Last night we had our mid-residency pub night. However, because we’re in China and there are no pubs, we instead had a mid-residency KTV night.
Mid-residency pub night
Some of our SDNU buddies get down at KTV!
KTV was fun, but overall yesterday was a bit of a trying day. We went to a bank for our field study, and the experience was touch for us as a team. Knowing that some other teams had had challenges at the bank probably didn’t help, as we went into the experience somewhat apprehensive about our ability to succeed. Thankfully, Marcia’s buddy Cindy was available to come with us and act as a translator.
We arrived at the bank at around 11:15, and were prepared to spend a few hours working before lunch and then a few hours after lunch as well. Cindy introduced us to the security guard at the front of the bank, explaining who we are and why we had come. He went into the back of the bank to inform his boss that we had arrived, and returned to let us know that no one could see us now, and likely no one could see us in the afternoon either because the branch was undergoing an inspection from head office all day. We thanked the security guard and asked him if it would be alright if we simply observed what was happening and speak with some customers. Again he went to back of the bank, returning to let us know that no, we couldn’t speak with customers. This was very deflating, especially knowing that the previous student group that had come to the bank didn’t have great success either. On the one hand, we felt quite a bit of pressure to stay and make the best of it — Zhenyi had made it pretty clear that we are in fact welcome at these businesses and should stay and observe no matter what. On the other hand, I think our own cultural values and assumptions kicked in immediately: we didn’t want to impose; we didn’t want to do something that would jeopardize SDNU’s relationship with the bank; and we were very uncomfortable doing the opposite of what the bank had told us to do (leave).
We went back to the classroom and called Zhenyi, who happened to be with the husband of the woman who was SDNU’s contact at the bank. He called his wife, and let her know that we were coming back to the bank to observe and speak with customers. And so back we went; we were getting settled to observe the workings of a Chinese bank when, low and behold, we were ushered to the other side of the bank to speak with a man who was introduced to us as the “president” of the bank. It turned out he was actually VP of the branch.
We ended up chatting with him for a while. It was interesting, because after he left and we went to lunch, Cindy commented that what he said was very political — he spoke a lot about how wonderful the bank is, the sense of family that exists between the tellers and their customers (“they grew up in the same town, and many of them have known each other for a long time”). I didn’t entirely understand what she ment, but didn’t really think twice about it until after lunch, when we began speaking with customers, many of whom had only been with the bank for a few years and had no sense of personal connection to the bank employees. He was towing the corporate line.
He wasn’t there in the afternoon, and the head office people had left as well, so Cindy suggested we speak with some of the bank employees, even though the VP had specifically told us not to in the morning. At this point, the team’s level of discomfort really increased — some people advocated following Cindy’s advice because, as a member of the culture she probably had a better idea than we did as to what is appropriate and what isn’t. Others felt very uncomfortable with “breaking the rules.”
I think this is an interesting observation about the difference between high context and low context cultures. Cindy immediately understood that when the VP left, the context changed and what may have previously been inappropriate was now ok. The low context RRU students didn’t understand the context had changed, and felt uncomfortable doing anything outside what we’d been specifically told was allowed.
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