Customer Service with Chinese Characteristics

So this is a typical example of customer service in China: In Starbucks, where the employees actually undergo extensive western-style customer service training.

For Christmas, they were playing a recording of "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" on what sounded like a toy casio set to full volume. The song was a loop of a single inaudible verse and a jangling chorus, repeating itself endlessly. It sounded like a child's toy, or some kind of doorbell.

After ten minutes of this I was ready to jab pencils in my ears. So I went to the counter and asked, in a very light happy mood (because anything else will certainly result in stonewalling in China), what's this music?

Girl A: Smile, nod, walk away.

I'm still standing there, she sees me, but is avoiding me by appearing busy. Ok, maybe a language problem (though being a teacher, I know it's not).

So I went to the register. Hi. What's this music?

Girl B: Smile, nod: Yeah, I know! (Walks away)

Me: (To Girl C) It's bad. It's terrible. (Smiling, just being friendly).

Girl C: (Smile) Yeah. So they all avoid looking at me, in order to avoid further conversation, but they can't get away from the counter as they are busy. So I speak just a little louder, still amicable, to talk to all of them at once, and let them know I'm not ready to go away just yet.

Me: How can you stand it? Isn't it boring? (I'd say annoying but they are more likely to understand "boring!").

Girl B: Smile, nod: Because it's Christmas.

Me: Really? But the music is quite annoying. (Um, customer has a concern..do you? No).

Girl: In China we think music is happy. Maybe because you're American you think it's something else. (Smile).

Me: (Or maybe it's because you have no standards and your thinking is bound in prejudices). It doesn't matter where you're from, you're playing the same two lines of music over and over and that's got to annoy people. How can you stand eight hours of this? (Translation: discrimination? Really? No Chinese would have any problem with this? Wow, that's quite...a conceit. I talk to Chinese for a living. I know better).

Girl: I know. Because it's Christmas. Chinese like to celebrate with loud music (affecting an excited shiver).

Me: Don't you want to hear something else?

Girl: In China ...

Me (thinking): Here we go....

Girl: Everybody thinks music is happy. Where are you from?

Me: None of your business. (Smiling. And thanks for the condescension). I'm just trying to help you. It sounds like you want to push customers out. (Which would make sense if there was a lot of foot traffic - there wasn't).

Girl: smile.

Me being an old China hand, I just walk out never expecting any actual response or acknowledgment - however I've seen plenty of times when visitors do let it get to them, and rightfully so.

This is why I think Collectivism (Communism? Socialism?) is such a brilliant social scheme. It makes complaining a self-defeating process. The complainer is blamed.

The "good" citizen is voluntarily mute. Forbearance is a virtue. (Change is...inconceivable. Except the change of making more money, of course). But castigating complainers and avoiding the issues - that's brilliant.




Well you do get this kind of customer service. I'm no chronic complainer, nor do I advocate prejudice. I live and work with the locals. Married a local, and have a bi-racial baby. I'm sorry if I don't accept being treated as an ignorant tourist - maybe that's my crime. Here are some reasons why someone from China culture (probably a Chinese person too, coincidentally) wouldn't complain:

• It's futile
• It's arrogant to disturb the mutual illusion of harmony
• Nobody believes you anyway, everybody's got an angle
• Patience is Gallant, indignation is Goofus
• If you're not responsible, I'm not responsible
• You ignore my dagger, I'll ignore yours
• Roar, tiger, while I pelt you with peanuts!
• Insincere courtesy is just more civilized
• Must breathe spite in lieu of oxygen

And on a related note:

• It's natural law that people smoke in public, or drink and drive. What kind of fool could ever imagine otherwise?

Here are a few customer service no-no's I've encountered, things which would not fly in my own business (if I had employees):

• A side dish of bamboo in sauce comes with a worm in it: Solution: bring another bowl from the same pot. Do NOT refund the 10 RMB dish on a 200 RMB ticket. Better to lose the customer altogether.
  
• A restaurant takes an hour to deliver food to the table. Customer complains; offer customer discount. At the end of the meal, discount a 140RMB meal ($20 US) by 4 RMB (60 cents US).
• A slow lunch hour in a restaurant. Two waiters and one customer. I hear the cook's bell, with my lunch, no doubt. The waiters are standing around joking for another eight minutes before they bring my dish - cold. When I complain, the manager argues that I'm wrong (ok, this is quite normal in China) and TAKES A BITE OF MY LUNCH to see just how cold it is. When she thinks it's "good enough" for the likes of me, I "arrogantly" leave and refuse to pay.
• At Blue Frog in Superbrand Mall, a western style bar and grill, the waitress recommends I try the lunch special. I'm a big guy. The special lists various sandwiches and salads and soft drinks for 50 yuan. I choose the Sante Fe Chicken Sandwich with salad and cola. They bring me half a salad, and half a sandwich. I said nothing, but they knew - expected - my reaction. They knew I wasn't satisfied, and slinked away before I said something. I thought, on what planet did you think this would satisfy someone like me? On Planet Oblivious, perhaps. But this is Planet Screwjob. So I did say - in a very nice manner - "it wasn't satisfactory, it was misleading and dishonest." I ordered another lunch after the first lunch. I stiffed the tip.
• A class in which we conducted a press conference. A few students would represent the company with a defective, harmful product, while the class played the press. Four defective products, four conferences, and each and every one blamed customer error. Each and every one claimed the company was not responsible, but instead tried to persuade the others why they were somehow at fault.

Mark this: many, if not most conflicts, in China, lead to this result:
YOU misunderstand, YOU misuse, YOU need it explained, for goodness sake evade and avoid truth at any cost. Convincing yourself you are always "right" - rationalizing all reality to bend to your definition - is far more important. (But that's another rant).

I want to clarify something. I'm not complaining because I think I'm a superior being. Far from it. But I know customer service, and I have spent my career providing it to the best of my abilities. I have less patience for poor customer service and irresponsibility masquerading as "innocence and good mood". But as a customer I don't vote with my mouth. I vote with my money.

Which is the best advice I could give on responding to customer service in China.

The point is, there isn't such thing as customer satisfaction in China. There is argument, but at no time should one expect any kind of regard or affirmation. It's just pissing on a wall. So don't take it personally, (which it probably is), but - you can't expect responsible behavior or creative solutions from people who have been taught they are not responsible for anything that happens to them, even their own life choices. And for goodness sake don't commit the crime of clarity. In China, we just repeat rationalizations and stereotypes, even if they actually conflict. As long as the delusion is safe.

Also do not make the mistake of being a rich foreigner in an scarcity-ridden country that wants your money but not your good will - as it is not reciprocated where money is concerned.

A cup of coffee is utterly meaningless in the grand scheme of things. As is a subjugated race. As is a nation. As is a world.

If you don't like this blog post, perhaps you just read it wrong. You readers do often misunderstand us writers. You should try to be more culturally sensitive, as we blogger always are. We work hard to cultivate this perfection. It won't matter if there's anyone left to read it - because at that point I'll still have my pride and my pointing finger of blame to feed my family.

A complaining customer is a gift to a company. It means they are taking the time out of their lives to offer up some valuable marketing insights. Pity it's lost so often. Pity it's turned back as a counteraccusation so often. I'm not referring to the selfish greedy liars who just want to exploit a company's resource - they aren't customers. I refer to actual customers, especially the ones who have bought so often you recognize them.

In the end, this isn't about pride, race, argument or competition. It's about profitability pure and simple. Satisfied customers are return customers. Those who don't return, are probably not missed. There is no column on the ledger for income and investment potential lost through boneheadedness.


- TRM

What the Chinese Really Say About Stuff

Ok, it's hard to put your ear to the ground and get the real skinny on what people are thinking in countries so far away from your every day experience.

Here in Shanghai, talking to so many of the "best and brightest" yuppie business students over the years, in a country that espouses uniform educational resources and official government compliance to certain schools of "thought", you get to hear many of the same things over and over ad nauseum. Ironically, these things may be the "harmonious" party line, or they may be thought of as original thinking, but the truth is, it's always the same old song and dance.

As the Yiddish proverb states, "To a worm in horseradish, the whole world is horseradish".

At risk of seeming judgmental, I will instead attempt to describe the most common observations, opinions and reactions from the students themselves. Believe me - I've heard 'em all many, many times. This is not to say enlightened thought is nonexistant in China. Not at all. It is only to say that projecting one's own cultural sensitivity and relativistic regard onto the motives of others is sometimes as useful as sporting a partyhat in a petard fight.

[Now to add my personal value judgments from a sociological and psychological standpoint:]
Add to this the psychosocial effects of:

1. Information management & highly attuned perception management (delusion, brainwashing, etc)
2. Individual-invalidation and the need to continually reaffirm one's perceptions at others' expense
3. The Us-Against-Them foreigner dog and pony show - smiles, people!
4. Static concepts of Perfect Statehood
5. An unwillingness to criticize or self-examine or speak up in a group against offenders - let alone take action.
6. Lack of intellectual accountability / Diffusion of responsibility ("Mobthink") / the classroom option of tuning out without performance.
7. Social identity built upon the loadbearing Great Wall of racial discrimination
8. Unawareness of cultural biases
9. Social conformity reinforcement by mocking all difference
10. Anomie and opaque legal system / panopticon enforcement of authority / Rule of rationalization (not rationality) / asset vaporizing / no fundamental right to property/profit/home ownership.
11. Learned helplessness / apathy (flat affect)
13. Passivity and passive aggression as coping methods
14. Arrested development in the infantile "my world" stage
15. Single child spoiling
16. Communist "I want something for nothing" entitlement mentality
17. Unchallenged ethnonarcissism
18. Minds rigid with stereotype and fixed perceptions (i.e., all Chinese must be right-handed and heterosexual)
19. Scarcity mentality (One of the sacrosanct 36 strategies: grub every cent humanly possible)
20. Fundamental insecurity of collectivism that fuels inferiority/superiority complex
21. The antithesis of Zen's open-minded inquiry, which can only be characterized as the "seizing mind" - bending experience to rigid, pre-existing, self-serving concepts. Tea cup already full, and judging the teamaster's blend before it's even poured.

...And you are living during interesting times.

Conversely, some (many) will assume a norm where one doesn't exist at all; and you get a lot of varied opinions on topics, each one supposedly a commonly-held belief or "truism". I wish I had a kuai for every time I heard a conflicting stereotype about China.

Me being foreign, my opinion is of course invalid. My observations questionable, usually attributed to a "culture shock", since even us old hands are obviously little more than tourists - despite our ethnic family ties and years of residence. It's amazing we can even use chopsticks! But if there's one consensus I've heard, it's that anything that doesn't place China and the Chinese in the position of racial superiority and entitlement, it must be "racist". Meanwhile, my students elegantly avoid actual examination by someone who is a) educated, b) a critical thinker, and c) has actually lived in both countries usually being compared (US and China).

The best, most passionate, most erudite, socially-responsible, vocal teachers - never last. They are not tolerated and soon find themselves squeezed out. It is those of us who relax all academic standards, who smile while ignoring insult, who are not too physically atypical, and who don't care too much, who succeed. Especially those curiosities who speak the language!

In China, being seen as right is always more important than being right.

Negative outgroup bias and confirmation bias are the watchwords for what passes for classroom discussion. "If it's from a different culture, it's obviously inferior"; and "The only things I want to know about your foreign country are confirmations of my prejudices. I do NOT want my perceptions challenged, nor am I the least bit curious about the reality of the very different world with which I am utterly unfamiliar, but believe I understand completely." Any insistence upon challenging those perceptions will most likely be met with incredulity or fuming resentment.


So please allow me to write a few things which I've heard repeatedly from my Shanghai adult business students over the past five years:


I've often heard:

China is safe.
China is safer than the US.
The US is more racist than China.
China isn't racist.
Chinese aren't racist.
I hate the Japanese!
Chinese always work hard.
Chinese food is the healthiest in the world.
The US media is nothing but propaganda.
Tienanmen Square 1989 was an incident of student violence that was restored to peaceful order.
I would like to go to the US to observe some technology and bring it back.
Americans hate their parents.
Chinese love their families (foreigners don't).
Foreigners hate Chinese.
Shanghai is better than US cities.
Watch? Bag? DVD?
China is a better place to work than the US.
The world should change to Chinese for international language.
China education system is equal but the US is not.
China is free, the US is not.
Foreigners, ha ha (followed by racist bemusement).
Smoking everywhere is normal.
The government will fix it. It's the government's responsibility.









China is better than the US for living

Chinese food is the best in the world.
Hashish?
You are wrong, what really happened was...
Perhaps you just misunderstood, they were just being friendly/wanted to sell you something
Oh you are paranoid.
Computer?
Chinese love foreigners.
Chinese are never rude.
Chinese are never rude to foreigners on the street. (Perhaps you misunderstood the language).
You are very lucky to be in China.
Massage?
You have many more opportunities in China.
I want to travel around the world. Of course I want to come back to China.
Foreigners are foreign even in their own countries. Chinese are not foreign anywhere, they are Chinese.
What job do I want? I want a high salary job.
The government would tell us.
Rolex?
You just can't understand Chinese news.
Chinese is more difficult than any other language on Earth.
English is easy. I very like it.
Which is the right word? Right or correct?
They were compensated fairly.
Yellow DVD.
Chinese always...
You're fat, ha ha.
It's boring.
Melamine isn't bad for you.
Lead paint isn't bad for you.
It's not the milk company's fault.

It's not my responsibility.

Watch. Bag. DVD.
Foreign cities are dirtier than Shanghai. (Wow, good luck with all that).
America is worse at (insert aptitude or injustice here)
I want something for nothing (ok, I paraphrased this one, because it comes up in just so many ways).
Foreigners think animals are part of the family ha ha.
Laowai, ha ha. Hello. (After you have passed, of course, never to your face)
Of course China is the best _______.
Rolex?
Foreigners are racist against Chinese.
Foreigners always hate Chinese.
Foreigners love to go to the tourist spots, ha ha.
Foreigners are wasteful.
Where are you from? (Crossing the street or in the elevator)
Foreign company cultures are ridiculous.
Foreign companies are racist, they don't let Chinese in high positions.
I want to use my company's technology and make my own company.
I would take any bribe!
You are so white!
I love white babies!
Watch? Hello, watch?
You are great!
You are so strong!
You are rich!
You must love living in China!
Black people are (I can't bring myself to finish this one, sorry).
I hate the French store
I love the French store
Massage?
Chinese women don't smoke.
Chinese aren't fat.
Chinese are good at cheating people; they are so clever.
There are no gays in China. (Yeah tell it to the metrosexual mall cadre "casually leaning" sneaking phone pics at the urinals).
He's not gay. He has a girlfriend. He's not staring at your member (every day), he's just curious about your body because you're foreign.
What do Americans eat for breakfast? What time do they wake up?
Western media hates China.
Animal.
Foreigners are dirty. They wear their shoes in the house. (Um, streets not full of shit, thanks).
You are foreign, you are lazy (ok, more often implied than mentioned).
You are up so early for a foreigner! (What? I was just being nice).
Look, foreigner!
Don't be obvious, but there's a foreigner behind you! (Turn, giggle, talk)
(Upon seeing a foreigner) Foreigners are... I went to a foreign place...Foreign this and that....
Foreigners care about philosophy, Chinese care about reality.
American food is KFC, McDonald's and Pizza Hut. We have that. Chinese food is better.
Religions are superstitious, ha ha.
Luck is the most important to be successful. Luck is more important than persistance or relationships.
The customer is god.
Money is god.
Of course if they have a beautiful picture on their resume it will help. The world is beautiful.
White devil.
Chinese medicine doesn't work on foreigners.
Coffee is bad for Asians.
I have no choice.
You watch TV every day. You are addicted to TV.
China has never done wrong to another country.
What happens in Africa is not China's business. We respect other cultures, unlike "American".
Chinese culture is being invaded by foreign culture.
Foreign holidays are just regular days. Spring festival is special. It's a new year! It's a time to pray for fortune, money and luck.
It's not my fault. It was...
It's not China's fault. It was...
You said ni hao. Oh your Chinese is SO GOOD!!!

Watch? Bag? DVD? Hello! Rolex!

And the most telling....

I can't.


Note that "Chinese" and "foreign" are by default a part of nearly every conversation or social interaction, whether mentioned or quietly employed as a filter to discount your observations. The interaction cannot stand without the discrimination. Race is the only issue, where foreigners are concerned.


And the phrases I have never heard?

- I don't know.
- It's my fault.
- If I could just interrupt
- Let me find out for you.
- No, thank you.
- Do you mind if I smoke?
- If I may play devil's advocate here....
- Just let me turn my ringer off.
- You were here first, you go ahead.
- The government made a mistake
- How can I adapt to an international company's culture?
- Here are some possible solutions....
- Our company bears full responsibility for the defective product
- Minority cultures are being destroyed and trivialized
- We must agitate for social change.
- Tell me about your outsider's perspective / developed economic perspective
- Half these Shanghai office towers / commercial developments are foreign-owned and already tried out in Japan.
- But if we put things into cultural context, we could understand the other culture better.

Things not said but thought:
- You have offended me by pointing out my mistake. How dare you act like I'm a student.
- You're not a teacher, you're barely a conversation partner; and I do know more English than you. Wait to see.
- I made no mistake. You misunderstood.
- You don't automatically assume Regions X & Y are clearly part of China. You hate China.
- If every monetary unit could be sucked out of the world and into China, it would be glorious!
- No amount of money is enough. I want more.
- I bought this watch on sale.
- If your opinion differs from a China bias in any way, you are an ignorant racist.
- Sure you can talk. But can you sing a love song? (Oh, I'm wrong. They actually do say this).
- Dance to my whistle, monkey boy!


Class activities that elicit inaction and silence, perhaps fuming resentment:

Brainstorm a T shirt design
Decide, as an office, how to respond to an emergency computer problem.
Come up with an advertising campaign for one product and explain your ideas.
Think of a product and make a company around that product.
Think of a company name/slogan/logo
Discuss these ads and their appeal.
Debate - anything.
Bias
Cultural relativism
China must develop X.
The WTO.
The US legal system.
Media freedom.
Religion.
Arts.
Press conference.
Describing bumper stickers from a catalog.
Regional Accents.
Company in crisis, brainstorm meeting.

Remember folks, if you say something often enough, quick enough, and loudly enough, and close your ears reeeeeeeeal tight,
- it must be true.

As I mentioned in a previous post, since the collective, harmonious citizen doesn't usually criticize, you have to assess their thinking from the mental frameworks around their fears and criticisms of outgroup members.

Hm, knockoffs, substandard products and services, and cash-only transactions are most telling characteristics of normal Chinese society, are they not?


A Couple Random Things to Illustrate how my China perspective has changed from living here:
Remember when that US Spyplane went down in China? They returned it dissassembled. At the time I thought it was a political statement. Now I know better. It was simply reverse-engineering, secret-stealing. and not bothering to reassemble it before giving it back because that would take effort. Nothing so moral as political righteousness ever really entered into it.

At the airport, the Asian guy walking around the gate waiting rooms, and then reappearing occasionally - yeah, he's looking for unattended bags to swipe. I see that guy now.

Chinese are not bad drivers. That's a stereotype. It's the expectation of rule-following that is just so ridiculous. And what does noticing something beyond ten feet in front of you have to do with anything?


And the award for the most insightful thing I've ever heard:

Black holes are not real. I don't believe in them. They have no relevance to my life.


Look, I'm as culturally-sensitive and respectful as the next guy. But in this case, somebody's gotta say something that doesn't involve sunshine and rainbows. Because folks, the regard just. ain't. reciprocated.

The short answer? If you value your own culture, don't let a wolf guard your henhouse.

The Emperor's New Clothes - Made in China

Well I think that with the world economy in the state it's in, we should reexamine our business models, and not only that, but strive to create newer, more effective, and better models. Having lived in China and seen firsthand the results of abused capitalism under illegitimate totalitarian control, namely, inhumanity, I think it's time for all people to realize that we are only as strong as the weakest link. Profit-driven market economy cannot regulate itself wisely. It's time to ask ourselves whether we will accept our responsibilities as individual decision-makers, or allow "external forces" to choose our destinies for us. When the baby's milk starts getting poisoned, it's time to change.

Because as a citizen, and a consumer, I am more concerned with product safety than terror. Chinese products enter the world's market in uncountable ways, and China, clearly, is too busy showing force and seeking legitimacy without surrendering communist power, to invite a truthful discourse about the government's powerlessness to regulate it's own country. To say nothing of creating a moral society. Clearly nations and markets are not able to manage themselves rationally. Instead we see facades and static concepts, while under the surface, anything can and will go. Freedom carries a price. That price is moral action.


Nations, corporations, markets, consumer bases, are all bodies made up of individuals, making individual choices, including the choice to abstain from accountability. But each of us is directly accountable for our own actions and decisions. Each of us is a drop that together, makes a raging river. But unlike a river, we can choose our own course - or squander that power and fall where we may.

When markets can no longer guarantee humane security, it is time to question their validity. And to start making demands of our suppliers and producers, and stop tolerating rationalizations and deceptions.

Get off the fence and plant an idea! I'm too optimistic. I believe that people can break through their static concepts into the world outside, and see their own power to do something other than parrot and deceive themselves. So what's the solution? More regulation? Smaller organizations? Stricter punishments? The only thing I can think of at this moment, is the power of the consumer, to choose moral action, organize, and steer this blind beast by making wise purchases, as well as wise boycotts. To demand a higher standard of quality and regulation with our purchasing power from producers.

I'm not even addressing the fact that if every dollar could somehow be sucked into China, leaving the US destitute, that this would be perfectly fine with a good majority of Chinese. I for one no longer project my own good-natured will onto the motives of others - because if there's one thing I've heard in my five years in this "international city", it's condescension toward the US and its people. Resentment, envy, and designs on its power.

Of course, the need for conceit belies its own insecurities. I can criticize the boxing technique of Muhammed Ali, I can deflect all criticisms of my fighting skills onto a criticism of his, and I can do so aggressively and with conviction and even the "evidence" - that while he stumbles, I can stand - but in the end, who have I impressed besides myself? Only the gullible. Only those placated with unexamined conceits and limited, slanted discourse. Throw in a dollop of racial superiority, blend to taste.

A gullible populace is an exploitable, manageable populace. But pride goeth before a fall.

TRM

Shanghai Street Smart 101

I don't really know where to begin. It's a big topic. China, land of contrasts. After five years of living here in Shanghai, here are a just few random things I've learned:

• Don't trust anyone who says your "Zhong guo hua" is "hen hao", when you said two words in Chinese.
• Time is your ally. True friendships stand the test of time. Friendship has little to do with the English language.
  
• No matter how good it smells, don't eat food off the sidewalk.
• Navigating a sidewalk in China is like herding cats. Why avoid someone when you can rub against them?
• In the bathroom, you will be evaluated.
• Don't do excursions with coworkers or wife's friends.
• Being right is always more important than being truthful.
• Stereotype and discrimination are the tools with which collectivism is hammered. What's your negative pigeonhole? You'll find out.
  

• The Chinese don't want American style government. Criticisms of "foreigners" are actually insights into the mental framework that results from Chinese society.
  
• "Face" is another word for "facade". It's something like calling Las Vegas "family friendly".
• The first Chinese you should learn is taxi directions. Always tell cab drivers exactly which roads to take.
• Don't get in cabs that want to know your destination before you get in.
  
• Best cabs: Green, Gold,White, Blue VWs. Avoid maroon, avoid buicks and other nonstandard makes. Insist on the meter.
  
• If you use a traffic card (for bus, subway and cab), put a tactile sticker on it so a thieving driver won't switch it with an empty card in the dark.
  
• Never accept a ride from a "driver" who approaches you. You'll pay 200 RMB for a 12 RMB distance.
• In tourist zones, the beggars make more money than housekeepers.
• Tourist zones are not the best place to make friends. The innocent girl inviting you for a drink has a gang of thugs waiting to extort you.

• Complaining is futile.
  
• Strangers ask you questions because they want to know if you are rich.
• What some call psychological dysfunction, is called culture in China.
• Trust is earned.
• Expect customer dissatisfaction.
• Be comfortable losing control and placing yourself in the tender mercies of those who would talk about you in your presence as if you weren't even in the room.
• Hope you like secondhand smoke, BO and cell yell.
  
• Hope you like pollution in the air, noise, light, food, and mind.
• Hope you weren't too attached to your dignity.
  
• TIC means This is China. It is the answer for all your complaints.

Ok, this is page 1 off the top of my head. Perhaps in time I will substantiate these suggestions. Feel free to add your own!

TRM

The Running Man's New Blog Shanghai Street

Hello World!

I'm the Running Man and I'm blogging from China. I would like to welcome you to my blog, in which I will be writing about living in China. My background is over twenty years of customer service / management experience in retail, hospitality, and private enterprise, and I have a psychology degree. I'm also a writer.

I've lived in Shanghai for the past 5 years, working as an English teacher to young urban business professionals. I'm married to a Shanghainese woman and we have an infant daughter. My perspective is that of a caucasian US American male, 40-ish, with small town values and big city street smarts. Above all, I value truth, and realize that, while perhaps it is in the eye of the beholder, there is also sometimes a need to make a stand. I have no agenda other than to express my observations, which are filtered through my experience and knowledge and insight of what is happening below the social surface where China is concerned. I do it in part to express my own creativity and frustrations, and also for the benefit of people who may have less experience stepping outside their own perspectives and projections, when it comes to living on a China Street.

I invite comments, argument, and insights. I also have little truck with rationalizations, aggressive speech, spam, drivel, or propaganda. I've decided to post anonymously in order to keep arguments of personal views out of my classrooms, and also to avoid the wackos, which are not in short supply.

Check in! Leave a comment if you like.

TRM

Shanghai Street Blog
http://shanghaist.blogspot.com/