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On this page, we review a few of the many books written
about business in China or China in general. We will use the
well-known "Banana Rating System (BRS)" as follows:
=
Excellent; a GCM Guerillas favorite. Ripe and yellow.
=
Very Good; worth reading but with a few flaws. Ripe.
=
OK, if you have lots of extra time, but flawed. Nearly
ripe.
=
Premium goat food; serious flaws, bumps, and bruises.
Unripe. Moldy.
= Low end goat food; Black and decayed. Stinks too.
- Thick Face, Black Heart, can't remember the
author's name
Rating =
We can't remember the exact name of this book since we
long ago chopped it up for our goat to eat (the goat
puked shortly thereafter, thus proving that goats know
more about doing business in China than most other
animals including the stupid guerilla that bought this
book). This book is a classic case of "the Chinese are
great, westerners suck, and you will never come near
matching the great Chinese, so buy this book and feel
stupid." Full of absolute garbage about the "mysterious"
Chinese and their "mysterious" ways. We find it
absolutely unbelievable that the author of this book
could ever possibly make one cent of profit doing
business in China. Of course, she probably won't even
have to try since she is making a bundle on this piece of
trash book instead. We don't even want to honor this book
with one single banana, but since that is the lowest
score we can give, we grudgingly give it a one banana
rating. But we are throwing this single banana on the
ground and stomping on it for good measure.
- Negotiating China, Carolyn Blackman, Allen
& Unwin, 1997
Rating =
We were very happily surprised after reading this
book. Why? First of all, it was written by an Australian
and has quotes from many Australians. We have a strange
thing about Australians. For years, they have been
trooping through China telling everybody that would
listen that they are also located in Asia and therefore
they understand everything about doing business in Asia.
They then set about using their patented Australian ways
of doing business which entails lots of loud talk and
bluster and not a lot of thinking or planning. A very
optimistic and confident approach that works great unless
you are near the edge of a cliff. And China is full of
business cliffs just waiting for an unsuspecting
westerner to fall off of. These same Australians seem to
have no sensitivity towards the Chinese or even the
slightest understanding of the language or culture, but
what makes it worse is that they really believe that they
do understand completely. In other words, Paula Hanson
clones with nice suits. Shortly thereafter their business
in China implodes to zero, they blame the Chinese for
being stupid, and they exit. Leaving an empty space for
the next big mouth Australian to fill.
So lo and behold, along comes this book written by an
Aussie. And surprise, surprise, she seems to know what
she is talking about. In fact, she seems to be a damn
genius about business in China. Even gets a nice quote
plugging the book on the back cover from our god of
negotiating, Lucian Pye. She includes an excellent "quick
reference chart" in the beginning for really impatient
readers and it has some great jewels of advice. Some of
our favorites are "pad your offers," "don't believe all
they say," "never accept anything as fact," "use fake
time-line," and "use appropriate go-betweens, not all
overseas Chinese are acceptable." There are lots more
like these. The price of the book is worth it just to see
these strikingly blunt and 100% accurate bits of advice
put on paper.
- Chinese Commercial Negotiating Style, Lucian
Pye, Oelgeschlager, Gunn and Hain Publishers, 1982
Rating =
A true classic. We have purchased this book three
times over the years. But we always seem to lend it to
someone and they never return it. Buy this book, memorize
it, and make a fortune in China.
- Harmony In Conflict, Richard W. Hartzell, Caves Book
Publishers, 1988
Rating =
Mr. Hartzell apparently writes articles for many
Chinese publications IN CHINESE. Which gets him a big
thumbs up from the language study guerillas at GCM.
Unfortunately his book is somewhat of a disaster. It runs
over 700 pages long and consists of longwinded
discussions about the Chinese and how wonderful they are.
This guy really has a bad case of "China Envy." The main
purpose of this book seems to be to show how "subtle" and
"mysterious" the Chinese are in comparison to us clod
westerners. If you are very patient, you can dig out some
interesting info from this book. That fact saved it from
getting a "one banana" rating. Instead it gets a solid
"two banana." (By the way, who ever knew that Caves Books
did publishing? Maybe this was a remnant from their
illegal ripoff copies of western books days.)
- Two Billion Armpits, John Keating, Hambalan
Publishing, 1996
Rating =
This book would get three bananas just for the great
title even if the pages were blank. The good news is that
this is not a bad little book. A journalist with no
particular experience in business in China (aside from
living in Hong Kong for five years), Mr. Keating has a
sharp eye for the truth. This book does a nice job of
exposing some of the myths about business in China and
the Chinese. Our favorite piece of advice as described on
the back cover is "how to avoid being ripped off by
Chinese partners." Naturally, such straight talk about
China business brings a smile to our ugly guerilla faces.
Our only advice for Mr. Keating is that he get another
picture taken for his next book. He looks a little
bookish in this current picture.
- China Live, Mike Chinoy, Turner Publishing, 1997
Rating =
In this excellent book, we learned that there is a lot
more to Mike Chinoy than meets the eye. Whereas he always
struck us as a little wimpy kid lost in the library, it
turns out he is a wild man reporter with experience in
the Middle East and Afghanistan as well as the backrooms
of Thai girlie bars. Hopefully Mike will make some money
with this book so he can afford to get some better
clothing. Those cheesy short sleeved Sears dress shirts,
nylon ties, and Xiu Shui Jie Pierre Cardin leather belt
knock-offs have got to go.
- China: The Consumer Revolution, Conghua Li, John
Wiley & Sons, 1998
Rating =
Ever wonder what the big time consultants do for
companies interested in investing in China? Here is your
chance to find out for around US$24.95 rather than their
normal exorbitant charge. What they do is collect a bunch
of statistics from the Chinese government (without
checking for accuracy) and a few anecdotes to fill in the
space in between. They format all this info into sexy
looking charts and bar graphs. Also they create a few key
strategy flowcharts. Usually these have a slight 3D
effect to make them look better on the overhead slide at
the final presentation.
Big time consultants have access to a database of past
reports from their head office. So usually they simply
use one of these past reports rather than trying to
"reinvent the wheel" each time for each annoying client.
Thus one of their best skills, the one they get the most
practice at, is the FIND and CHANGE TO commands on their
word processing software. That is how they tailor their
reports for each client company. FIND old client name,
CHANGE TO new client name. PRINT six figure invoice.
Needless to say, this book was a big
disappointment.
- The Coming Conflict
With China, Richard Bernstein and Ross H. Munro, Vintage
Books, 1997
Rating =
Apparently these two China watchers are nearing
retirement age. Otherwise how would they dare to write
such a truthful book about China? From the back cover "a
clear-eyed and uncompromising look at the potentially
disastrous collision course now taking shape in
U.S.-China relations." Damn good stuff. Hope these
gentlemen like the Chinese food in New York 'cause they
ain't bein' invited back to China anytime soon!
Stupid fools! They could have just posted their book
anonymously on the Internet and hidden behind some silly
animal website concept rather than reveal their real
names!
- Managing In China, Stephanie Jones,
Butterworth-Heinemann Asia, 1997
Rating =
Gee, we were really planning on trashing more books in
this book review section, but we seem to have purchased a
lot of good books recently rather than the "dogs" we
normally buy about China. This is another good book about
doing business in China. Well Written, concise, practical
advice.
- Doing Business In China, Geoffrey Murray, China
Library, 1994
Rating =
Woof, woof! The first third of this dog-of-a-book
tells us in painful detail about the economic structure
in China. It also covers the various regions, region by
region, so that you know the unimportant general
difference between the investment climate in Hangzhou
versus Suzhou. And for the coup de gras, it covers the
"36 Stratagems" of negotiating, a pseudo Sun Tzu
collection of "mysterious" sounding Chinese proverbs to
make you confused and in awe of the Chinese. For example,
one of his great pieces of advice from "mysterious"
Chinese culture is to "point at the mulberry and abuse
the locust." In fact, like Sun Tzu's Art of War, the
"mysterious" proverbs are just common sense that anyone
with a brain would know. So why waste space in a book
telling us learn them?
This dog also covers the famous Beijing Jeep case
which we are all tired of hearing about. In case you
don't know of this case, it involves one of the stupidest
American companies (AMC) doing a joint venture with one
of the stupidest Chinese companies (Beijing Automotive
Works). Not surprisingly, this was a disaster.
Yawn!
- Big Dragon: China's Future, Daniel Burnstein and Arne
Keijzer, Simon & Schuster, 1998
Rating =
As they said in a recent edition of the China Business
Review, "buy this book." An excellent counterpoint to
"The Coming Conflict With
China" reviewed above. We don't agree with everything
they say, and the authors tend to be a little starry eyed
about the "mysterious and exotic" aspects of China. Also
their idea about what constitutes a typical business
person is laughable at best. These guys both need to
spend some more time in the real business trenches in
China as opposed to their fancy "Great Wall Hotel"
version of the trenches. Nevertheless, the positives far
out weigh the negatives about this book. So we give it
our glorious 5 banana rating. Please hold your
applause.
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