“‘Why You Shouldn’t Present A Clock To A Chinese Business Associate?’ Beyond Cultural Boundaries – A Very Personal Reflection”
Having worked and coached lawyers for over two decades, Patrick officially launched his Training and Coaching Company, Clearway Communications (www.clearwaycomms.com) in November, 2024. He has the following reflections to share:
My life experience thus far is that if you approach people with compassion and empathy, then cultural barriers can easily be put aside. But, I realise that I have also been exceptionally blessed. That said, my observations relating to the experience of living and working abroad (I am originally from England) for the majority of my career may be useful, even if it simply validates your own experience so far.
One axiom I would like to share is ‘always be curious’. I remember first experiencing ‘wanderlust’ when, at the age of six, my father, Dr Philip Brook Dransfield, read his diaries recorded when Philip was a young petty officer in the Royal Navy visiting China, Japan, Australia and the Dutch East Indies in 1945-6. During my early childhood, my father worked for a time with the Teijin Group, a Japan-based chemical company, which led to a great deal of exposure to Japanese chemists and Japanese culture. The worlds of travel and eastern philosophies continue to fascinate me – along with my profound wish to escape the mundane through Art (my chosen media being Photography and fiction). My ingrained curiousity and fascination with contemporary art and culture throughout the world has allowed me to forge common bonds with people wherever I am.
The first and most profound disorientation I felt was when I first joined an international law firm as a ‘non-lawyer’. And my cultural experience of almost a quarter of a century of working in close proximity to lawyers has only compounded my belief that ‘lawyers are from Mars: marketing people are from Mercury’. A whole other article is wrapped up in that simple adage, but the one thing that differentiates the legal profession from all others is a deep-rooted sense of entitlement of lawyers wherever they hale from. Indeed, the legal profession is the only one that divides the world into ‘lawyers’ and ‘non-lawyers’. Think about it.
The only exception to this rule that I have found are lawyers from China. They are so beaten up by their ever-demanding clients that they don’t have either the time nor inclination to feel any entitlement at all. I think that the fact that for many years – and especially during the Cultural Revolution (1965 -1976) – there were no lawyers at all in China has some bearing on this phenomenon. Staying with China for a moment, there are several aspects of the perception of a ‘virtuous person’ that also has a bearing on human relationships. The notion of individuality so beloved in the west is not evident in the same manner in China. As the French sinologist, the late Jaques Gernet observed: “From Confucius to Sun Yat-Sen…the ideal of human behaviour (in China) was to be individually upright to support a viable and prosperous state”. According to deep-seated Confucius ethics (and also more recent Maoist dialectics) a virtuous person is virtuous in all ways. The poet-laureate Philip Larkin would not be considered a great poet in China as the other aspects of his life and mind were so tawdry, for example. Being considered ‘virtuous’ has advantages as it indicates a profound level of shared trust. You are a ‘friend to the firm’ and hence can on occasion share uncomfortable truths. This sharing would be considered ‘contradictions among the people’. But woe betide you if you transgress and become ‘an enemy of the people’! There is no coming back from that. Another thing about business meetings in China; listen out carefully for what is said at the end of a formal meeting. It may be a seemingly throw away line at the meeting’s close, or said quietly in your ear as you reach the llift. That is the main message and you are advised strongly to heed it. But this can be lost on western folk who tend to focus on the theatre of the actual meeting.
I said earlier that a true and authentic ground rock of character dispels most cultural faux pas that we may be capable of. And common sense goes a long way. The Japanese bengoshi will make almost every accommodation for you – except if you leave their business cards on the table as you leave the board room (as one of my former Euromoney- Institutional Investor colleagues once did in Tokyo). Then, the feeling that you have deliberately left their very souls in the room will not form a helpful last impression. Do remember that faux pas go both ways – the current Chinese habit of expecting everyone to drop everything at the last minute and listen to a self-serving pitch for investment may perhaps work in Asia, bu tends to fall on politely deaf ears out here in the Gulf!
In business life do not on the whole expect life long, revelatory experiences with all colleagues and business associates. But also don’t close the door on them, either. My late great friend, Tom Leander (formally an editor with the Economist Group) always said that at business events no matter how dull (at one time he edited an accountancy magazine and then a daily shipping news newspaper, so Tom knew ‘dull’ intimately), he always looked out to meet one true and lasting friend (Tom and I met at an actuary conference). That meant that the whole experience had meaning.
I have lived and worked throughout Asia – especially in China, Hong Kong, Japan, S Korea and parts of Southeast Asia – and I must confess that my language ability is pretty poor. My Putong Hua can get me around with the basics in China, but, even though I have a Cantonese-speaking wife, much of ‘local’ life in Hong Kong passed me by. So, if you have language abilities, certainly invest in them. Your experience will certainly be richer than mine as a consequence.
I now life and work in the United Arab Emirates. The law firm I recently worked for, Alsuwaidi & Company, is founded and run by an Emirati, Mr Mohammed Alsuwaidi. I learned from him and other colleagues about Islam and seeing for myself how such a faith can be an incredibly effective common denominator. Of course, religious faith is much more profound than that, but the simple fact that the majority of my colleagues pray together regularly has a profound effect on the ethos of the firm. The Quran states that all the major religions come from the same source and while not a Muslim myself, I do profoundly believe that. As my own spiritual guide, the late Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, said: “Dhama is everywhere”.
The largest cultural gap I have encountered in my working life has been curiously between the New York and London offices of two international law firms. The adage attributed to Oscar Wilde that the Americans and Brits are “Divided by a common language” is a truism that to me holds veracity. Because the majority of lawyers from the US and Britain kind of look the same and seem to communicate freely doesn’t mean that real communication is actually going on. This misunderstanding comes to a head when it comes to client entertainment. For an American attorney to be less than sober in the presence of a top client would be an anathema. But quite the opposite can be true of an evening of ‘client development’ in the City of London. The other most corrosive cultural clash I have encountered was between US and Singaporean lawyers in Singapore. Most joint ventures I have personally encountered in Singapore have ended in failure. In my view, neither citizens of the United States or Singaporeans make natural ‘colonialists’. But on this and many other points I may well be wrong.
My final thoughts now turn to gifts and the dangers that a thoughtless gesture, however well meant, may result in. A corporate gift of an umbrella to an Emirati would be accepted with a certain bemusement (it has happened). A gift of breath freshening chewing gum to clients may very well be taken in the wrong way, depending. But the gift of a clock or watch to a Chinese person has always the strong implication that you wish them dead. Picture the scene on a stage at an international finance conference attended by over a thousand delegates in Beijing: a white and middle-aged North American banker attempts to pass along a clock at the finale to a horrified and generally fearful Chinese middle-aged banker, who in turn horrifies the American banker by passing him some crumpled notes to off-set the bad fengshui (which looks like a monetary bribe). This did happen and in the last twenty years or so – where and when I have unfortunately forgotten. However, what I always try to live up to the fact that Empathy goes a long way, but a little cultural research also helps!
*Parts of this article were previously published for PSMG, London.
