BEYOND LANGUAGE COMPETENCY: FUNCTIONING IN BIZCHINA

Mr. Nels Frye

Thank you for this opportunity to speak with you today on this important occasion, the ending session of a stream of conferences devoted to Education and Culture.

Let me begin with a series of questions which provides the setting for these brief remarks:

1. When every urban, young, educated person speaking Chinese is working hard to learn English,

When learning institutions in China, both through the Ministry of Education, and special foreign and Chinese run businesses are establishing better and more advanced methods of teaching English,

When English is the second language of up to 80% of some European countries such as Sweden and Finland,

What, may we ask, is the reason for foreigners to study Chinese?

2. Americans, my countrymen, regularly bemoan their monolingualism, and it is embarrassing for many when they cannot buy apples without an interpreter, or read labels at museum exhibits, or even street signs.  However, without a very specific interest in another culture – an academic most often – most Americans do not acquire a second language to deal in international business. Yet, we may well ask if such persons can actually succeed in their dealings with the many layers of players in manufacturing, banking, regulatory agencies and others without the interface of competent bilingual personnel.

As proof, we are seeing non-native English speakers heading major American global companies who have a European language competence.

In China I think that the answer to whether Americans or even English competent Europeans can function without Chinese is NO for now, and perhaps NO also for a period in the near future, even when English will be far more widespread in China than even now given the huge efforts underway now.

3. The reason is that dealing in global business requires both some level of language access but even more – access to the inter-cultural competency that in large part grows from basic understanding of language and culture.  

4. Let me tell you of my one decade of experience in interacting with Chinese matters. My fairly youthful experiences are not unique to other young people outside China.  But they do point to the importance of merging the study of language with at least a basic interest in the culture.  I am now building on that interest in the broad culture of China, which I hope will help me to function better in China in the area of business and make me a more responsible person.

 I grew up in Massachusetts, located in the northeast part of the United States, famous for its institutions of higher learning and excellent private schools.    From my sixth school year, I was offered the choice of LATIN, French or Spanish. I chose to study Latin and studied it for two years. But I changed to another private school which offered Chinese as a language option. Chinese has been my main foreign language since then though I did not take classes continuously.

Since then I have been coming to China for study and work sometimes during summers and now for my second full year.  My goal is to move into being able to speak at a higher level, learn to read better, and go beyond the elementary writing level that I now manage in.

 For me, and I think for other young people of my age who are not enrolled in degree programs at Chinese universities, the study of Chinese comes from a love of the culture.  This is where I began, with a copy of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms.  But increasingly I see the importance of knowing Chinese for my work in business.  And I already observe the success of those of my American co-workers who have a better command of the language.

As I have continued to live in China, I have seen how much more I have come to rely for daily interaction on my growing experience with Chinese business and social culture.  Therefore, acquiring the recognition that culture may be interpreted as more than poetry, art and music lies at the heart of the IC management approach. Culture in business is recognizing the signals in speech and non-speech that mean “yes”, “maybe”, “maybe yes” and “maybe no” and “no”. 

These are the skills on which I hope to build as I wrap my American mind around the contours of Chinese business culture.

Thank you.