Day 9, Sept 13 (Shanghai)

This morning, we had a lecture at the University of Shanghai Science and Technology.  The topic was “How to avoid cultural trap in China” presented by Professor Xinju Wu. 

Professor Wu mentioned that foreign businessmen always found it difficult to do business in China because we had differences in language, culture, and regulations.  The characteristics of Chinese culture were cohesion, acceptance, and diversification. 

Cohesion: Family was oriented.  It was also highly centralized.  Father was the leader of the family.  He made all the decisions for the kids and for the family.

Acceptance: Chinese were greatly influenced by foreign culture.

Diversification: Cultural of various nationalities.  Northerners were simple, honest, and frank valuing friendship.  Beijing people were practical.  Southerners were meticulous, gentle, and good at doing business.  Shanghai people were smart. 

Dr Wu also talked about the characteristics of Chinese people.  They were humble.  Chinese respected modest people because they would hide not to show off.  They were not pointing out the shortcomings directly but rather tried to compromise to avoid troubles.  The most important was the interpersonal relations.  The way how to get along well with others was doing other special favors in advance to build up the social networks.  For example, offering gifts in wedding, birthday or any other festival celebrations were very normal for Chinese to appreciate other people’s help and built up the friendly relationships.  Moreover, saying things indirectly was more appropriate than saying “no” directly to people because it was so impolite.  Relations with colleagues should be no aggressive, no competitive in order to live in a harmony working environment.  Furthermore, if you won the friendship with someone, it would be easy to get a company contracts.  

Volkswagen Shanghai

Next stop was paying a visit at the Volkswagen Shanghai.  Volkswagen was the first car company to enter into the China market.  They were very successful to build up their reputation with the China government and the car users.  Therefore, they had a very good profit in China market.

Mission posted everywhere in the factory:
Quality is the life of Volkswagen Shanghai

First of all, we took a tram to take a company tour.  We went to different production areas to see how they made a car.  The most impressed me was in the body shop section because I could see the car figure coming out, not like the other sections, it might be a small part of the car which I could not tell which part it was.  I also discovered the company dividing the job into many different parts and applied the division of labors.  Some people might specialize in fixing the doors and some might specialize in painting the car or install the seats.  The company also used the high technology such as the robot hands to do some of the works.  The funniest thing was when we passed by the production line, the workers waved to us and we politely waved back at them. 

Night View in the Bund area

Tonight we had a dinner near the Bund area.   Facing the night view of the Bund made me have a good appetite.  After dinner, we walked and took pictures at the Bund area.  Although the day view and night view at the Bund were so different, they both were fascinating.