It's 1 PM, turn off the lights, it's nap time.

Alright before anything else, Tuesday is my one year anniversary at Granules and 3-month mark in China. I can't believe it's only been a year and 3 months, respectively...feels like much longer. That being said, here's my post....

I'm starting to think the premise of Chinese people being hard workers is an elaborate lie.

This is very hard for me to say because my entire life I've grown up thinking that Chinese people were focused and determined. It's easy to have fallen for this fallacy. Remember in college how all the Asian kids would kick our asses? They'd always study...at the library, they'd be the first ones in and the last ones out. They would sacrifice having fun because they always kept their eye on the prize. Some times when I was holed up in the Main Library, I'd want to quit studying for the night but would jokingly tell myself that there are a billion Chinese kids who want to take my job from me. If you picked up a newspaper or book, you would read about blue-collar Chinese workers easily working 80 hours/week on an assembly line. In fact, they would insist on working 7 days/week because they wanted to make as much money as possible.

But now that I live in China, I'm trying to find an example of people working like they've been described to us in the West. Maybe the kids we saw in college were the outliers, maybe everything we've been told was an effort by our companies to make us work harder...I don't know...all I know is that white-collar Chinese workers do not work nearly as hard as we've been led to believe.

The good thing about Wuhan is that it's reflective of mainstream China. Shanghai is much more international so the norms there aren't reflective for the rest of the country. A typical office day in Wuhan starts at 8:30, give or take 15 minutes and promptly ends at 5:15. In the case of our office, I don't have an option of staying late even if I want to...the doors are locked at 5:15. Now, I'd argue that 8.5 hour day is fine...clearly not as much as I used to work in banking or even in India (9:00 AM - 630 PM) but still enough time to get in a good days work. However, we take a TWO hour lunch....11:30 - 1:30. This is not flexible, in fact, the kitchen closes at noon, so I'm forced to eat by then unless I want to go to a restaurant downstairs, which I tend not to since that requires me walking down and up 7 flights of stairs.

People in the office are amazed that I only take 20 minutes for lunch. What do they do? They browse the web, go shopping or play ping-pong until 1:00. At 1:00, they all come back to their desks, shut off the lights and take a 30 minute nap. Don't believe me?

That's Sharon, my counterpart, sleeping on the couch in her office. And yes, she does have a pillow. Everyone else sleeps at their desk or in the conference room. They joke that I'm wasting the couch in my office since I never take a nap. In the instance of the men, they might take a nap because they do wear themselves out during ping-pong. It's not like the ping-pong we play in our basement, they go all-out...everyone has their own paddle (with accompanying case) and they go to town on each other. I sometimes watch them play a game and they're drenched in sweat after a match. Very hardcore.

Keeping this in mind, you can imagine how thrilled my team was when I asked them to come into work over a weekend and then made them stay until 7 PM. Needless to say, I took them out to dinner and I bought a lot of alcohol to keep them happy. It's funny how I don't think people work very hard in Wuhan. When I was driving around with our auditor, he was lamenting how people in Chengdu, which is a major city to the West, have it so easy because "they value life over work" I don't know how long I'd last in Chengdu considering I'm going partially crazy here in Wuhan.

I've mentioned the work hours but how is it working with people here? Back when I was in 6th grade, I was complaining to my dad about how the computer wasn't working properly. He told me something which I don't think I'll ever forget "Don't blame the computer, it only does what you tell it to...if it's not working, that means you're doing something wrong."

That's how I feel about my team. They're like robots, if I tell them something, they'll do it but no more. There is no forward thinking or an attempt to analyze data. I get frustrated at times and am often flabbergasted but I can't blame them, they're not exposed to Western management. They're willing to listen which is all I can ask for. Besides, it's arrogant to think the Western way of doing things is the best approach. China has definitely had impressive growth, primarily because it can capitalize on cheap human capital. It's almost scary to think what the country is capable of once it becomes more efficient. Everyone in the West is concerned that China is going to take over the world...it's far from imminent but all they need is one, maybe two more generations before the people in this country become world-class.

Alright, this post is starting to get long so I'll end it with this. Earlier this week it was pouring so I decided to work from home (getting a taxi, especially in the rain, is impossible...my anxiety attacks regarding taxis will be the subject of the next post) I was e-mailing Ariel about some work things and mentioned how I like the sound of the rain as I worked...she responded with this...

"I think sound of rain makes people feel quiet and peaceful, normally, when it rains, people like staying at home, sleeping and watch TV from the bed, drink some tea, have some snake... so warm and comfortable"

If you didn't say "what?"...re-read that sentence again.