Big Royal Cute Mistakes in China

The Saint Bernard Syndicate depicts all too common Western business venture mistakes in China. The tagline for their Saint Bernard dog breeding business is “Big, Royal, Cute”. The “big” part of Rasmus and Frederick’s business plan is the big trip to China and learn about their customers. Once in China, as the satire demonstrates, an interpreter can be easily hired. The interpreter’s job is to facilitate communication into the other language. The most competent interpreter will not be able to explain the big picture of Chinese customs, social expectations, and social structure relationships. Rasmus and Frederick’s questions show the utter ignorance of the culture as the questions fail to fall into the coherent order of Chinese social interactions. Rasmus and Frederick make some “royal” mistakes such as cracking jokes with their potential Chinese business investors. Their Chinese audience at first, does not anticipate the jokes, and secondly, does not take jokes as an indication of trust and reliability. This cultural misunderstanding may be considered a “cute” mistake, but as the story develops, Rasmus and Frederick attract the wrong kind of investor. Innocent and “cute” mistakes may have little permanent damage in the American business environment, but in China, these mistakes can lose credible investors, and attract troubled ones. The most important part of their puzzle would have been to prepare cultural etiquette before arriving in China. Yvonne is in the business of helping business executives succeed before landing in China. Contact her for a free consultation.