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Joe Phillips似乎是一个在中国发展的理想人选。他有一半中国血统，手持东亚研究学士学位，富有商业经验，有2万美元存款，还有一副平易近人的性格。于是，他在2010年秋天伙同一位朋友从西雅图出发，前往北京。他计划成立一家公司，把西北太平洋国家小品牌的啤酒引入世界上最大的啤酒消费市场中。他说：“像牛奶和蜂蜜一样富饶的大陆在召唤我。” 一年后，牛奶变质了。在中国获批一家外国企业所需要付出的代价要比他想象的高很多。每一步他都要与官僚机构打交道，从叫不出名头的海关表格，到晦涩难懂的运输规定。在向酒吧和餐厅满怀激情地推销商品之后，从没有人回他的电话。Phillips说：“简直糟透了，”他身无分文地回到美国，“如果有人想到中国开办一个小企业——肯定是疯了。”随着中国经济在过去几十年里的迅猛发展，这个国家似乎在外国人心目中享有一种声誉，在那里发展职业、开办企业的进展速度似乎比美国本土还要快。的确有一些人有过这样的经历。24岁的美国移民Jonathan Levine今年年初在《纽约时报》发表了一篇评论员文章，说：“中国需要你，就业机会太多了。” Levine毕业后厌倦了康涅狄格州的公关工作，于是向全世界的各类学校大撒简历，最终在北京的清华大学（被称为中国麻省理工学院）找到了一份美国文化和英语的高薪教学工作。尽管有各方报道中国的发展速度正在放缓，但是这个故事让很多美国人坚定了内心的信念：我们的船正在漏水下沉，而中国正在迎风启航。于是，父母让孩子去学习中文，海外项目令人眼花缭乱，像Levine一样的年轻有为的毕业生纷纷到中国去发掘财富。 像任何一场淘金热一样，真正捞到金子的人少之又少。Bain & Co公司专门为跨国企业招聘提供咨询服务，其中国项目合伙人Michael Thorneman说：“有一种观念认为中国的机会非常多，任何一个外国人都可以获得成功，其实不是这样。”北京一家国际律师事务所Harris & Moure的律师Mathew Alderson说：“他们并非真的需要我们。美国是一个移民基础上的国家，但中国不是。” 如果你是个大学毕业生，又不想教英语，那么能够提升你职业技能的好工作并不多。在一些利润丰厚的领域，比如银行、私募基金和管理咨询，美国人更难找到一份好工作。 那些少数的幸运儿面临的则是荒唐的官僚障碍：中国政府最近开始向所有外国人征收50％的“社会福利税”，但是没说明如何缴纳。一个外国人到北京税务所去缴税，遇到的是一脸茫然的税务官员。（他拒绝透露姓名，担心冒犯政府，给自己的工作带来危险。）申请正确的签证类型也是个折磨人的过程，北京警方近期开始集中打击非法务工的外国人，要求所有外国人随身携带护照、签证和居住证，否则有可能被驱逐出境。 在一个操熟练汉语的西方人和一个受过良好教育、懂英文的本地人之间选择，公司一般会青睐后者。Thorneman说：“我们几乎只聘请中国公民，或者懂中文的人。”那些手持闪闪发光的哈佛或者沃顿毕业证书的海外回归应聘者越来越多。据一家提供教育服务的EIC集团提供的数据，1995年，不到24000名中国人到海外接受教育；2010年，这个数字上升到28.5万人。中国出生的应聘者不但越来越多、越来越适合公司需求，聘请他们的成本也越来越低。根据一家人力资源咨询公司AON在2011年的调查，招聘一个来自发达国家的外国人在中国工作，成本要比招聘一个本地人高出50％到200％。 Thorneman说，跨国公司还是需要外国人的，但是空缺的职位都是中高层以上。甚至一些顶级职位也越来越本地化，据《华尔街日报》报道，亚洲跨国公司中，只有大约6％的高层职位会向亚洲以外的地区招聘。至于中国公司，很多也会寻找英语为母语的人来与海外客户沟通，或者邀请一些白人面孔在投资者面前展示。Mattan Lurie在一家中国私募基金公司工作，他曾经帮助这家公司募集了20亿美元的资本。有一个潜在投资对象请他向他的中国同事介绍自己，Lurie说：“我的第一反应是，你和自己同胞打交道还需要介绍吗？可事情就是这样。” 中国著名的礼仪式企业文化是另一项要面对的挑战，从知晓宴会中的座位排序，到第18杯白酒下肚后如何保持面不改色（白酒是一种从高粱蒸馏出来的液体，就像打火机燃料一样，在很多交易场合起关键作用）。Tim
Clissold在《中国先生回忆录》一书中，讲述他和投资者Jack
Perkowski在中国旅行的事情。在多日的紧张、油腻的宴会食物和头痛欲裂的宿醉之后，Clissold最终心脏病发作。晚宴之后往往是卡拉OK。AC战略咨询公司的总裁Alistair
Nicholas曾经发表过一篇有关在中国做生意的博客文章“私下里说”，他认为外国人不应该放任自己喝的酩酊大醉，大唱邦乔维（译者注：美国当代著名摇滚歌手）的歌曲。“就是在这个时机，你所忽略掉的文化传统和原则会让你丢脸，你的中国朋友会认为你如此脆弱，轻松就可以击败。” 在中国成功意味着体无完肤。“愤怒的小鸟”制作方Rovio娱乐公司最终不得不与盗版毛绒玩具厂家谈判，给他们提供游戏中的广告空间以换取许可费用。偷窃行为不仅仅发生在科技领域。去年北京一家以美式馅饼出名的比萨饼店乌巢，推出了一款名为“怪兽”的28英寸比萨饼。连锁店的运营副总裁Martin Handley说：“过去几个月里，我见到七八家店铺都有28英寸的比萨饼出售。” 外来者的成功之道在于独特的技能。Perkowski是来自匹兹堡的投资客，他在90年代时离开华尔街来到中国，他的技能是不道德地筹款，数目高达4亿美元。他说：“我能在中国重现从前的辉煌，是因为这里缺少资金。”如今，中国有的是来自美国和中国人自己的投资，外来者的优势主要集中在科技方面，比如生产半导体的技术和设计建筑物的能力。 汉语也可以算作是一项技能，但是它的门槛太高了。一个智力水平偏上的美国人在大学学习四年语言之后，会话水平顶多相当于一个早熟的8岁儿童，而中国学生在8岁就开始学习英语了。据美国外语教学委员会统计的数据，中国在小学和中学里学习英语的学生数量，是美国学习汉语学生数量的5000倍。或许其中有一个原因：用来学成流利汉语的时间，可以花费在学习另一项专长上——比如法律或者分子机械学，这要比懂得语言在中国更吃得开。 即使你具备市场所需的技能，说一口流利的汉语，一切依然是未知数。Lurie在2003年首次来到中国学习汉语，2005年在加利福尼亚大学获得MBA学位后再次回到中国，进入了一家顶级中国私募基金公司。2008年，他被解雇，顶替他的是个中国人。他说，这不过是供需关系的问题，“人们曾经需要被多次劝说才会在中国投资，现在人们排队等待给出他们手中的资金。我就没有存在的必要了。” Lurie会给那些刚毕业、准备到中国来找工作的人什么建议呢？他说：“不要来！不要来！不要来！不要来！不要来！”
Joe Phillips seemed like an ideal candidate to make it in China.
Half-Chinese, with a bachelor’s degree in East Asian studies, business
experience, $20,000 in savings, and an affable disposition, he set off for
Beijing with a friend from Seattle in the fall of 2010 to start a company that
would bring microbrews from the Pacific Northwest to the largest beer market in
the world. “The land of milk and honey was calling,” he says. A year later, the milk had curdled. The cost of getting a foreign-owned
business approved in China turned out to be much higher than he’d expected. He
ran into bureaucracy at every step, from obscure customs forms to opaque
transport regulations. And after expressing initial enthusiasm, bar and
restaurant owners stopped returning his calls. “It fizzled out,” says Phillips,
who returned to the U.S. broke. “Any entrepreneur that thinks they’re just going
to go to China and start a small business—that’s crazy.” As its economy grew over the last couple of decades, China developed a
reputation as a place where foreigners could launch a business or career,
perhaps even faster than at home. A few have. As 24-year-old American expat
Jonathan Levine wrote in an optimistic New York Times Op-Ed earlier this year,
“China wants you. Job prospects are abundant.” Stuck doing public relations in
Connecticut after graduation, Levine blasted out his résumé to schools around
the world and landed a plum gig teaching American culture and English at
Tsinghua University in Beijing, known as China’s MIT. Such stories confirm the
narrative many Americans are telling themselves despite reports of a Chinese
slowdown: Our ship is leaking while China’s is steaming ahead. And so parents
enroll their kindergartners in Mandarin, study-abroad programs flourish, and
nimble young graduates like Levine seek their fortune in China. As in any gold rush, few strike gold. “There’s this perception that China is
a land of opportunity where any foreigner can succeed, which is not really
true,” says Michael Thorneman, partner and head of China operations for Bain
& Co., which advises numerous multinationals on hiring decisions. “They
don’t necessarily want us here,” says Mathew Alderson, a Beijing-based lawyer
for international law firm Harris & Moure. “America is a nation built on
migrants, but China can’t say the same.” If you’re a recent graduate but don’t want to teach English, well-paying jobs
that’ll advance you professionally don’t abound. And in lucrative sectors such
as banking, private equity, and management consulting, it’s becoming harder for
an American to find good work. For the lucky few who do, the bureaucratic roadblocks can be comical: The
Chinese government has recently imposed a 50 percent “social benefits tax” on
all foreigners, though it hasn’t clarified how the tax should be paid. One
foreigner went to the Beijing tax office to pay, only to be met with bemusement
from the officers on duty. (He refused to be named for fear of offending the
government and having it negatively affect his business.) Getting the proper
visa can be a tortuous process, and Beijing police have recently launched a
crackdown on foreigners working illegally, requiring expats to carry passports,
visas, and resident permits at all times or risk deportation. Given the choice between a Westerner with decent Mandarin and an educated,
English-speaking local applicant, companies will favor the Chinese. “We almost
only recruit PRC nationals or Chinese speakers,” says Thorneman. Those
candidates—bright Harvard- and Wharton-educated returnees—are multiplying. In
1995 fewer than 24,000 Chinese students went abroad for education, according to
EIC Group China, a provider of educational services. By 2010 that number had
risen to 285,000. Not only are Chinese-born prospects more abundant and better
suited to the environment, they’re also cheaper. Hiring a foreigner from a
developed country to work in China costs 50 percent to 200 percent more than a
local hire, according to a 2011 study by human resources consulting firm Aon
Hewitt (AON). Multinationals still need foreigners, Thorneman says, but the available jobs
are mostly mid- to senior-level. Even the top ones are becoming more local, with
only 6 percent of multinational executive positions in Asia going to candidates
from outside Asia, according to the Wall Street Journal. As for Chinese
companies, plenty seek English speakers to interact with clients overseas or
Caucasian faces to parade before investors. But foreigners in Chinese
organizations might encounter resistance. When working at a top Chinese private
equity firm, where he helped raise almost $2 billion in capital, Mattan Lurie
had a prospective investment target ask to be introduced to his Chinese
colleagues. “My reaction was, why do you need to deal with someone who’s the
same race as you?” says Lurie. “But that’s the way it is.” China’s famously ceremonial business culture presents another set of
challenges, from knowing where to sit at a banquet to maintaining control after
the 18th glass of baijiu, a liquor distilled from sorghum that goes down like
lighter fluid and is a key ritual in many deals. In Mr. China: A Memoir, Tim
Clissold describes touring China with investor Jack Perkowski. After days of
stress, greasy banquet food, and stabbing hangovers, Clissold eventually
suffered a heart attack. Dinner often gives way to karaoke. Alistair Nicholas,
president of AC Capital Strategic Consulting and author of Off the Record, a
blog about doing business in China, argues that foreigners shouldn’t feel
obligated to get tanked and belt out Bon Jovi: “[I]t is precisely when you
ignore your own culture and principles that you risk losing face or risk your
Chinese partners thinking you are so weak you can easily be taken advantage of.”
Succeeding in China often means getting ripped off. Rovio Entertainment, the
creator of Angry Birds, ended up negotiating with the makers of pirated plush
toys, giving them in-game ad space in exchange for licensing fees. Pilfering
isn’t limited to the tech sector, either. Last year, Kro’s Nest, a Beijing
pizzeria known for its American-style pies, rolled out a 28-inch pizza called
the Monster. “In the last couple months,” says Martin Handley, the chain’s vice
president of operations, “I have seen six or eight other places offering the
28-inch pizza.” The key for any newcomer is to offer a unique skill. For Perkowski, the
Pittsburgh-born investor who famously left Wall Street for China in the 1990s,
that skill was raising ungodly amounts of cash, to the tune of $400 million. “I
was able to do what I did because capital was short,” he says. Nowadays, with
capital flowing into China from American and Chinese investors alike, a
newcomer’s edge will more likely be technical, like knowing how to engineer a
semiconductor or design a building. Mandarin can count as a skill, but the bar is high. After studying the
language for four years in college, a bright American will still talk like a
precocious eight-year-old, whereas Chinese students start learning English as
eight-year-olds. There are 5,000 times as many Chinese primary and secondary
school students studying English as American students learning Mandarin,
according to the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. One
possible reason: The time it takes to achieve Mandarin fluency could be spent
learning a profession—law, say, or molecular robotics—that would serve as a
better pretext for living in China than knowing the language. Even if you have a marketable skill and speak perfect Mandarin, nothing is
guaranteed. Lurie first moved to China in 2003 to study Mandarin, returned in
2005 after getting his MBA at the University of California at Los Angeles, and
signed up with a top China private equity firm. In 2008 he was asked to leave
and was replaced with a native Chinese. It was a matter of supply and demand, he
says: “There was a time people had to be convinced to invest in China. Now
people are lining up to give them money. So my value decreased.” What advice would Lurie give recent college grads considering a move to China
for work? “Don’t,” he says. “Don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t.” |
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