Jun 18 2008
The credibility
The consulting firms that bridge US and China, are manned, by large, with non Chinese. Some might have Chinese partners. This bewilders me. One Chinese with a MBA from Columbia jokingly said, “why don’t we do this ourselves? .. I considered to enlist one or two my white classmates to front the company ..”
Most Chinese in China don’t speak English and most those consultants don’t speak Chinese and know much less its history. So I fail to see what justifies their existence.
Credibility comes to mind first. Don’t we all tend to trust a white American than our own? Ya, there are bad apples everywhere and in every race. But the average white men don’t seem to cheat as much as others, so we perceive.
One of the acquaintance who grow up in China and got his law degree from an Ivy in US, quickly rose to the CEO of a major US bank in China, once said that in the highest level of negotiation, it all comes down to nuances. Years ago, when he was the jurior at the bank in New York, he would entertain or babysitting those Chinese delegates. Once he said he scored big when he took those middle aged Chinamen to Flushing instead the expensive steak houses in midtown, for a bowl of millet conge. “They were so happy, the head of delegate had four bowls ..” Guess knowing the people across the table seals the deals. And I’d think this kind of thing would have lost on the non Chinese. But what those non Chinese do well is the low to mid level, which has larger playing field. Here you go.