The famous fast food company Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) was under fire for its controversial video advertisment showing an old Taoist surrounded by his apprentices enjoying chicken burgers and claiming it as a masterpiece. China Daily has this report citing China Business Post. The article on this weekly financial post criticizing KFC for dishonoring Chinese history and culture.

KFC entered China in 1987, and opened its first shop on November 12 at the downtown area of Qianmen in Beijing. Currently, it has more than 1400 shops in over 200 cities around the country. It employs totally 60,000 staff and its overall annul turnover is about 7.1 billion RMB yuan.

It is generally believed that intercultural awareness does contribute to successfully doing business in another culture. But when it comes to how and where it contributes, it becomes a question not easy to answer. With particular references to doing business in China, recently there are several articles discussing about how relevant some of the cultural tips for doing business in China are to the business successes in China. Diligence China published an article with the title of Look to the Future of China – Not just its Past, which

“admits knowing Chinese history can help gage where China is going, but asserts that a knowledge of emerging market trends is even more valuable. (A summery by China Law blog in To Succeed in China Know the Now .)

Aisa Business Law, looking at the question from a different angle, points out in Do the Top Ten Cultural Tips for Doing Business in China Really Help and Inquiring Whether the Top Ten Cultural Tips For Doing Business In China Really Help – Part II, that there are universal business principles which are in fact not cultural specific such as ‘guanxi’ – the most-talked cultural ‘tip’ for doing business in China and saying:

“there is just hardwork and guanxi, which is good networking, a pretty universal essential to doing business anywhere.”

China Law blog in posts entitled To Succeed in China Know the Now and China’s Culture Wars (continued), arguing that

“Knowledge of Chinese history and culture is an asset for doing business in China. However, because circumstances in China change so quickly, staying abreast of China’s current situation is far more important than knowing its past. The most successful businesses in China usually emphasize knowing their own businesses inside and out first, understanding China today second, and China’s history and culture third.”

I can not be more agreeable to these arguments and I think these insightful arguments put forward a new perspective on how one should relate Chinese culture phenomena (old and new) to doing business in China. Being a native Chinese and with limited knowledge of English language and culture, I feel it is interesting to notice that many of the teachings of how to do business in/with China tend to start or end up with listing out some stereotyped cultural tips and types, and my natural response towards it is that it is really inadequate. I do believe that cultural awareness contributes to business success, for

“Culture shapes our values, attitudes and our behaviour. It affects the way we communicate with each other, the way we expect to lead and to follow, the way we negotiate, the way we buy and sell, and the way we work together in teams.” (by Cultural Intelligence)

The stereotyped cultural tips, however, could be very misleading when delivered in an over-generalized approach or taken with an over-simplified manner without better and live understanding of the specific situation. In terms of China, the speed of change, the scope of the land, the complexity of systems, the span of history, the diversity of local cultures, the varied levels of educational development in different localities, and the gaps in economic development among areas would all affect business developments and successes, either domestic or international.

Moreovre, business success is composed of many factors and some of which are not cultural specific. For instance, as pointed out in the posts by Aisa Business Law, good networking is in fact universally essential. Good networking is certainly an intercultural skill but it is an interpersonal skill in the first place where attitudes towards differences is of the essence. So, either in business or in any other intercultural communications, it is important to be aware of cultural idiosyncrasies and actively work to overcome them.

I would also agree that cultural knowledge is not always a prerequisite, but I think it is not always a prerequisite in the sense that it will not guarantee a success, but rather, it is a plus, which, together with other business essentials, helps to pave the way to a success.

On April 12th, Google announced its Chinese name – Gu-Ge (谷歌), which literally and officially means “harvest song”. But if one does not know the official definition, and just by looking at the two Chinese characters Google has picked out, the new name could also be interpreted as “song in the valley“. “Harvest song” or “song in the valley”, those who applauded for it would tell you how “romantic” this name is as it gives you “the sense of a fruitful and productive search experience, in a poetic Chinese way” as Google says, while others might explain to you with a frown how “old-fashioned” it sounds, since it reminds one of a slow and remote agricultural scene.

Some Chinese media and internet users have in the past merely used Google’s English name, while others have nicknamed it as “Gougou” and “Gugou”, meaning “doggy” or “old hound”. Literally, the new name GU-GE does bear some extent of poetic and melodious tones, and is certainly better than those unofficial alternatives in the past. But interestingly, this new name of the world’s second most populous internet search company does not actually lead you to think in the least of an internet search.

Names are not mere codes in Chinese. Each character of Chinese language has its own meaning but when two characters come together to make a phrase, it very often becomes more meaningful. Two character phrases are most common and easy to remember.

Translating names into Chinese can be tricky, particularly so with alphabetic languages. In most cases, translation of a name is in fact a conversion of the sound. So as Google did this time. But since all Chinese characters have its meanings, the selection of the characters can be very crucial. The story about the Coca-Cola’s translation would tell a bit about the tricks:

The name Coca-Cola in China was first rendered as Ke-kou-ke-la. Unfortunately, the Coke company did not discover until after thousands of signs had been printed that the phrase means “bite the wax tadpole” or “female horse stuffed with wax” depending on the dialect. Coke then researched 40,000 Chinese characters and found a close phonetic equivalent, ko-kou-ko-le, which can be loosely translated as “happiness in the mouth” (from Funny Translation Errors)

Google will also be known as Gu-Ge in China. No matter what people would say about the new name itself, Google seemed to have made the right move in terms of pursuing its long term goals in China. With its new Chinese name, Google wants to be as “culturally-friendly” as its major local competitors like Baidu, whose name was in fact also taken out of an ancient poem. And with this new name, Google manifested its strong hope for further development in the local market by the local ways. At least Google demonstrated its “intercultural” efforts, despite all other controversies. Its new Chinese name would certainly help it to take more roots among millions of the internet users and in the general public where not all are willing to learn English, and some perhaps even dislike it for reasons that it has “corrupted” the Chinese language. There are people who are still taking a closed view and simply feel uncomfortable with anything that is foreign.

Google might have learnt from the strategies of McDonald and KFC that localization of these two companies have both emphasised the importance of the cultrual impact to the extent that you can even buy noodles and Sichuan flavoured food at their local stores. It is perhaps right to say that in terms of marketing what matters is if it would eventually help to sell.Browsing the Google Chinese page, you will now see the two characters of the new name crouching below the big colorful Google logo. “Harvest Song” should really mean that only when users enjoy “fruitful and productive search experiences”, Google then could celebrate its harvest by singing pastoral poetry in the valleys!