd? Yes.  Flattering?  Not Really.

 

The Silk Market Story. 

The Context: I decide that since it is getting sunny out (or as sunny as it can get with the Air/Smog) that I need a hat and sunglasses.

The Place:  The Silk Market.  This is where you go to buy all the fake brand name goods you could have ever wanted. I decide I want to get a Polo hat and aviator sunglasses.

What Happened?:  I am standing in this one store trying on different hats.  I finally decide that instead of the Polo hat that I went to the market looking for, I want to get a Lacoste hat.  I pick up the hat, try it on.  All good.  I then start the strenuous task of price negotiation.  It is actually more of a ‘war’ than it is a ‘task’ but that’s not the point.  Point being.  As I am negotiating on price and an refusing to pay more then 30 Yuan, the woman begins to freak out at me.  The highlight of her freak out being this:

            Me:  I’ll give you 30 Yuan, no more.

            Saleswoman:  OPEN YOUR BIG EYES. THIS HAT IS GREAT QUALITY

WTF?:  My big eyes?  I’m sorry, are my eyes big?  Was that racism?  Maybe? Yes.  It was racist.  I just got made fun of for having “Big” eyes. 

What did I do?:  I kicked the woman in the shins, stuck my tongue out at her, grabbed the hat and ran without paying.  I was bad-ass.

That’s a lie.  I ended up paying 35 Yuan for the hat and left morally dejected and self-conscious about my massive eyes.  I wore the sunglasses I bought for a week to hide my planet sized eyes.

All of these stories may seem random (and that's because they are random), but the important thing to take away from this is that living in China can provide you unique experiences that you can't get by living in such  thriving metropolises like Oxford, Ohio or Buffalo Grove, Illinois.  There have been other stories that I have gained from being here, but out of fear (of the government) I will not post some of the stories until I return to America.  Even though I was almost trampled by a lobster, kidnapped by a language tutor, and racially belittled by a saleswoman, I can honestly say that I still love living in China and it is an experience I wouldn't trade for anything, except maybe smaller eyes.

Chinese Habits that I kind of possibly maybe hate with every cell in my body

It is obvious that there are going to be many cultural differences and social habits that are different from the United States and China.  What might not be as obvious is how… not pleasing some of those habits can be.  This post is all about the non-awesomeness of some socially acceptable habits that would get you flogged in America.

Spitting.

People spit in America.  People hawk up loogies like it’s their job in China.  When people spit in America, they are subtle about it and will usually spit on the grass and always away from other people.  In China, people will spend up to 10 seconds hawking up a massive loogie and then spit it wherever they feel like.  When you walk down the sidewalk, you have to watch the ground to make sure you don’t step in spit.

Now I’m sure you are all reading this and picturing some random guy who is probably not very well off in China walking down the street and spitting.  This is not the case.  Everyone spits in China.  Little Kids.  Old Ladies.  Businessmen in suits.  Taxi drivers (they will hawk up a loogie and then open the door and spit it out).  This is one habit I:

    1.     Will not adopt

2.     Can’t stand

And 3.  Makes me miss America.

Sh*tting.  Pissing.

When we in America need to do our business, we find a bathroom, and handle the problem.  Babies have diapers and those diapers get changed in the private confines of a bathroom.

NOT IN CHINA.

In China the concept of a diaper has just not caught on for a significant amount of the population.  While adults may not poo and pee in the streets, little kids pick the burden of defiling the ground.  Little kids often wear pants that are slit in the front and back so that when it is ‘time’ they can just squat.  Now, you may say “As gross as that is, at least the little kids will drop their deuces in the woods or pee on a tree.” 

No.

The kids relieve themselves wherever they see fit.  The Sidewalk.  Trashcans.  Cultural Relics. 

I can’t talk about this anymore.  It’s making me sick.

 

Not Queuing Up.

Chinese people have a strong aversion to lines.  When you go to by food, when you go to buy a ticket to visit the summer palace, when you try and get into a cab, when you are trying to get into a taxi, when you try to just about anything, someone will cut you off and take your spot.  It’s terrible.  Most times, the people who but you in line will look at you as if to dare you to do something about it.  Being a foreigner, I usually just let it slide because I don’t want to get into a fight with someone because my Chinese language skills are not good enough to yell at someone (though I do know some decent curse words).  Other times I just can’t take it anymore and will just elbow/push the person behind me and stare right back at them daring to do something about it.  It is gratifying reclaiming my spot in line.  Very gratifying.

 

I’ll see you all in a few months when I return to the United Awesome States of America.

 

PS- Boston University hockey blows.

我非常喜欢北京

So I have been living in Beijing for about two months and I think it’s about time I updated you all on where I have been.

I have actually not been to that many places because I have been so busy with classes and generally being lazy, but I have been to a few pretty cool sites.

I have gone to the Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven, the Silk Market, and Zhongguancun.  Each of those places were awesome in their own way; however, I’m going to tell you right now that the Silk Market is quite possibly the worst place on the entire planet.

The Forbidden City (故宫) is probably the coolest place that I have been since being in China.  There is so much history there along with a lot of traditional Chinese architecture.  It seemed as if every building that I walked into had some kind of Throne that people were all gathered around.  The Forbidden City also had what was probably the highlight of my trip so far: The Mountain of Accumulated Elegance.  It is not really a mountain as it is a large natural stone edifice, but it is still really cool.  The Chinese do a lot of really weird things (that I’ll talk about in my next post), but one thing that the Chinese do VERY well is naming things.  When you look at a sign and realize you are about to see a Mountain of Accumulated Elegance, you know that whatever that mountain is, it’s going to be amazing.

The Temple of Heaven was another traditional Chinese historic place that was split into three sections in addition to having a very large park.  The literal translation of The Temple of Heaven from Chinese to English is ‘The Sky Temple’ and that is because Chinese people do not believe in Heaven.  (Chinese fun fact, instead of saying “Oh my God!” Chinese people say “Oh My Sky!”)  The highlight of the temple of heaven was standing on a rock.  That may sound really lame.  History Time: Back in the olden-days, only the Emperor was allowed to stand on this certain rock and everyone had to listen to him when he was on that rock.  I stood on that rock.  I’m not clear on the whole process, but I’m fairly confident that I am now a Chinese Emperor.  I’ll be sure to let you all know how that turns out.

The Silk Market is where you go if you want to by fake clothes, shoes, watches, games, and just about anything fake that you would ever want other than computers and cell phones.  I needed to go buy a pair of dress shoes because I didn’t bring any and there were probably about 30-40 stores where I could have bought the shoes.  I went up to the first store I walked to, picked out a pair of shoes, tried them on, they fit, and so I began to negotiate.  Negotiating should be a fairly simple process of exchanging desired prices until a mutual agreement can be reached.  Not in China.  The first price I was given was 1,850 Yuan (over 340 US Dollars).  I responded by saying 100 Yuan.  That’s when things got interesting.  The more I talked with the store owners and talked about price, the more physical they got with me and they were refusing to allow me to leave the store.  I got pretty mad (I like my personal space) and so I was finally able to shove the owners out of the way and leave the store.  As I was walking away they agreed to give me the shoes for 255 Yuan.  I paid, and ran away.  I’m never going back there.   Ever.

Zhongguancun.  You probably have no idea what this is.  It is actually a street; however, on this street is where you buy everything that needs electricity.  Everything sold there is fake.  If I were to use one word to describe Zhongguancun in one word, that word would be Heaven.  This place is amazing.  It has tons of cell phones, computers, Playstations, Xboxes, and just about everything that I could ever want to buy.  If anyone wants me to get them a fake iPhone while I’m here, let me know.

That’s all for now, but I’ll be sure to post again soon!

 

我爱美国！

我的学校很意思！

So it has been way too long since my last blog post.  I’m going to try and have a post at least once a week form now on so keep you all up-to-date on my China travels (or lack thereof).

This post is going to be all about classes and school because, after all, that is why I am in China.  Do you remember how in my last blog post how I said that I had finalized my classes? If not, go check.  Good? Ok.  I lied.  My classes were not finalized then.

My classes are now:

1. Marketing Research (MBA)
2. Human Resource Management (MBA)
3. Doing Business In China (Undergrad)
4. Service Marketing (Undergrad)
5. Primary Business Chinese (MBA)
6. Consumer Behavior (MBA)

In addition to those classes I am also doing an independent study of Chinese 202.  That is being run through Miami because I need to get credit for CHI202 this semester but there was no equivalent class at PKU.

I’m sure some of you are wondering: “Why is Daniel taking so many classes?  Doesn’t he want to explore China and stuff while he is there?”  You would be right.  I do want to explore China.  And there is so much to see in the Beijing area alone (more on that in a later post).  However, of the classes listed above, 1, 2, and 3 end after the 10^th week of the semester, and 4 and 6 end after the 12^th week of the semester.  That leaves me a decent amount (read: over a month of 6 day weekends) of time to go and travel around China.

The MBA classes that I am in are actually easier than the Undergraduate classes.  My Marketing Research professor went to school at UIUC (small world).  Him and me had a pretty good talk about Illinois, which was pretty awesome.  My HRM class is quite possibly the most boring class known to man (closely followed by Doing Business in China).  My Service Marketing Professor… How to describe him?  The only way I can describe him is that he is The Man.  He blatantly favors foreign students, loves America, and spends class time occasionally recommending restaurants and talking about how the service industry (Restaurants, Airlines, etc.) in China sucks compared to the service industry in America.  The only downside to the Service Marketing class is that there is so much homework that I really just don’t want to do.

Because of my Chinese Minor at Miami, I should be taking the class Chinese 202 right now.  The only Chinese language class I can take here though is Primary Business Chinese, and that is for people who have NEVER studied Chinese.  So after berating Miami’s administration for months, I finally got an independent study of Chinese 202 approved so I can make progress on my minor while abroad.  My advisor for that is actually my PBC teacher.  My PBC teacher thinks I know so much Chinese and thinks I’m a genius because my Chinese is so much better than the rest of the class (no one else in the class has studied Chinese before, I’ve taken 2 years- it’s not really a fair comparison) and I’m not bothering to correct her. 

My Consumer Behavior class is just weird.  I’ll admit that the teacher is good looking.  But some of the Chinese students are just plain weird (read: messed up) about having a good-looking teacher.  One of the exchange students in my class was talking to a Chinese student in the class and according to the exchange student the dialogue went like this:

 

Exchange Student:  I’m really glad I got into this class.

Chinese Student:  I know.  She’s really beautiful isn’t she?

Exchange Student: (with blank stare) Not what I meant.

Chinese Student:  (Pulls out camera phone and takes picture of teacher)

Exchange Student:  (Goes to find new seat)

 

Overall, the classes are pretty easy.  The worst part is just having class on Sunday nights.  That is probably the worst part about being in China.  I’ll be sure to post updates more often- I am going to try and make my next post about general travellings around Beijing.  Beijing is a pretty awesome city and while it is very different from dinky little Oxford, Ohio, it is still a very exciting city with a lot more to do than Ohio.

 

再见!