December 2, 2009
For those of you who will be traveling to China for business, this article will be helpful for giving you a few prospective; and for those of you who have been on China business trips, let’s recall some “embarrassing” moments that may have happened to you.
1. Serve you a glass of hot tea in a meeting, when it’s like 100 F temperature in summer. We need to know tea is a traditional drink to welcome friends. I hope that could be an iced tea though.
2. Smoking in the room. This happens quite often in some small cities where you have to do some factories visiting. Almost 90% of the Chinese local manufacturers smoke, but please feel free to tell them if you do mind smoking. Otherwise, you will never notice this is something you don’t like.
3. “Different style” of bathroom. Most of the local factories do have very clean and western style toilet nowadays, but there are still some bathrooms are not very clean, and it’s not very easy to get used to those squatting style toilet. This is something we will have to be ready, and there’s not so much you can do about it.
4. Eating. This is probably the most difficult one and many embarrassing moments to recall.
- Very strong rice wine, and they keep filling your cups. “Gan bei” (cheers) for every 5 minutes. Remember do not get yourself drunk in lunch time though.
- “Variety food”, you will have chances to see cooked dog, frog, snake, and many other things you have never thought they are eatable.
Chopsticks only. You better to practice some chopsticks skills before or during your Chinese business trip, because you will probably find out there are not many local restaurants provide forks.
Long time for a meal. A meal take at least 2 hours if you don’t let them know you are in hurry. You will probably need to sit down there for an extra hour after you finish eating, and listen to their Chinese conversations.
