False Dichotomies

Don Joe redefines the word charisma. By redefining charisma as being born in 1980 in a small village north of London, he claims to be the most charismatic man alive. Now successfully alive for 27 years, he has been writing ever since he learnt the alphabet. His first words, ‘cat’ and ‘mom’, were widely praised, broadly acclaimed and critically renowned.

After writing several other words, including ‘camel’ and ‘wingnut’, Joe was accepted at Oxford to read biology. After reading biology and other words, he beat the pants off of everyone else in his academic year, except Rebecca Smith. Don Joe then took up a PhD at Cambridge. His PhD thesis, read only by two bearded professors, did not receive the wide distribution he hoped for. However, he did become a Jewish doctor and that scores highly with the ladies.

Leaving science to become a corporate whore in LA, he has worked hard on making his accent even stronger, because that too scores highly with the ladies. He ought to get laid a lot more than he does. He’s not bitter though; not at all. As a cathartic backlash against the minutia of corporate America “What the f*** am I doing here? A guide to working for large corporations” has become his passion, obsession and several other fragrances. It represents a wry writer’s rants through the boardrooms, break-rooms and bathrooms of banal bureaus everywhere. Joe also has a delicious barbeque chicken pizza in the oven.

The easiest way to convince people you’re intelligent and well read is to add “And then there’s China” at the end of any conversation. Discussing world politics? And then there’s China. Aristotle, Nietzsche, Foucault? And then there’s China. The only occasion when this doesn’t work is if you’re already discussing China. Everyone has to have an opinion on China; it’s dinner party law.

Understanding Chinese culture isn’t that difficult; indeed the Buddhist philosophy that underlies a lot of Chinese customs and business isn’t so different from the Jewish traditions that underlie world banking, Hollywood and the bagel industry. For example, in Buddhism your family will be respected if you have a lama in your family. Furthermore, Buddhists often approach lamas with their health problems, treating them like doctors. Everyone knows Jews love doctors.

To save you from having to read Confucius, Lao Tze and Mencius, here are the basics of what you need to know to do business in China:

1. If someone offers you a delicacy, politely refuse citing an allergy. When something is a delicacy it means that local people don’t eat it most of the time. There is a reason that Kentucky Fried Chicken is more popular than Kentucky Fried Jellyfish, Insect, and Mystery Meat. No one can be offended when you refuse on medical grounds. It’s far better than trying to grin at your host while you’re swallowing something’s foot.
2. Stop staring at the waitress.
3. When using a toothpick cover your mouth. If you really have to eat a delicacy cover your eyes, nose and after swallowing, your mouth.

I learnt these lessons the hard way, after a business trip to China that did little to advance my career. I moved out to Hong Kong for four months to look at investment opportunities in China; in the first week I joined a tour organized by an investment bank, giving analysts the chance to talk with the managers at Korean and Chinese companies.
Before I moved to Hong Kong I spent my last days in London pleading with doctor after doctor for the strongest conjunctivitis medication they had. They gave me various ointments, applied directly to the eye, which had the habit of leaving white globular residues dangling from my eyelashes.

The flight to Hong Kong was a disaster. Excess baggage costs were ₤39 per kilogram and I was no less than forty kilograms overweight: I hadn’t the time to ship my stuff because I had been at the doctor’s. Choking at the prospect of asking my company to reimburse the ₤1600 excess baggage claim, I found a shipping company in the airport that could send my extra bags at a fraction of the cost. The only drawback was that I wouldn’t receive the extra suitcases for another 10 days, long after I had joined the analyst trip. Beggars cannot be choosers, but they often cross national borders without much clothing. I had enough shirts in the one bag I could take but no socks or vests. Who cares? These can be bought cheaply enough in Hong Kong.

On the one day I had to settle into Hong Kong before joining the analysts in Korea I stocked up in Kowloon, the counterfeit capital of Hong Kong, on cheap socks and vests, which were fake Tommy Hilfiger. It wasn’t until the flight to Korea that I took one of the cheap vests out of its packaging: it smelt strongly of a fish-like chemical. Do I really have to face the CEOs of Asian companies smelling like a haddock, with globular eye-goo dribbling from my lashes?

Let me not forget to mention that my English bank, in its steadfast approach to beating bank card fraud, had locked my card immediately after I had used it in Hong Kong. Great: I’m now an odorous pauper with a bloodshot eye. Perhaps I should just go the whole hog and smear excrement on my gums.

The landing card for entering Korea asked whether I was carrying any fake goods. Do fish pee in the sea? Did they also pee on my undershirt? Yes and yes. So before the first flight was done I am bare-chested in the airplane toilet with a black biro scribbling on an unconvincing Tommy Hilfiger logo, turning it into a black square. Fortunately I made it through Korean customs without a hitch, which is just as well because the only Korean I know was taught to me by an ex-girlfriend: “hello” (anyung), “thank you” (kam-sah ham-nedah) and “do you want to die?” (chu-go leh?). Luckily, immigration lasted about as long as that relationship.

I spent the first days of the trip very hungry, until the bank unlocked my card. In all, these are not the ideal circumstances in which to meet the management of the sixth largest conglomerate of Korea. I can only begin to imagine what the managers I met thought: “Why they send us this boy who smells of fish, why he eat all our biscuits, and why he masturbate into his own eye?” None of these details made it onto my write up of the trip.