[Wogef]

>The West has a “broadcast” view of IP and ownership... China has a “network” view of IP and ownership

Probably the best way I’ve heard it described.

>You do have to read or speak Chinese to get it

This statement kind of bothers me. Mandarin is great- loads of fun to learn and speak. My problem is that I meet a lot of highly skilled professionals who don’t do more in China because knowledge of Chinese is often held up as an “obvious” prerequisite. I have met countless people who move here and waste a year with flashcards instead of making things because they are convinced that being bilingual will make them successful in China (hint: it won’t). Investing your time in doing things the Chinese can’t do very well will make you successful in China- and there is no shortage of bilingual Chinese.

You can get the Mediatek MT6260 (or just about anything else) without speaking Chinese, by using Google/Baidu/Bing Translate and relying on the spectacular patience of Chinese people for these things. Will it be a little embarrassing? Sure. Should you learn Chinese? Of course- but should you give up on doing things in the amazing development environment of China just because you don’t have a gift for languages? Certainly not.

That being said- Bunnie is the Man

[seanmcdirmid]

All my coworkers are bilingual; if I spoke better Chinese, it would only get me some platitudes. It is my skills that add value to the team, not speaking Chinese doesn't detract from it (also, I work for an American company, so our biz language is English).

I would disagree a bit about what makes us different, or what Chinese can't do well. Creative independent smart local hires or experienced international savvy local hire managers exist, but there are not so many of them yet (the supply is not well developed), so why not bring in a foreigner who is easier to find? After that, diversity is still important; something we take for granted in the states.

[siscia]

What Chinese can't do very well in your opinion ?

[Wogef]

>What Chinese can't do very well in your opinion ?

Would be a very long post, it depends in which cities, and which age groups (there is a huge cultural gap with far more risk-adverse older Chinese who grew up during the Cultural Revolution) and generalizations are always a bad idea.

That being said I’ll take a stab at it- usually Mainland Chinese are not so great at problem solving, but they are fantastic at making the solution better and cheaper (idea Iteration over Genesis). There’s the expression "别在孔子面前卖文章” roughly "Don't sell your essay in front of Confucius” akin to our "Don't try to teach your Grandma to suck eggs”. Coming up with something new- or imagining you can carries a certain air of arrogance to it. This does not let itself to encouraging creativity. While this attitude has obviously led to accusations of China just cloning products, it’s also made many Chinese to be enthusiastic proponents of Open Source (although not contributors for the above reasons). So new solutions and creative problem solving will likely be something they rely on foreigners and overseas educated Chinese to do for some time.

Software, UI/UX, marketing and outsourcing are still comparatively weak. Nearly everything is C++, Java and PHP with only a tiny sprinkling of other languages. Programmers are held in fairly low esteem and not terribly well paid.

Service at one point was a weak point but in the past two years has started to pull ahead of the West significantly. Aliexpress is the tip of the spear as far as Chinese direct sales posing a threat to Western businesses and it’s service is not even close to what you can expect from Taobao.

[seanmcdirmid]

My wife is a Chinese UI/UX designer, and the circle of colleagues is small in a big city like Beijing. Programmers are in demand and many now know C# and even Scala; their pay has definitely gone up a lot in the last 5 years.