Karen Christensen: China-related insights into the power of social networks

This series of photos is hilarious: “Pizza Hut in China stipulated that customers can go to the salad bar only once. The photos below show what the Chinese can do to get around the one trip rule.” This story has been making the rounds, but it’s the sequence of photos–which I’ve finally managed to get uploaded from an e-mail–that really shows how ingenious people can be. At least with a camera watching! I was told that this was considered a business problem in China because Western places like Pizza Hut are expensive, but comparing Chinese people to Americans, it’s hard to imagine that this really is an issue. One of the most horrible experiences I ever had was at a buffet in rural Iowa, where the obese man standing beside me was clearly having trouble breathing as he piled his plate with macaroni and cheese and one of the dozen fried main dishes.

Here’s an interesting article about the business challenges facing Western business schools trying to make money in China.

Here’s an informative interview about the recent events in Tibet and what’s really going on in terms of China’s international relationships, set in what first seemed an odd venue. The Fox News show is called “Happy Hour” and is set in a bar–yes, with shelves of bright whiskey and gin bottles glittering behind the speakers. But once I thought about it, I liked the idea that this kind of issue might be discussed with real concern at the end of a work day. Here’s to informed discussion about China!

Talk about mixed metaphor. Here’s the title of an article in yesterday’s Baltimore Sun, quoting Duncan Mackay extensively, and me briefly: “Torch as lightning rod, Olympic attention is magnet for protests.”

While some people are worried by the debate over the Olympics torch relay, I see it as as having potential for increasing knowledge and awareness. Here’s an interesting take on why China matters, from Good Magazine.

I’m putting together an issue of Guanxi about sustainability in China (not, we hope, to be an oxymoron) and realized I should mention this important and amusingly named report, Climate Change Negotiations: An Asian Stir Fry of Options, produced by Civic Exchange in Hong Kong, which is led by the indefatigable Christine Loh. I’m getting some post-Bali information now.

Not sure where this YouTube China video comes from, except that a friend sent it and it seems to have been created by and viewed Spanish speakers, but it’s cool to watch! Definitely gets me in a frame of mine to work on China Gold, our forthcoming book about China and sports and everything connecting the two!

I’ve been meaning to recommend this report issued annually by the Committee of 100, an 16-year-old U.S. association of Chinese Americans leaders that works both on domestic issues and on U.S.-China relations. “US-CHINA: Public, Elite Attitudes Reflect “Hope and Fear” was issued last month and is packed with important detail. This fits perfectly with Berkshire Publishing’s educational resources on global attitudes towards the United States and we’re considering a special report that would analysis the business and social implications of this issue. Here are a few details from the article linked to above:

Chinese respondents were far more optimistic than their U.S. counterparts about the state and direction of their nation. Nearly 90 percent of Chinese said they believe their country is on the “right track”, while nearly 60 percent of U.S. respondents said they believed their country was on the “wrong track”.

The survey found little confidence among respondents in both countries that the mass media of the other portrayed their own nation accurately. In addition, the survey found misperceptions among elites in both countries about the views of their publics toward each other.

Elites in the U.S. underestimate the favourable views of China held by the general public, while elites in China believe the views held by their compatriots of the U.S. are more favourable than they actually are.

The full report in PDF is available. Click here for a copy.

This story, “1977 Exam Opened Escape Route Into China’s Elite,” provides a window into the experience of many Chinese people who are influential today, whom any of us might meet when doing business in China (or elsewhere in the world):

5.7 million people took the two-day exam in November and December 1977, in what may have been the most competitive scholastic test in modern Chinese history.

The 4.7 percent of test-takers who won admission to universities — 273,000 people — became known as the class of ’77, widely regarded in China as the best and brightest of their time.

The article appeared in the New York Times 10 days after being published in the International Herald Tribune, according to one of the people interviewed, whom I happened to meet this week. We talked about reasons it might have taken so long to run in the Times, and went on to talk about why stories like this are so appealing, and so good for improving understanding, too. We agreed that their power comes from the fact that the reader can so easily imagine himself or herself facing that situation. The human drama, and the personal sacrifice and determination of those interviewed, is fascinating and inspiring. Perhaps what we Westerners need to do more often is ask our Chinese friends and colleagues about their early lives, and to share more of the challenges of our own lives, too.

In the midst of Christmas meals and baking, I learned to make Ma Po Tofu, a common and delicious Chinese dish of tofu in chili sauce - an ideal quick supper, I found, and a good contrast with the other things we were eating these past weeks - and found some interesting writing on Chinese food and guanxi. Here’s an essay, “Where Food and Words Meet: A Literary Sub-School of Chinese Cuisine Survives against the Odds” by Nicole Mones, with a description of the sidewalk calligraphy that my son Tom captured in this photograph.