Jeanne Boden's Blog

work unit

When the communists took over in 1949 Chinese society was reorganized into work units. People lived where they worked and all of life was spent within the walls of the communist work unit. The system is often referred to as the 'iron rice bowl', which means that everything that was needed from birth till death was provided for by the state. No one had much but everyone had the basics. Unemployment did not exist. 

China has changed a lot after opening up in 1978, but in many cases the work unit somehow still exists, be it in a totally different version. The Communist Party is still in reign and China is still a communist country. Sometimes we tend to forget that with the economic booming, but when you look underneath the surface you will discover the communist institutions are still there. The 'socialist economy with Chinese characteristics' means that the government and the Communist Party stay in control of the economy in a way westerners are not used to and often even tend to ignore. 
 

lining up to get instructions

Before works starts the team stands in line to get instructions and sometime shout a slogan together to liven up the spirit.

competition in the market?

In a market economy businesses try to differentiate as much as possible to optimize profit. When one intends to opens up a shoe shop, the ideal location seems to be far away from competitors. In the planned economy that China used to have until opening up in 1978 competition seemed to work differently. In fact there was no competition whatsoever. The government controlled and planned everything, and provided all the basic necessities in life for everyone. 

This picture taken in Jilin in the North of China in the beginning of the 1990s shows how the legacy of the planned economy did not disappear overnight. Everyone is selling exactly the same thing at the same location. Even in today's China you can still see the legacy of this system, still today certain goods or industries are concentrated in a certain area.

geely - 吉利

When I was in Xinjiang last winter, it occurred to me that many of the cars there had brands I had never heard of. In spite of the heavy snow and winter dirt I took some pictures. This Geely brand caught my attention because somehow - with the blue and white in the logo, and the white characters in the black circle at the top - it reminded me another logo.....

 

Geely not only developed a logo inspired by BMW, it also discovered another brand with a blue logo: VOLVO!

 

Geely bought Volvo. This event shook the West. All of a sudden I got all these telephone calls from the media asking what was happening and how suddenly China had become so strong. For the longest time I have seen it happening. It is not happening suddenly but going on for decades now. Many people in Europe never really wanted to know. Still today many do not want to know. But reality is there I am afraid.

And in good Chinese tradition Geely reflected on it's branding so it choose a fortunate name in Chinese: 吉利 means auspicious and advantages. What else do you need in life?

And if you ever decide to take over a Chinese company, remember why it is important to find a good Chinese translation of your company name, I explained that on a post on David's Blog here.

visa boot

customer service ambassador

Customer service is one of the things in China that suffers from the legacy of the planned economy. People expect all services to be included and do not like to pay for services in general. Therefore, to see this 'customer service ambassador' Miss Li Na at the entrance of the Oriental Plaza in Beijing, waiting for hours to have a customer turn to her, I thought was really funny. 

On top of that, especially for the Christmas time her outfit was adapted. 

 

meeting in beijing

east wind

In the planned economy before 1978 there was no competition in the market between brands or labels. Economy developed according to a national plan. Everything was 'revolutionary', including brand names. These blue trucks called 'East Wind' or Dong Feng 东风 are examples of the leftovers from former times. You can still see them all over China. But as we can see on their website the brand now stands for a variety in cars and trucks. China has changed but the hammer and sickle still shine on the Dong Feng website!

training 12 million people

'China trains more then 12 million construction migrant workers' the China Daily reports. For us Europeans living in our small countries this is a size impossible to imagine.

Just yesterday I had a talk with a Chinese friend who told me that some Chinese who want to invest in Europe were inquiring about the size of European companies: 'Are they really that small?'. Yes we are. Size is one thing that cannot be compared between Europe and China.

classification systems in China

Street sign of 金融街 Financial Street in Beijing. The character '乙' (yi) next to the '17' is one of the characters of the traditional 六十花甲 sexagenary Chinese calendar with 干支 ten 'heavenly stems' and twelve 'earthly branches'. The calendar is still used in today's China, next to the Gregorian calendar. (As westerners working in China we should be aware of the fact that the Gregorian calendar was only introduced in all of China in 1949 - not that long ago - while the sexagenary system is used for thousands of years and continues to be used today. 'Our' system' is functional, used for international cooperation, but for the Chinese the sexagenary system is more important.)
The sexagenary system functions as a calendar but is also used as a classification system, e.g. in official registrations and documents, like in the street name registration here.