China Law Blog

Just read an interesting and hard-hitting post on the hugely popular Ruminations in Korea Blog dealing with the difficulties of foreign ESL teachers in Korea.  Three things from the post stood out for me and two of those apply to doing business in China. 

The blog attacks ESL teachers who go to Korea without any real clue as to what they are they are in for:

It never ever ceases to amaze me that the same people who will read every single word on a video rental membership application to make sure they understand every possible nuance of late fees before signing the membership application will go and sign a contract without carefully reading, considering, and understanding what it means in a Korean context. They will rely on statements made by complete and total strangers, pack up their bags, and fly 6,000 miles from home without scrip or purse, never having made any effort to check on the school's reputation, asked for references, or investigated any other aspect of the school. This is part of what I mean when I say that teachers bring most of their problems upon themselves.

The Chinese business equivalent is the person who sends a Chinese company money to manufacture a product or to start a venture without having conducted any due diligence on the person or company with whom he or she is dealing and without any real knowledge of China or its laws. I previously blogged on this in "Take Your Brain With You, or How Not to Handle Your Chinese Legal Matters."

The second piece of good advice relevant to China is the need to show deference to the national culture. The post attributes many of the teachers' problems to their insistence on doing things exactly how they do it in their home countries (typically, the United States, England, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand).  As the Korean "ruminator" so bluntly puts it, "[a]nother part of foreign teachers bringing problems onto themselves is the inability/unwillingness to do what is expected and know their role in [Korean] society and to conform to societal and cultural norms."  He goes on to talk about how Korea expects its teachers to be clean shaven and to dress professionally, but most ESL teachers refuse to do so, believing they should be judged solely on the job they do, not on how they look.  Korea would beg to differ, but the teachers either don't get it or they just don't care.   

Again, this lesson from Korea applies in China as well, where I have seen foreign businesspeople both knowingly and unknowingly hurt their chances for success by refusing either to learn or to abide by the most basic aspects of Chinese culture and manners.  China is generally less formalistic than Korea, but it still behooves those seeking to do business in or with China to make an effort to understand its culture and its history.  In my experience, the Chinese do not expect perfection when it comes to understanding and abiding by their mores, but (like just about everyone else) they do greatly appreciate effort and respect.

The third thing that stood out for me about the blog was that even though I have been reading it semi-regularly for more than a year, I did not realize until today that its author is my good friend, and esteemed Busan, Korea, lawyer, Jeff Harrison, with whom I have been working on international legal matters for close to a decade. Jeff speaks fluent Korean, is an excellent lawyer, writes a fascinating blog on Korea (and, also just learned today, also blogs on Blues music) and is the most knowledgeable Westerner on Korea I know.