Anyone who has traveled in Asia can tell you that most Asian cultures are very different than Western cultures, to the point where they can be very difficult to understand. Most of my own experience comes from working and traveling in Japan, which country is more Westernized than many other places in Asia. I've done a lot of business in Japan over the years of my previous career as a corporate consultant, and I love the place, but every time I think I have a pretty good bead on how my Japanese friends think and behave, something throws me for a loop, reminding me that I remain a gaijin with a gaijin's lack of understanding. Now, my Japanese friends are almost very understanding with a Westerner's unwitting faux pas; I call it "Gaijin Power."
China, though, is a very different critter. You can see it when you encounter Chinese people in other places. Japanese people are generally tolerant of Westerners unwittingly exercising Gaijin Power, but you'll find them to be rather less tolerant of the notorious Chinese bus-tour groups. Part of that is due to a long history of bad blood between the two nations, even though nowadays they do a fair amount of business. But part of it is due to the way these Chinese groups behave.
Here's the thing: Very little about China is authentic, and this is something visitors to the Middle Kingdom are reminded of every day of every visit. Over at the UK Daily Sceptic, John MacNab, a Brit who teaches in a school in Hong Kong, gives us his account.
Every time I am invited to China my heart lifts. Within 24 hours of arriving, I have usually hit rock-bottom. By the time my visit is over, I am only too glad to be boarding the plane for Hong Kong and on to the UK. If you want a ‘full fat’ experience of China, try visiting as a keynote speaker at a conference. On arrival at the airport there will, inevitably, be a male driver bearing a card with ‘MacNab’ written on it. He will, almost invariably, be accompanied by a female Master’s student.
On my recent arrival in Beijing this was exactly the pattern. A young lady approached me with an enormous bunch of flowers and thrust these at me, simultaneously relieving me of my wheeled case with small rucksack attached to the handle. I hate to let my belongings out of my sight for a moment. The rucksack contained my wallet, phone and passport.
“Wercome to China. Your first time?” I tell her: “No it’s not my first time, nor is it my first time in Beijing. In fact, it is not even my first visit to your university. I came a few years ago.” She is about a foot shorter than me and my stream of English has clearly, both literally and metaphorically, gone right over her head.
He goes on in that vein for some time; every aspect of his visit is controlled, every step he takes is accompanied, every action he takes is at his hosts' prompting - or despite it.
Now, here's the thing: John MacNab, to read his work, seems to retain a fondness for China, despite his every step in that country being micromanaged.
I have a slightly different perspective. Granted, my experience is limited: four days in Shanghai, which I enjoyed rather less than I imagine I might have enjoyed one night in Bangkok, despite my mediocre chess skills. My arrival in Shanghai was as Mr. MacNab describes: Coming out of customs with a carry-on bag and a laptop case, I was greeted by a driver bearing a sign with my name on it, and a "host" who was not a young lady but a middle-aged man in a jacket and tie, a middle manager from the company I was there to audit. And, yes; they refused to let me handle my own gear, although I did manage to keep it in sight. They helped me check into my hotel, which was admittedly first-rate, except for the signs warning us not to drink or brush our teeth with tap water; bottled water was supplied for that purpose. So, yes, my trip was micromanaged, except for the one afternoon I was able to slip away by myself and walk to a nearby underground shopping area. And I mean "underground" as literally "underground," not black market; it was located in a massive subway station a few blocks from the hotel.
No, what got me in that market was the fakery. Nothing was genuine. I was offered cracked iPhones, which one of my colleagues had already warned me were fakes. I was offered a "genuine Versace handbag" for my wife, which I declined, thinking that if this was a fake, I'd be out $20.
Oh, and I was offered girls, too, an offer I declined, so I have no idea as to their authenticity.
So much of China is built around fakery. Here, listen to a real expert who lived in China for 14 years.
Oh, and the Chinese branch of the Japanese company I was there to audit? A mess. Japanese operations are usually pretty tight; records are maintained scrupulously, SOPs are followed precisely. In China? Records were completed late, if at all. Standards were ignored. Training was signed off without one session being conducted.
Fake, fake, fake. That's my experience in China. That's what China is, so much of it, with the only exception being their military ambitions and their ill intentions towards the United States. But, should a conflict with China arise, that raises another question: Given China's proclivities towards fakery, how many of the People's Liberation Army's training records and readiness reports are faked? How many of their maintenance records and services fake? If China embarks on a military adventure, will fakery be the thing that dooms them?
It's not at all unlikely.
China is the lowest of low-trust societies, except possibly some countries in the Middle East. Their micromanaging of visitors speaks to their self-doubt; foreigners cannot be allowed to discover the great facade that is Communist China. But facts are stubborn things, and sooner or later, they always, always come to light.
