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Q: A fair comparison... is working with Chinese really THAT bad?
I think it would be safe to say working with Chinese (mainlanders) is a lot more difficult than it has to be, there it is!
Some of you may not have much to compare with... as you were possibly only employed in your home country and here in China. Some of you may have worked in other parts of the world and have a broader view on what it is like to work with Chinese people.
I do UI/UX design and I have had clients from all around the world. Germany, India, Switzerland, USA, South Africa, Brazil and places considered part of China (depending on who you ask) like Taiwan and Hong Kong.
After working with mainland Chinese on various projects I have to say... I go out of my way to not work with them on any future projects. The list of reasons why is too great but mainly it is horrible communication, disorganization, lack of creativity, too emotionally sensitive to criticism, not being able to verbalize proper requirements and much more.
From all the people I have worked with, Germans, Dutch, Americans, Canadians, English and Swedish are the best to work with. Chinese would have to be the lowest (a little lower than people from India and Pakistan). I don't work with people living in any of these three countries (that's not to say I won't work with say "Matthew Pattel" in the UK, different education, society and work ethic... not racism).
What IS good about working with them? Chinese don't monitor their employees as strictly as Western countries but I believe this may mainly be due to laziness in management. Also it yields poor productivity.
And they are prude negotiators... but again this is kind of double-sided... as if they don't get what they want. Rather than thinking of an alternative, they will get angry and just act like a child that didn't get their candy.
So then, what do you think? Is working with Chinese much more difficult than working with people back home? Have you ever worked in a place with people more difficult to align with than Chinese?
Would working under a Chinese boss be at the top of your preference list or somewhere near the bottom?
8 years 52 weeks ago in Business & Jobs - China
It's not that bad, you just need to develop a sense of feeling who is going to waste your time and who is not.
Now it's exactly like everywhere else, except that the number of people going to waste your time is significantly higher is all. But there's usually a ton of warning signs anyway.
Personally I never had a problem of people not taking criticism or reacting out of proportion because after criticism or suggestion.
Not doing shit afterwards yes but I usually make sure consequences are not my business anymore.
It's not that bad, you just need to develop a sense of feeling who is going to waste your time and who is not.
Now it's exactly like everywhere else, except that the number of people going to waste your time is significantly higher is all. But there's usually a ton of warning signs anyway.
Personally I never had a problem of people not taking criticism or reacting out of proportion because after criticism or suggestion.
Not doing shit afterwards yes but I usually make sure consequences are not my business anymore.
Riri is right. It's not that bad. Although many of the things you mention do play to a particular theme that I have noticed at my place of work. Laziness, poor communication, lack of foresight, poor management structure, the list goes on. Some Chinese workers are diligent and creative but they seem to get overlooked by the boss and some other shit-muncher gets the promotion. As a foreign worker you need to box clever and develop coping mechanisms to rise above the bullshit.
I would say in our office you have to be efficient and organized,otherwise you can never accomplish your tasks...
I could list down the schedule we have everyday:
8:15/8:30-9:00 make work report for the previous day and make the to do list.
9:00-12:00 work&work&work maybe have 10-20 minutes to go toilet or drink water.
12:00-1:30pm lunch break
1:30-1:45pm Mark to do list or add something new.
1:45-5:30pm work &work&work .
5:30-6:00pm break
6:00-7:30 + overtime...due to the time difference between China and Europe,always have things to communicate.
MissA:
Huh?? You spend an hour and a half at lunch then have to stay back late because you don't finish your tasks? Why not take a shorter lunch break, skip the second break and leave at a civilised hour? Or start the day later if you need to be there late and take more reasonable breaks?
Lord_hanson:
I agree with MissA. I am sure some of the employees have familys they would like to spend time with. If something can wait until the next day then leave it for the next day.
gouxiong:
If you read the comment properly you realize the necessity of communication with Europe alongside with time difference was mentioned.
MissA:
And if you read my comment properly, you'll see I addressed that: changed (or staggered would possibly be better) working hourswith a later start to allow the employee to be accessible later.
gouxiong:
Yes,
but it may not be possible (or may not be easily arrangeable).
I assume when somebody says I work 12 hours a day so the person probably does not mean everyday.
At certain jobs and certain positions working 8 hours is simply not possible more or less anywhere in the world. Long hours are kind of common but it still does not mean we work every day 14 hours (however we also have days like this).
In my job we are during the day communicating with Asia and Australia and in the evening then with Europe.
Starting late would not help and working in shifts is not worthy of the costs.
However if we would talk about factory or similar environment I would tend to agree with you.
meiduo:
Lunch break...yes a bit long,but we are doing the purchasing.factories and suppliers normally have 1.5-2hrs off for lunch,we can do some documentary job though,it depends! I think if we start at 9:00am it will be good,need to talk to the boss!
I dont find it so bad but i usually work with Chinese in a buyer/supplier situation so I am able to dictate terms. I always make it very clear what I am expecting and I also make it known that trust is not given and must be earned. If they are willing to work within these perameters then great. If not I can always find a hundred other suppliers who will.
I would not enjoy having Chinese as customers. Thats for sure.
Not sure about their 'prude' negotiating skills. Anyway, yes it really is that bad. Three local teachers (yea ima teacher, fuck you) were pondering a certain grammar question. Never asked me. They collectively, and quite happily, decided on the wrong answer. You can draw several negative conclusions from that.
Nightmares to work with, but easy to ignore.
RachelDiD:
Haha, local teachers can be extremely arrogant. Most of the time, they are POed that foreign staff draws a bigger paycheck than them, and them throw salt in their own wounds by acting like foreign teachers are lazy idiots compared to the good, hardworking Chinese staff.
bill8899:
And face saving! Early this morning I was alone in the office with a CET and he deigned to ask me a grammar question. I gather it's because no one else was around.
Love this stuff ... so entertaining.
I would agree with the Kiwi above; in China I worked with some hardworking intelligent people who would go far in Australia. I also worked with some right idiots. None of the good ones had the connections to make it into management. Management was fucking dire.
I prefer working under a more western management style, where competence is both demanded and rewarded.
As an aside, I often get strange looks here at home when people learn I've spent a lot of time in Asia and say "oh, Asians work really hard!" No, I reply, they all spend a lot of hours at work. Working hard, working productively and spending a lot of time at work are all completely diffetent things. Turning up at 8am and leaving at 8pm don't meam shit if you've taken three hour worth of breaks, spent two hours gossiping and had a wee nap in the middle as half my colleagues did (the other half DID work very hard to make up for the slackers).
nzteacher80:
Long hours at work but bugger all achieved. I see it everyday.
To answer the direct question, as well as in my own country and China I've been employed in Vietnam, Thailand, the UK and Spain. Thais are well intentioned but hopeless (bless em, but it's true), the Vietnamese company was good but I had an Aussie boss, my UK boss was an arsehole, the Spanis company was excellent but I think the American owner made a big difference as did the fact that I was working remotely. The company I work for now is actually Indian owned and my Indian born boss is fantastic but I don't think he's representative of what a standard Indian manger would be. So far China is definitely the bottom of the list.
I can only answer from having worked back home and here in China.
Oddly - back home, in my last job, the emphasis was more on what was wanted, rather than what was needed (which is a large part of why I left). Eg, it was more important for team leaders to get along with their staff, to organise parties, to make sure they were all happy - than to fire people who swear at customers, who constantly don't fill out the forms/database/credit card details/accounts/etc correctly.
However, that was sort of a one-off, and the other jobs were more focussed on the needs over the wants!
Here, it's the other way around. The 'needs' are simply to get money. And the wants are for students to actually be competent/capable. (Fortunately, in my current employ, I work with a pretty good bunch, and the Chinese immediate bosses are pretty cool and easy to get along with. They give a damn about students, and are 'content' to see them fail!!!) If they could kick them out of the program for being lazy, they would).
I'm considered an 'expert' in my field (IELTS) for the same reason as Sorrel is 
However, it's odd that I never (rarely) get approached about stuff I'm not teaching. Especially since I was told I had a couple of students about 2.5-3.0... after reading their papers, I showed just how wrong that was (easy 5.0+). Similarly, there's another staff member (who isn't greatly popular, I admit) who would ask me to correct her English, and then complain or disagree....
There's a culture here of not looking too good, or it makes the others look bad. And the real effective results aren't always the main goal for an employee.
royceH:
My impressions have been that 5.0, 5.5, 6.0 are in reality 4.0, 4.5 and 5.0.
To this day the biggest laugh I've ever had was the girl who scored 7.0 and could not even produce the simplest sentence. She had achieved a Masters in English and was a journalist. She had a fantastic smile and was very attractive.
Shining_brow:
Royce, examiners here have been (anecdotally) considered to be tougher than their counterparts in other parts of the world, such as the UK.
The main problem is very simple to fix - increase the number of possible questions in a given test (most obviously for speaking). They're not going to be able to memorise 150 different questions effectively. Add to that, tougher grading on clearly memorised input, as well as on formulaic constructions - vs topic specific. When 70-80% of what's written can be used exactly the same in basically all tasks, there's an issue! And, it's an issue that Chinese students use and abuse...
MissA:
That's interestung, royce, the speaking component of IELTS is structured in such a way that it should be impossible to blag a 7 if you're genuinely useless; although the first and second sections of three are quite formulaic, the third section is basically a conversation which the examiner can and will lead off into tangents. Are you sure i was a real cer tificate she had?
When you say UI/UX design and I remember your S-Nova website design company I assumed you figured out the huge disparity between website design costs in US/Canada VS website design costs in China and basically decided to play the role of middle man, yeah? I know in the states a good (professionally designed) website will cost upwards of $10,000 where as here in China there are tons of companies that will do it for $1000~1500 but of course the quality of design and coding is no where near the same but it's quite smart if you can find a western company in need of a website and you can quote them $5000 then give $1500 to the Chinese firm to actually do it and you pocket the rest.
Robk:
Hey Iron,
Sold that business and just do freelancing myself for now. I was doing that middle man thing for a while but it became too stressful because many SE Asian people just require too much supervision and honestly I could do all their jobs in less time than it took to explain it.
GOOD Chinese designers are next to impossible to find and difficult to manage unless you spend all your time watching them. The quality they churn out (at least in the creative design field) is very low as well.
But you are right. I do create interfaces now for various applications that would cost a company like $10k USD for about 50-60% of that cost. Since I live here in China and don't have to claim it on taxes... it ends up actually being a big win-win for both parties.
My boss (Chinese, very worldly, educated in USA) is awesome : he gives me a set of objectives, what are the priorities, and he let me roll with that. My US-educated colleagues are like that too. The younger people, all mainland-educated, are a mixed bag. Some will be autonomous, caring and generally do a good job. Some need a *LOT* of direction, some will roll mostly on their own. Those who come just for the paycheck don't stay very long and tend to leave by themselves as they are pushed into menial, boring tasks 
At the university, it was the same : I was let to roll on my own, which suits me. My colleagues had different work ethic and motivations. It was a bit hard to watch, poor students... But at least it did not affect me.
Chinese workers are fine. There are people who are good at some things and not so good at other things. Just like anywhere else.
I think what we see and experience here is a sympton of the social econonmic and industrial relations phase of development..... with Chinese characteristics.
If I think back to when I was a kid in 1970's Scotland, almost anything anyone wanted was British made. The days of empire were over, and the industry of Britain had lost it's captive customers in it's invaded market.
There were massive factories everywhere, TV factories, radio factories, sewing machine factories, almost anything you wanted was made in the UK. Effectively, there was full employment. Throughout the 60's to early 70's, you could leave a job on a Friday and start another on a Monday.
Wages were poor though, and a factory labourer was barely above the poverty line.
Not much different to China of today.
The UK of the 60's and 70's was not a time of efficient workers. By todays standards the factories were massively overstaffed. There was no real need to improve efficiency, or quality, because the market was assured. People had no choice over what they bought, because they could only buy it from them.
Fast forward 40 years, and the China I see today reminds me of the UK then, with a few major differences of course. Forty years ago the Unions were at their peak in the UK. They were fighting for workers rights, but they were also getting a bit too power mad themselves.
Oh dear. I ramble again.
My point is, if you are a young westerner, you might only have seen the "efficient western way". You won't remember the inefficiencies and the shit quality stuff that was pumped out in the past from western factories.
Workplace efficiency depends on having a large pool of skilled unemployed. It's lack of job security that drives workplace efficiency. But no need to worry, because the bankers are trying to introduce this into Chinese factories at this very moment. Fortunately for the Chinese workers though, the Government are more interested in having as many jobs as possible to keep the people happy, rather than strive for efficiency that lines the pockets of the few.
