Bureaucracy and Creativity: Cornerstones of Life in China

Leslie Forman

Leslie is Wokai's Marketing Director.

Bureaucracy and creativity.  Yesterday, I split my energy evenly between these disparate concepts, which I believe to be two cornerstones of life in China. 

Bureaucracy.  Naomi and I have been hard at work registering my visa, which gives me legal permission to work here.  Since I arrived here six weeks ago, I have:

- Traveled to a hospital in a faraway "Silicon Valley" district of Beijing for an official medical exam involving an ultrasound, x-ray, blood test, and more
- Biked through the hutongs (on New Year's Eve, in freezing-cold wind without a hat or gloves) to four different police stations to register my residence

(Here's a photo I took of the 4th police station that day.  It's amazing how photos add rosy-colored glasses these experiences.) 

Yesterday, Naomi and I spent most of the day resolving the fact that I'd unintentionally overstayed my entry visa for eight days.  Naomi is Wokai's Chief Operating Officer, and she speaks excellent Chinese and has vast experience here.  I was supposed to complete my registration within 30 days after my arrival, but I'd thought I needed to start the process within 30 days (as was the case with my previous Chinese visas). 

Here's a mental picture: Naomi speaking sweetly but forcefully into her cell phone, asking the police from station #2 of the day to deliver my passport to station #3 of the day, so that we can register and resolve my accidental eight-day overstay.  Between these phone calls, as we sit waiting on the hard metal chairs in the stuffy waiting room, I update her on the far-fetched drama from the last Nip/Tuck episode.  This helps to temper our impatience. 

I also mentally justify the many bureaucratic steps by invoking what I know to be the Chinese government's greatest fear: unemployment.  In other words, it's good to employ as many people as possible in the many local government branches. 

After this day of waiting, I attended a really interesting event celebrating the flip side of life in China.

Creativity.  Jeremy Goldkorn, of Danwei.org, hosted his 3rd Plenary Session at Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business (which he hilariously advertised throughout the presentation) about Creative Business in China.  He featured three successful entrepreneurs:

Dominic Johnson-Hill, founder of Plastered T-shirts and winner of the Entrepreneur of the Year section of the British Business Awards;

Richard Robinson, serial tech entrepreneur, founder of mobile gaming company Kooky Panda and of Chopschticks, which organizes stand up comedy shows across Asia;

Kaiser Kuo, rock star, tech startup veteran and Group Director for Digital Strategy of Ogilvy China

Here are some of my take-aways:

- Dominic emphasized that creativity is well-respected in China.  He said that much of his success can be attributed to being in the right place at the right time with the right people. 

- Richard said that companies should embrace the super distribution that comes with piracy.  He also said that he feels so free when he walks away from bureaucratic institutions like embassies, because in the wide world of China anything is possible.  Things can come together very fast once you get the right people on board. 

- Kaiser came to China seeing himself as a "metal missionary." He credits his success to creating a strong demarcation between his avocation (music) and vocation (journalism and PR).  He gave some interesting advice for aspiring journalists: write about topics that other journalists don't like writing about.  In his case, this meant high-tech news, which overseas publications were willing to pay for. 

- Jeremy's favorite Chinese word is 江湖 (jianghu) which literally means rivers and lakes, but refers to gangsters and the informal rules to learn to get things done in China.  He credits his success in the media business to staying small, writing mostly in English, and using the Chinese media as his main source. 

I've been to lots of events about doing business in China, and this was one of the best I've seen.  Maybe part of that was the fact that Jeremy kept pouring wine for the panelists to loosen their lips.  If you're interested in watching the whole presentation, here's the link to the streaming video. 

 Bringing together these two experiences, my overall feeling about China is one of optimism and opportunity.  For Wokai, there is so much that we can do, to connect China's social sector with contributors worldwide.  With a generous dose of patience and the right people on board, these bureaucratic obstacles can definitely be overcome. 

(That's the tree in the courtyard of our hutong office, covered in construction rubble but still reaching towards the sky.)