Upon closer examination, Christchurch turned out to be "Chrisichurch"
Following my previous post on the importance of getting translations done right, I have included some photos to further illustrate my point. I was in Shanghai last year, and at a glance saw someone wearing a t-shirt that said “Christchurch” on the back. Perhaps an ex-international student, I thought.
Upon closer examination, I cracked up in laughter.
Chinese police car
And then there was this police car I saw outside a McDonald’s restaurant. For a moment there, I wasn’t sure if they are for real, but I can assure you they are driven by real cops. My mum could have done a better job with the spray paint. Why can’t they get something so basic checked? All they needed to do was to open up a word doc and see if there’s a red underline.
police warning
It’s endless. I came across another sign at a restaurant (with English menus, not a roadside stall).
In verbatim, the text reads:
The police warned Please use the “Auti-Theft Hook” under the table. Take care of your belongings. Shanghai railway station rigilance police station.
My wife (fiancee at the time) asked what sort of system this is. I was also wondering what kind of sophisticated anti-theft system they installed under the table. My curiosity paid off. I didn’t have to look long to discover this most effective albeit primitive theft-prevention device.
Chinese anti theft system
OK in the same way that we laugh at the Chinese who make all these “stupid mistakes”, they do the same with Westerners with silly tattoos and t-shirts. The difference is that the Chinese are just simply too polite to tell you
In spite of the scary stories told in “Horror tales from Chinese tourists” in today’s Business Herald, we must not lose sight of the potential of the Chinese tourism market. It was reported that Tourism Holdings will decide in the next month whether to keep pursuing the Chinese market. Graeme West of Tourism Holdings says “We can’t be out there everywhere – we have to target where we think we can get the biggest bang for our buck. The market is there. But do we want the yield the market is providing?”
It makes commercial sense to target the market generating the highest returns. But I’m afraid that many tourism providers may be short-sighted in the same way that many language schools in the early 2000s were. Back then, the Chinese started to go overseas in huge numbers and many new language schools were opened here in a free-for-all. In the end, Chinese students stopped coming for a variety of reasons. One reason is the negative publicity that arose from adverse media reports. Cowboys in the market also did a lot of damage, by short-changing students. The Chinese began to be seen as a new goldmine, and scores of students had bad experiences with shoddy schools, greedy homestay parents, and unethical tourism providers. Understandably, ripped off students won’t have good things to say about the New Zealand experience.
Many schools had to close down, and we have significant excess capacity to this day. Does that mean that China is a bad market to target? No. We’re just getting punished for our short-sighted view of the market. There’s a sense of deja-vu with what’s happening in the tourism sector now. We can certainly learn from the experiences of the language school sector.
Chinese outbound departures more than doubled in the last five years, from 16.6 million people in 2002 to 40.9 million people in 2007. The number of affluent Chinese has increased dramatically, which bodes well for tourism. The China-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement and loosening visa restrictions are making it easier than ever for Chinese citizens to travel here.
The 2007 Neilsen China Outbound Travel Monitor Report indicated that Europe is the top dream destination for Chinese travellers, followed by Australia and New Zealand. Surely, at a time when the desire to visit New Zealand is so high, we need to be intensifying efforts to target this market, not cutting back. Rob Finlayson, manager at Tourism Holdings Limited (who looks after Rotorua’s Rainbow Springs, Kiwi Encounter and Hukafall Jet boating), was quoted as saying “All they do is the Agridome and Te Puia.” He says even if he cut his prices in half they still would not attract Chinese visitors because “at the end of the day they only have to include two paid attractions”.
Similar to various tourism providers, a number of domestic retailers are also responding in the same way. The word is there’s no reason to focus on the needs of Chinese clients because there aren’t many that buy. It begs the question: do you not have many Chinese/Asian clients because there aren’t many around, or simply because you’re not set up to deal with Chinese/Asian clients?
I don’t know how we manage to conveniently forget that 1 in 5 residents are of Asian descent in the Auckland region.
Why is it that Chinese visitors have the lowest satisfaction levels (according to Tourism NZ data) of all those who visit this country? We need to talk to our clients to find out. But can we realistically do that if none of us actually understand the language spoken by our clients, let alone their culture?
Understanding the target market and taking a long term view of the value of the Chinese market is critical to success. We need to interpret our observations through the eyes of the Chinese. Let’s not allow our perspectives to be so coloured by our cultural baggage that we fail to capitalise on significant opportunities.
In 2007, China’s GDP was US $3.25 trillion. The Chinese economy is forecast to grow at 9.9% this year. The extra dollars generated by the economic growth alone is more than the entire annual GDP of Singapore and New Zealand… COMBINED!
“Not another China article” you may say, but this is such an important topic that I think it does no harm to remind ourselves of the many implications of China’s rise for New Zealand (and the rest of the world)
Perhaps part of the motivation behind not wanting to read more about China is our fear that the Chinese is about to take over the world. That we do not have to worry about, because they already have!
Since 2005, I have noticed that on average the size of China’s economy climbs up a rung every year. First, Italy was beaten when China became the world’s 6th largest economy, then it was France and UK that got dwarfed. This year, China’s economy is set to overtake that of Germany’s for the first time.
I believe ordinary New Zealanders will increasingly be impacted in at least one of the following ways:
1) Your suppliers will be Chinese
For many of you this is already the case. China is the cheapest, most efficient place in the world to make just about anything. When I take visitors to local souvenir shops, I generally find New Zealand souvenirs that are made in China outnumber those made in New Zealand 10 to 1. As factories making mass-produced goods in New Zealand become less competitive by the day, more businesses will start buying from China.
2) Your clients will be Chinese
As the Chinese acquire more wealth, they will start to demand the goods and services that we sell. The global food crisis could turn out to be a blessing in disguise. New Zealand can once again be proud to be dependent on agriculture. Our dairy products and quality foods will demand a premium in China. Our professionals will also be busy; helping build China’s physical and corporate infrastructure.
Andrew Grant, Head of Greater China for McKinsey, has this to say in an interview published this month:
I am hard pressed to think of any New Zealand business that shouldn’t have China on the agenda – on their board agenda, on their management agenda, on their growth agenda.
3) Your neighbours will be Chinese
I believe New Zealand will see an influx of Chinese migrants in the next 5-10 years, much like how we saw an influx of Koreans and Hong Kongers in the mid-90s. As China becomes more developed, income levels will rise. But so will stress levels. Many Chinese professionals will be tempted by the clean air, laid back lifestyle and relative safety of New Zealand. Short of New Zealand imposing a quota on the number of Chinese migrants, I foresee Chinese migrants arriving in droves. Many such migrants will be alumni of local universities and schools, having studied here during the language school boom years of early 2000s. The presence of Chinese migrants here will attract more, and word of mouth will ensure a steep growth trajectory in migrant numbers; much like how it happened in the mid-90s with other Asian migrants.
As most Chinese migrants will prefer living in Auckland, Wellington or Christchurch, these cities will become far more cosmopolitan than they already are – sooner than you think.
4) Your colleagues will be Chinese
This is a direct result of (3). As New Zealanders become more used to having Chinese neighbours, we will also get more used to having Chinese colleagues. We’re standing at the cusp of change. Traditionally, businesses have been very hesitant to recruit Asian staff. As companies have literally run out of Kiwis to employ in the last few years, they have had to take on staff they wouldn’t normally employ. Much to the surprise of these “early adopters”, the Chinese staff have generated a return on investment beyond their expectations, thus clearing the way for them to employ more Asians.
5) Your boss will be Chinese!
OK, for my staff at Euroasia, this is already the case!
As the rest of the world begins to suffer from what looks like a prolonged recession and a severe credit crunch, the Chinese with their war chests will go out bargain hunting. Some businesses will inevitably end up in Chinese hands. Despite being communists, the Chinese are shrewd capitalists at heart. They are also exceptional operators, with over 5000 years of trading history behind them. I have seen many New Zealanders greatly underestimate Chinese capabilities; based on limited encounters with Chinese students and recent graduates who speak broken English.
Make no mistake, these uncouth foreigners could one day be paying your wages.
How then do we prepare ourselves for the new reality?
No Chinese person expects you to be fluent in Chinese. But the fact that you’ve made an effort goes a long way. It also seems a little unfair that we expect other people to devote a lot of time, money and energy to learning English so that they can communicate with us if we’re not prepared to make any effort at all.
Additionally, when you travel in a country without a knowledge of the language, in some ways you only scratch the surface; only when you know the language do you realise how much you would otherwise be missing. This is more the case in China than almost anywhere else.
2) Understand Chinese culture
There’s no better way to understand the culture than to learn the language. They are so intimately intertwined that I doubt you can fully understand a culture if you can’t speak the language.
There are also plenty of books on Chinese culture and doing business in China. Chinese people are not easily impressed by you saying that you’ve read the 20-page English translation of Sun Tzu’s Art of War. It’s a different story if you’ve read it in the original language.
3) Make some Chinese friends
This is easier said than done. But hey, it’s easier now than it was 10 years ago. We no longer have to go to China. China has come to us. You would be surprised how much you can learn from Chinese students if you pause and listen to what they have to say. This, of course, requires a lot of patience and cultural understanding.
Considering the fact that you could soon end up with a neighbour from Beijing, a colleague who packs chicken feet for lunch, clients who demand progress reports in Chinese, and a Mandarin-speaking boss, it could be well worth the effort.
This period of unbelievable growth, we’re not going to get that again. This is not something that I think people have the option to wait around for. I don’t know how much the story is being told, but in China the FTA, not just in the substance of what is written there and all of the clauses, but what it has done in terms of the way China thinks about New Zealand, it really is a very special window of opportunity that every Chinese business is interested in engaging in with New Zealanders and New Zealand. I hope New Zealanders realise how precious that is and the imperative and urgency to really seize the moment.
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