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On Thanksgiving Thursday, we ordered a full turkey dinner for our whole team. In Chinese, the word for turkey is 火鸡 (huo ji) which literally translates to “fire chicken.” All day my colleagues asked “Fire chicken 来了吗?” in anticipatory glee.
With mashed potatoes, gravy, salad, sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie and more, it looked and tasted a lot like the Thanksgiving feasts I’ve enjoyed at home. (We ordered from Culinary Capers, a catering company that just opened the restaurant Switch at 798.)
My colleagues really loved the meal. We sat in the company cafe for about two hours, chatting and laughing.
Fire chicken night contrasted sharply with the Thanksgiving scene in Rachel DeWoskin‘s memoir Foreign Babes in Beijing. When Rachel moved to Beijing in 1994, she stumbled into a starring role in a Chinese soap opera, and worked in public relations. Her boss, an older American woman she calls Charlotte, takes the whole company out for Thanksgiving dinner at a fancy foreign hotel. As her Chinese colleagues poke awkwardly at their plates of dry turkey, Rachel realizes how little her boss connects with the local staff. She wonders why she didn’t just take them out for a Chinese banquet, for more familiar food the staff could really enjoy. (I hope this is accurate; I am writing it from memory, and the book is not at hand.)
When I mentioned this scene to one colleague, he said, “China has changed. We are a lot more open to foreign things now.” I added that this food might be more flavorful than the international cuisine available in Beijing circa 1994, since more foreign restauranteurs have moved in.
After this delicious meal, we headed back to our desks to finish the evening’s assignment.
My mom sent me four paper turkeys, by airmail. One is still on my monitor 
This special dinner gave me the opportunity to share something from my own heritage with my colleagues. As we get to know each other better, we can work more effectively together.
It reminds me of one of my all-time favorite articles: The Cross-Cultural Classroom, by Christina Shunnarah. Ms. Shunnarah teaches kindergarten at International Community School in Georgia. The school serves students from more than 40 different countries, many of them refugees. Ms. Shunnarah writes:
I often think of culture in terms of the “iceberg concept” commonly used in educational studies, with its small visible tip and huge mass below the surface. Most people tend to view only the surface aspects of culture “observable behavior” sometimes known as the five F’s: food, fashion, festivals, folklore, and flags. But of course culture goes deeper than that. It is the other 95 percent below the surface of which we need to be aware.
Deep culture (below the surface) includes elements such as child-raising beliefs, concepts of self, beauty and personal space, religious rituals and perspectives, eating habits, facial expressions, eye contact, work ethic, approaches to problem solving and interpersonal relationships, moral values, cosmology, world views and personal discipline — to name (more than) a few.
The children that come into my classroom each year have such a variety of life paths. Looking at their cultural backgrounds with the “iceberg concept” in mind has helped to keep me aware of the aspects of their lives that are not in plain view. And the more I work with the students at I.C.S., the more my awareness of these subtle realms increase. [more]
Though I am no longer officially a teacher, this lesson definitely still applies. Celebrating Thanksgiving falls into the superficial category of the five F’s of “observable behavior,” and I see it as a first step in digging into the real iceberg: how each person’s culture shapes his or her worldview, expectations, and so much more.
Tomorrow I’ll share a list of my own core beliefs, hidden biases, and religious perspectives, and how understanding them has helped me in my day-to-day interactions.
I like this paragraph from Justine Lee Musk’s blog Tribal Writer:
We are wired to resist creative work. We are programmed to take the easy way out. The easy way seems like the known way, the safe, secure way, and that’s what the ancient part of our brain is always seeking. Avoid danger. Avoid, avoid, avoid! Live to love another day, so that we can mate and produce offspring. We do the same things in the same way, follow the same patterns of behavior, because that primitive part of our brain seeks out not what’s necessarily in our best interests, but what’s familiar. The brain thinks that what’s familiar is in our best interests: if it’s managed to keep us alive so far then hey, it must be working, and if it’s working, it ain’t broke, and if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Right?
She then goes on to describe how to set rituals to nourish your creativity. This paragraph also resonates with me.
Pay attention to what resonates for you; what rings out as authentic and whole. That’s your truth. Bring it into your work. Don’t let other voices talk you away from it, or make you doubt or destroy it. Don’t let other people define your experience for you, or impose their ‘reality’ over yours. That will contaminate your work and wound your soul.
What fuels your creativity? Under which conditions to you create more effectively?
Angie Ng is a good friend of mine. She is here in Beijing on a secondment at King & Wood, from her firm in Australia. On a personal basis, I am more familiar with Angie’s sense of style and enthusiasm for exercise than the details of her law practice, and I really enjoyed reading this Asian Legal Business piece featuring her:
Asian Legal Business – Breaking News Story
Secondment: extension of good will
By Yun Zhang
Friday, 5 November 2010
Like any other senior associate in King & Wood, Angie Ng, a member of the firm’s anti-trust and competition group, takes part in internal meetings, attends to client matters and handles billable work.
Judging by her day-to-day practice, it’s nearly impossible to tell that she is a foreign lawyer and is seconded from Australian firm Gilbert + Tobin. G+T is King & Wood’s only Western strategic alliance, and started the secondment and exchange program two years ago when the alliance was formed. A number of its IT and competition lawyers (including partners) have already completed their secondments, while G+T has played host to several secondees from King & Wood in the areas of IT, real estate and corporate.
The firm’s communications partner Peter Waters affirms that the program has been fruitful and both firms will continue to improve the structure. “A big driver of the relationship between the two firms has been the exchange of skills in targeted practice areas, where we see opportunity for expansion in Asia and King & Wood sees new and emerging opportunity in China,” he said. “The secondment program is part of the glue which makes our strategic relationship work. It’s a means to an end for both firms.” [more]
I’ve also met American, Brazilian-Australian, Italian, and British lawyers who have come to King & Wood. An excellent opportunity for everyone involved!
This is an amazing opportunity!
Announcement: China Education Initiative Information Session
Post-graduate Job Opportunities in China
Monday, October 11th
6pm at 110 Barrows Hall
Do you want to make a genuine impact after graduation? Are ready for the most challenging and rewarding job you will ever have?
My name is Leah Fine and I am writing on behalf of China Education Initiative (CEI), a non-profit organization taking a unique approach to eliminating educational inequity in China by enlisting the US and China’s most promising future leaders in the effort.
Over 200 million Chinese students have severely limited access to quality education — we believe this CAN and MUST be changed.
China Education Initiative is an innovative non-profit working to address educational inequality in China by enlisting the most promising future leaders in the effort. CEI recruits, trains, and supports top graduates from China and the United States to work side-by-side as full-time teachers in China’s most under-resourced schools.
Beyond their two-year teaching commitments, China Education Initiative supports alumni to become leaders in the broader movement to address educational inequality. As the first and only organization to partner outstanding recent college graduates from China and the United States in a long-term service initiative, CEI’s approach provides an innovative model for strengthening Sino-US relations and building bilateral solutions to global problems.
China Education Initiative is partnered with Teach For America through Teach For All, the global network for educational opportunity. CEI is funded through support from Ford Foundation, The Henry Luce Foundation, and Goldman Sachs, among others.
To learn more about CEI and our Fellowship program, please visit our website at www.chinaeducationinitiative.org. We also encourage you to view our brochure and informational video.
Thank you for your interest in CEI and global educational equity. I look forward to meeting at our information session on Monday!
Sincerely,
Leah Fine
US Recruiting and University Relations Team
China Education Initiative
I wrote this guest post for GeekMBA360, a blog I discovered when it featured Wokai about two years ago. I like this blog because it gives practical career advice from the perspective of a techie family man. I find that men and women give very different advice when it comes to careers, with men tending to say “where’s the money and power?” and women tending to say “what is your passion?” (My apologies for the gross generalization…) I appreciate the advice that Mr. GeekMBA360 gives to his many, many readers, and I enjoyed the opportunity to share my China story here. Below is the whole post, as it appears here.
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Today I have a treat for everyone. Leslie Forman is a fellow graduate of University of California at Berkeley. She is a regular reader and occasional commenter on this blog. Leslie was a Latin American Study major at Cal, but ended up working in Beijing, China. Not only her journey is fascinating, she also writes an excellent blog called Beyond China’s Single Story.
I invited Leslie to write a guest post about her experience in China. Without further ado, it’s my pleasure to present Leslie’s guest post.
Written by Leslie Forman (http://www.leslieforman.com)
Originally from San Francisco, I have spent most of the past four years working in China. The other night Frank Chen from Vastsea Executive Search came to my Chinese school to give a presentation about the job search in China. He said that jobs for foreigners in China fall into four categories:
(1) English (teaching, writing, editing, speaking)
(2) Business Development (negotiating new projects, partnerships, and sales)
(3) Multinational Companies (in which the nature of the business is inherently global, and therefore needs a global staff)
(4) Entrepreneurship (my friend Joey, a creative and successful sculptor, often says, “China makes everyone an entrepreneur.” Just about every foreigner who has spent 5 or more years in China has launched a project of come sort!)
Most jobs involve more than one of these categories. For example, my most recent full-time job, with a British company now known as Yaxley China, included all four. I taught specialized, high-level English classes to Chinese lawyers, reporters, and engineers. I met with potential clients, and drafted proposals to describe opportunities for collaboration. My clients all worked for multinational organizations, in which they needed to communicate with clients and colleagues overseas. And a British entrepreneur started the company.
One of my best friends, an Aussie who has studied Chinese since high school, is a personal assistant to an entrepreneur who connects Australian investors with Chinese projects. Her job also involves all four of these categories, and she channels her obsession with Beijing’s music scene into BeijingGigGuide.com. I mentioned Frank’s framework to her, and she suggested that most foreigners who live in China for a while have careers that progress from one category to another. Many people start out teaching English, and then work for multinational companies, who utilize them for English editing and business development efforts, and then they eventually want to apply their skills and contacts to start something new.
My own experience has pretty much followed this progression. (Though I have not jumped into formal entrepreneurship. Yet.) I first moved to China in 2006, shortly after graduating from Berkeley, with an oh-so-appropriate degree in Latin American Studies. Why China? people always ask me. My short answer is, “because I could.”
A few days after my graduation, I thumbed through my well-worn copy of Delaying the Real World – an inspiring and practical book that should be on every adventurous twenty-something’s desk – and looked up just about every international opportunity listed.
Three months later, having spent the summer volunteering in English classes for recent immigrants, I started as an English Instructor at Jiaxing University, in a small-by-Chinese-standards city about two hours south of Shanghai, thanks to CIEE Teach in China. Next, I interned in the corporate social responsibility division of the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai, and helped a multinational ports company with its corporate social responsibility report. After a year and a half in China, I found myself homesick and returned to my hometown, San Francisco.
During my stint with socially entrepreneurial software startup there, I got very involved with a China-focused microfinance non-profit called Wokai. I then decided to move to Beijing. (I wrote more about my China story and China careers in general, in this post: How I Have Untemplated My Career in China.
This summer, studying Chinese has been my focus. I take classes at a private language school, and have worked closely with my wonderful tutor. My goal is to be able to collect information in Chinese in the workplace. I have been able to do this in my part-time job with a Chinese marketing company. We interviewed Chinese employees of a multinational retailer about their job satisfaction levels, and I was able to analyze their responses and write about them for the American client. I have also been volunteering for the Jane Goodall Institute and tutoring an 8-year-old Chinese-American girl in English. I am also looking for a new full-time job. I am very optimistic about opportunities in this emerging economy.
Overall, China has been good to me. My original decision to move here, definitely the most random of my life, has exposed me to so many adventures and opportunities, and I’m glad to have taken this plunge.
Related posts:
- Foreign Young Professionals in China Mini Series #1: Interview with Ms. Marie Cheng
- Foreign Young Professionals in China Mini Series #2: Tsinghua MBA at Big Pharma
*Added October 3, 2010. I found a job! I have not started quite yet, so I am not ready to tell the Internets about it in detail, but I can say that it is with a large company, in a new industry for me.
I'm Leslie and I connect entrepreneurs in Chile, China, California, and beyond — especially through translation, training, and trade. More about me.
