Actually you might be interested in exploring Travel, Culture - Customs, Contacts, Learning, Foods, How-tos, . . . , 

                                                               

                                                     Outsourcing, or just

Business

I help make things work. I have experience with various kinds of business inside and going in and out of China. Including Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), clothing (esp custom, outdoor, and Chinese women's), furniture, education/ESL/training, food, aircraft, wine, ASEAN, teambuilding, and China consultants. There are all kinds of people who will help you enter and engage with China, and who frequently repeat that you need to do “due diligence” with partners. That is true, and the real key is that you are entering a relationship with a culture where they are routinely sharp with each other. They see you as stupid if you depend on a contract to defend your interest in maintaining specifications and quality. A contract doesn't have active eyes and testing fingers. If you put in a Chinese inspection agency, they will bribe the inspector, or if that fails, show and tell you bad things about the inspector. These are living cultural patterns that they follow with each other, and many will naturally use them on you.

I can help understanding Chinese cultures, yes some cultures. My forte is in helping things start, getting things going, fixing and improving things, and helping close things down, hopefully to try again later.

"you know a lot about China and it seems that you are a authentic Chinese." - Keith Li

Siberian Snow Geese are a very successful 'weed' in the Richmond, BC, Canada area in the winter. They swarm open areas to eat grasses.

Weeds

It's very good to understand weeds. Weeds are valuable in Traditional Chinese Medicine, and the pattern lives in the culture. They often outgrow the 'right' stuff in gardens, and in your products, and in your ongoing interactions about your production. They keep invading, you can't keep them out unless you develop natural mix gardening. Show me someone who successfully sets up a contract with their garden that it not have any weeds. A lot of the things that happen in China can be seen as weeds. They're seen as valuable and vital to some people, while you see them as a pest. If you can understand and then gain a relationship with the weeds, then you can turn more of their trickster activity into benefits. Follow the crisis into opportunity, the yin into yang. Dare I suggest, be a weed in China.

"Invention is a flower; innovation is a weed" -- Bob Metcalf

If you don't appreciate weeds, consider “Shan Zhai”, mountain bandits outside formal control, who today can take any new idea (think Intellectual Property) that comes along and grow it into a business. If if fails, adjust and try again. That's an agile – entrepreneurial – strategy pattern that grows success. I'm repeating cultural history, read "Outlaws of the Marsh" for yourself, and recognize that pattern living today.

If you appreciate weeds, consider Shan Zhai Weeds.

In a time of drastic change, it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists. ~ Eric Hoffer

Put another way:

You might be in the

West going abroad, to China   Or   China, going to the West

I go both ways, and it's often a blend of East and West that is never equal. Yes, I have experience with some kinds of basically equal partners in China. Your formal agreement has little to do with how the relationship works out.

I have more experience helping Chinese dealing with Chinese, mostly Taiwanese engaging with PRC and HK Chinese, and Chinese dealing with Westerners, than I have helping Westerners dealing with Chinese.

West going abroad, to China

I tell people, you now, that it can be very helpful for you to grow a working mental model of China as a Han Empire that includes quite a few countries within what is China. It includes amazing diversity and a lot of tendency to see and do things only one way. The Empire has taken on many forms over the centuries, and it is distinctly Confucian Han controlled today. Yes, HK and Taiwan are quite different, and Macao has its differences, and they are Chinese.

I'm very good at starting things, getting them going, fixing, and closing down. I guess closing down might be more familiar to many people right now. I know some of the ramifications about Westerners closing down and have been more involved with PRC Chinese closing things down. A Chinese pattern in China is to try something, then close it down if it fails or if the market drops, then later do it again, maybe somewhere else or in a different way. Try and try again, keep trying. I haven't seen that pattern with Western operations in China.

I've walked through, listened, and read about factory visits and inspections. It's easy to find good cheap in-factory statistics inspectors who will give you what you want. It's harder to get the actual product you want on an ongoing basis. Forget ethics, read “The Three Kingdoms” and look for those ways.

ASEAN

You might be interested in ASEAN, if so you should look at Nanning.

I'm interested in outsourcing. It sometimes changes into moving a branch into China, and increasingly moving the head office into Hong Kong or into the PRC. You can move Intellectual Property into Hong Kong and grow it.

China going to the West

I have more experience helping Chinese in China export to North America, and helping Chinese in North America import Chinese goods to North America, than I have helping others import and export.

Import - Export

I'm not an import-export expert, and I've helped people in the area.

It's very common to work with Chinese managers/owners on their English, and understanding cultural differences, and where to sell what in North America, in one ongoing package. Other Chinese do things mostly through an intermediary. Some of this can be explained by Chinese man versus woman approaches to doing things. I've dealt with various Chinese managers only through woman intermediaries, who provide interpretation and a kind of cultural relaxation in-between area. Some other male Chinese managers have had very good English and no idea how to successfully engage with Westerners doing a project together. Having the language, English or Chinese, helps and isn't key.

Improve Chinese manager awareness

Here's a list of some things we might work on to improve Chinese manager awareness of leadership and management differences, and interactions with Westerners:

• Chinese to other culture factors

• The Chinese education system and thinking doing

• Just entering the larger world, and its differences.

• PRC Confucian to other organizational ways.

• Interpersonal skills

            Presentation skills

            Mixed culture teams

            Mixed culture leadership, leadership styles

            Supervision, delegation, control freaks

            Leading meetings

            Coaching skills

             Conflicts and negotiations

• International Thinking Skills

    Problem solving, Solutions Focus,

    Edward de Bono thinking skills

    Persistence pays off

    Buoyancy-Optimism

    Well?    Try   604-657-9595    or     Vic@windwaterwine.com