The Chinese Office: What You Need to Know to Survive and Thrive

Working in China is a unique and exciting experience that not many people get the chance to have, so if you get the opportunity, take advantage! Odds are it will be a fun, educational and above-all interesting time. It’s important to understand, however, that Chinese offices have some unusual quirks and circumstances you might not expect if you’re more accustomed to a Western office environment. Don’t worry though, Yoyo Chinese is here to sort things out and explain what’s what! Today we’re going to talk about some key things to keep in mind and also delve into Chinese work culture and why it is the way it is in modern China.

Socializing and Making Friends

First, it’s critical to remember that personal relationships and connections reign supreme in China, and this goes doubly for office environments. You’ve probably heard of the concept of guānxì (关系, meaning connection or relationship), and there are few places in which guānxì is as important as it in offices in China. Forming personal relationships with coworkers, clients and sometimes even superiors can be the difference between promotion and career stagnation, so don’t skimp on the social aspect of the work experience – many Chinese employees form close relationships with each other and dislike coworkers who don’t socialize or attempt to fit in. I’ve worked in a lot of offices in China and every company seems to have a couple people that tend to get excluded from conversations and social activities. I’ve seen first-hand how, particularly in smaller companies, it’s tough to develop your career and get promoted if you’re one of these outcasts, so make an effort to socialize and make friends!

Quantity over Quality

This heavy emphasis on connections and relationships results in part, from the longer work hours Chinese offices tend to impose. It’s an interesting dynamic (that we’ll touch on a bit later), but companies in China tend to emphasize quantity over quality when it comes to putting in time at work, with many managers expecting employees to stay late regardless of how much work they have to do or have already completed. Obviously this varies from industry to industry (most of the offices I’ve worked in are tech or web-centered and are much more flexible and liberal about work hours, in fact), but work culture in China does generally place a premium on the time you spend at the office, even if that time isn’t spent very productively.  Indeed, it’s common for all employees, or at least all employees from a certain department, to arrive at and leave the office together at the same time. It may sound a bit odd for Westerners, but the goal is to foster teamwork and a group dynamic, and it works fairly well. I have a friend whose coworkers all go to lunch every day at the same place at the same time, without exception; they have a standing daily reservation at the restaurant! But what happens when you finally do leave the office for the day?

After-work Drinks

After-work drinking and activities are a much larger part of work culture in China than in the West. From a simple beer at the local bar to an elaborate night of KTV (karaoke), if you work in a Chinese office you’ll be expected to join your co-workers for some serious throw-downs from time to time. This is actually one of the things I enjoy most about working in China – it can be strange at first but it’s also really fun, unpredictable and helps build productive relationships within the office. “In China, it’s really expected that you become friends with your boss and you go out and socialize in a way that doesn’t happen in the U.S.,”says Ming Alterman, an American employee of a Shanghai-based digital media firm.

Drinking is an enormous part of the larger business culture in China, with nearly every deal and contract being sealed by a night of heavy beer and báijiǔ (白酒; rice wine) consumption (so many toasts…so many hangovers), so if you want to work and do business in China, it’s best to bring your drinking shoes (as a graduate of a large Midwestern public university in the US, I was, fortunately, quite well-prepared). Báijiǔ is increasingly easy to find in the West, in fact, so you’ve got a chance to prepare before you even arrive in China! The idea is to build trust (and guānxì) with co-workers and potential clients or customers, and when you look at the numbers, it works: you don’t get decades of double digit economic growth by having a defective work culture, after all!

Titles and Formalities

Chinese offices also tend to feature a strange and often confusing mix of formality and informality. Many feature relaxed dress codes and environments (I’ve known of two different offices in which the MDs bring their German Shepherds to work every day), but don’t be fooled - hierarchies, rank and titles are of the utmost importance and should not be ignored. One interesting way this is manifested is through language: superiors are addressed by using their company titles rather than by their names or with a standard honorific (e.g. “Mr. Li”/ “lǐ xiānsheng (李先生)”). For instance, if he or she is a manager, you’d likely use  lǐ jīnglǐ (李经理) or lǐzǒng (李总) as a term of address.

I’ve actually run into problems with this while doing translation: in English we would never address someone as “Manager Li,” so it’s a bit tough to translate directly. The only times I can think of hearing such a title format in English, in fact, are in bilingual Hong Kong martial arts films or in the book Brave Dragons, the story of a Chinese basketball team ruled with an iron fist by an owner referred to as “Boss Wang,” likely called wàng lǎobǎn(王老板) in Chinese.

Saving Face

Anyway, it’s very important to take these terms of address seriously, as rank and hierarchy are huge parts of Chinese office and work culture. Showing respect and giving face to your superiors is an absolute must, which ties into my next point: it’s considered very taboo to directly criticize a superior, especially in a public setting. This is part of giving/saving face for your bosses, and it’s one of the most important rules of the office. If you have criticism or comments, bring them up in a private setting (or not at all, depending on the sensitivity and ego of your boss), and be sure to respect the office hierarchy. It can sound a bit counterproductive for those accustomed to more open Western offices, but if you want to survive and thrive in a Chinese office, there’s not a more valuable piece of advice than this!

Indirect Requests

Helping your employers save face relates to an interesting and relevant cultural point about indirectness. This took me ages to get used to, but it’s pretty crucial for maintaining good relationships with your superiors. If a Chinese colleague doesn’t know the answer to a question you have, for instance, they’re unlikely to directly admit as much.

More often, they’ll dance around the issue or shift the topic of discussion. Similarly, when critiquing performance, your Chinese coworkers or bosses will rarely directly tell you what they need you to do, instead hinting at it vaguely or even complimenting something else entirely to suggest that you’re deficient in a certain area. “Michael, you’re doing a great job of getting your work in on time!” my boss might say, though her point is that she actually wants me to produce longer content or do more revisions. This is partly due to politeness and not wanting you to lose face in front of others, but is also a facet of the larger cultural norm about avoiding direct confrontation.

If you’ve visited China, you might have seen this manifested in other areas: asking for directions from a person who doesn’t know the way, for example, will often result in the person politely telling you the wrong route rather than admitting ignorance - saving both of you from potential embarrassment. At one company I worked at, my boss tried to tell me that we needed more subscribers to our weekly newsletter by praising the newsletter content and saying it needed to be seen by more people. That was a expert-level euphemism if I’ve ever heard one!

As a Westerner, you may get something of a pass on this issue and more astute bosses will in fact be more direct with you, but it still pays to be aware of how subtle and indirect Chinese office culture can be.

Work is Number One and Life is Number Two

Let’s look a bit closer at what we discussed before about differences between Western and Chinese offices in terms of work hours and commitments. Why is it that longer hours are demanded of Chinese employees than their counterparts in the West? Is it related to falling levels of productivity in China? The consensus seems to be that there’s a cultural explanation rather than an economic one. Wang Chuanfu, founder of the phenomenally successful car manufacturer BYD (and probably referred to as “Boss Wang” by his employees!), argues that, “in the Western world, life is number one and work is number two ... but in China, work is number one and life is number two.” It is often argued that Chinese culture simply demands more of their workers because work and company culture play a more central role in daily life, hence the longer work hours and after-work activities with colleagues. In a historically collectivist society, the group (or, these days, company) you belong to is an extremely important part of your identity; this may help to explain the longer work hours and commitments demanded by Chinese companies.

Finally, I’d like to add that work culture, like everything else in modern China, is changing rapidly. As more and more Westerners work in China and the proportion of companies focused on tech and the Internet increases, Chinese offices are beginning to fall more in line with the global norm. While there are still many, many Chinese companies that operate this way, in another generation we may not be able to explore the unique environment that is the Chinese office. So while it might seem strange or intimidating, enjoy and experience it while you can!