Bill Belew has raised 2 bi-cultural kids, now 34 and 30. And he and his wife are now parenting a 3rd, Mia, who is 8.
Microsoft
My wife cracked me up last night.
As I mentioned in my introduction way back when, isn’t one month on the web similar to dog years or something like that?…anyway, my wife is “made in China’ and holds an MBA from a Cal State Institution. When we go for evening walks, we like to talk about the differences between the US, Japan, China and also about various business practices.
Last night she seemed about to burst…
“Did you know that President Hu had dinner with Bill Gates?”
“Uh, yep. I knew he came to town and went to visit Microsoft.”
“Do you know how many dishes they had when they ate?”
“Uh, no….”
“Bill Gates ONLY served him four different things! Can you believe that?”
“Dunno…it depends how big the ‘things’ were?”
“And then he will have dinner with president Bush AND Bush will only serve him four things, too!! One is wine and the other is dessert…so, actually he will only get two things to eat!”
And then my wife rolled over in the grass and I had to resuscitate her.
You see, the Chinese place GREAT value and the emphasis on GREAT is great…on how much is served when relationships are being built.
My wife is convinced an opportunity is being blown here.
I remember several times when I was in China, that I was served EVERYTHING, and I sincerely mean EVERYTHING that was on the menu…and the Chinese have loooong menus.
Westerners see this as waste, even flaunting of ability and overkill…the Chinese see this as their most sincere attempt at showing how much they desire to have good relations.
It seems Bill Gates and President Bush are NOT that sincere according to my wife and the Chinese news she reads…at least from the Chinese point of view.
If Gates or Bush went to China…you could expect President HU to have dinner brought in by a Safeway tractor and trailer.
Is America missing a chance here because it doesn’t understand Chinese culture?
What do you think?
How funny!
Chinese people are trying to understand American culture as well. At one of his speeches yesterday, President Hu mentioned that he likes Starbucks coffee, and he wish that he could go to the shop often if he had time. Starbucks opened its first shop in Beijing several years ago, and has been extremely successful – there are about 200 shops in China now. I think it’s not because Chinese people love coffee, no they didn’t even know what coffee was 10 years ago, but they’re sincerely embracing Western culture.
Starbucks CEO responded to President Hu’s speech that they did their homework too – they knew the key to a successful business in China is to show respect to the Chinese culture.
Samnut,
Can you tell me other elements of American culture that the Chinese are embracing?
How about Pizza Hut and ???
here in china we have many other american products,and actually most of them are very popular,such as kfc,pizza hut,coffee,pessi,coca,and hollywood films are rather popular here,especially The Da Vinci Code these days.i have both read the book and watched the movie version,but it’s still hard for me to understand the religion.papistry and Christianity are quite complicate for me,and i can tell the apart what’s the truth and what’s the fiction in the book.
Joyce,
Thank you for visiting my site and leaving a comment.
I admire your ability to communicate in a second language. Great job!
I have been to China many times and have seen the products you speak of.
I plan to go again in the near future.
As for the Da Vinci Code…basically and first of all it is fiction – that is, it is NOT true. The writer borrowed facts and distorted some of them to make an interesting story. The Da Vinci code is NOT true history.
If you have more detailed questions, I would be happy to help.
Thank you again for reading.