Chinese Business Insights from a Foreigner

I got my China Business Dinner cherry popped! So one of my friends asked me if I would do his family friend a favor. The family friend named “Li” is starting a handbag line and was having a dinner meeting with a potential distributor. Li wants to create a façade that he is handbags are very “western.” I was going to join them at dinner as Li’s head fashion designer.

Of course I have no design experience, but we created a whole back story ( I graduated from FIT, worked for Polo for 3 years, then moved to China this summer) and I even had my own business card! The best part was that Li’s potential business partner spoke zero English and I had to pretend I spoke very minimal Chinese. Li didn’t want to run the risk of him asking me too many questions and fucking up the business meeting.

. Li was accompanied by his wife, and the distributor was accompanied by his wife and another woman that worked for the man’s company. Upon sitting down at the seafood restaurant, the 2 men went to the backroom to order our meal for the night. I could see that Li’s wife was also an important figure in terms of the business dinner. She was responsible for engaging the 2 women in dialogue and making sure they were having a good time. The table was essentially divided between men and women.

Throughout the whole dinner I smile and look pretty. I throw in some random Chinese words like, “Gan Bei!” and the table roars with laughter. Essentially I play my part as the token white guy in China. I am pretending I don’t understand anything going on, but I was secretly paying very close attention. He was whispering to Li about my position and asking multiple questions about my what I was doing.

There was ZERO mention of business at the table. I assume some business was discussed when the 2 men went to the back to order because they were gone for roughly 10 minutes and I know it doesn’t take that long to order food. Both men were smoking voraciously and they took turns exchanging cigarettes and lighting each other’s cigarettes. I think it was a bonding-friendship thing.

What I learned was this night was that Chinese businessmen will go to extreme lengths to create a façade and develop relationships. Basically, the means justify the ends. Li was directly lying to this distributor, but as long as he never finds out its ok. I just wonder how far this little game of cat and mouse actually goes. Overall this was a very valuable experience and gave me insight into how locals conduct dinner with each other. Now if Chinese are willing to cheat other Chinese when money is on the table, I wonder how far these “white lies” go with foreigners?