How To Crack Into The Chinese Market – Top 5 Challenges of Doing Business in China 1 – Decode China

– How to crack the Chinese market.

The top five challenges ofdoing business in China.

Now there are many, many challenges of doing business in China.

A lot of people want to getinto the Chinese market.

But what are some of thingsthat you have to watch out for? That is what we're goingto talk about today.

So Vic, why don't you share with us? Let's do the first challengeof going into China or entering the Chinese market.

– Well definitely languageis the most obvious barrier.

When you go into a countrywhere you don't understand the language, translationbecomes an issue.

Whether or not youtranslated things properly and double-check yourproduct and services, it can become a joke.

– Sometimes we even see that on Facebook, some of the funny translations.

They take the English name and they just Google Translate it.

Even when we go to thenight market here, right? – Oh yeah.

– Some funny, funny things, right? In China, there are many, manydifferent types of language.

A lot of local languages,even Mandarin itself has many different accents, right? If you're good, oh thisperson's from the North or this person's from the South.

There are a lot of different sets, right? What's your take? – Language is actuallyvery, very different kind of variations in China.

– Yeah, yeah, yeah.

– And then different kindof area people they speak different kind of language in a way.

– Because it's so big.

– Like say North and South islike you can't even understand what they're saying whenthey're having conversation and North won't understand, right? – [Dan] Even North itselfhas many, many provinces.

– [Jeannie] So many.

So I think language is probably very big, and then I think also linkedto culture or even the way of Chinese thinking, sothat's everything is related.

– I think for the culture, language, they're kind of related, right? So they think, "Oh I'mgonna sell to China," but it's so big.

Even they just wanna sellto a certain city in China, that makes, the strategywould be different.

– Definitely, becauseculture is tied to language.

– Yes.

– Every time there's thisthing in China, every time you cross a mountain, there'sgonna be a new dialect.

– Yeah.

– And a new variationof the Chinese language.

– Yes.

– So you cross a mountain,new language, that means there's some variationin the culture as well.

So when you look at China,there are so many subcultures within China, so that'sone thing to really be cautious about.

– And I think in US, America,the culture of America is everyone, you immigrate to America, you become an American.

It's like a melting pot.

But China itself is, I thinkif you take back to even thousands of years, peopledon't go to go travel as much.

They stay in the sametown or know everybody for the rest of their life, right? So the language, theculture that gets formed and then that, and then a city gets formed so they don't communicateas much until of course transportation and people travel.

A lot of that I think stays the same.

I found that even thefood that they eat.

– Oh yeah.

-.

Could differ a lot – Northern and Southern parts – Totally, they're totally different.

– Even the Tofu is seen inSouthern part as a dessert.

– [Dan] It's a dessert, yes.

– By Northern part, it'slike a salty kind of dish.

– Salty, yeah.

– [Jennie] It's totally different.

– [Dan] When we first gotmarried, Tofu, it's like yeah, I like it, like yeah.

I've always had it sweet.

– [Jennie] Yeah, I nevertried Tofu pudding.

Like what is that? (Jennie laughing) Never tried it.

– [Dan] So it's different,very, very different.

So languages, for someonewanting to crack a Chinese Market first of all, they have tounderstand exactly what city they're going after, and also we talked about themore developed city, right? At first, the first.

– [Jennie] Major citieslike Beijing, Shanghai – [Dan] Major city, yeah,and then the less developed.

They're all, a lot of differences.

The language, understandingwho they're talking to, culture, understanding culture,not just a big picture-wise but a lot of intricatedetails and things that they have to understand.

What's the third? – Localization – Yeah, so go understanding their culture, but localization itselfis, Vic, I think you have some good examples.

– Localization is reallyunderstanding 'em.

Let's zoom into an even moremicro part of the market.

What do they like to eat? What do they like to do? Their habits are, there'sa lot of variance between different cities.

– What to they like? Exactly, what do they do? It's very different,so again, going back to what city are you targeting? What's their taste? – Yes.

– I mean even if you look atMcDonald's, for example, right? McDonald's around China,there actually, there's a lot of variations between them.

They serve different foodsand you know, example, but some McDonald's inChina, they offer this chicken Congee, corn slate.

– [Dan] Yeah, Kanji! Congee at McDonald's.

– At McDonald's, right.

– And even the KFC, right? They have breakfast in China.

– [Victoria] Yes, absolutely.

And then there is an afternoontea in Hong Kong where it's very famous, some dim sum.

– And the egg tart.

– [Victoria] Right, egg tart.

There's corn and chickenwings, and none of the stuff that we have, right? So look at McDonald's andit's not an easy feat because you look at businessesas big as McDonald's.

They've had a lot offailed projects as well.

– So when someone going intothe market, they need to take what they have here, improvementsystem, improvement product maybe modify slightly to kindof more custom tailored to the Chinese needs, right? How they buy and whatthey eat, how they shop, and also they'll need totake into consideration even, maybe even city to city, that they need to take into consideration.

– Yes, yes.

Beijing and Shaohai are totally different.

– Very, very different.

– Yes.

– Very, very different.

And what about, so we areat localization, we're going to that.

We have taken that into consideration.

How could someone, if theywant to go into that, maybe one thing that they could doin my mind, even big companies, Uber, that they make mistakesof naming things that has a sound like a funny sounding meaning, in Chinese, too, right? – [Vic] Uber, Airbnb – [Dan] Airbnb, yeah – [Victoria] Brands fromAustralia, it's a little bit surprising but at the same time it's not so surprising as well.

You would think that bigcompanies, they would know enough to partner with the rightChinese partners and affiliates to make sure that the namingprocess is appropriate, the naming convention is appropriate.

Whereas a lot of, you know,when Airbnb announced their name, on a Weibo, which isTwitter version in China, they went wild on kind ofmocking the Chinese version of the name because itjust sounded so off.

It makes sense maybe inEnglish in terms of meaning but translated to Chinese, youreally need to pay attention to the individual word andcharacters and homophones, like what does it soundlike in other words, right? Because there's differentmeanings with the same words in Chinese.

– Yes.

– But there is also somereally good examples, like they translate to Chinese nametranslated as even meaning better, as in Coca Cola.

– Yeah, Coca Cola.

In Chinese it's Ke Kou KeLe, that means it's tasty and while you're drinking you're happy.

That's a great name.

– That's a great name.

– Fits perfectly.

– Yeah.

– So even naming things,and know how what about like in terms of even like holidays? Certain holidays in China,it's culture, right? That you know, – [Jennie] Very different.

– it's not just a (mumbles).

The big shop in town, it'sDecember, Christmas, right? Share with us some bigholidays in China that's a good time to spend money.

Where people spend a lot.

– I'd say first one is theMid-Autumn Day, like the full moon, which Chinesecelebrate once a year in China.

– [Dan] Once a year.

– [Jennie] That means thatall families that gather around, yeah, that's the one big one.

– [Dan] That's one, we don'thave an Autumn-Day here.

– [Jennie] Yeah, Chinese New Year.

– Chinese New Year.

– Right, one of the biggest like – 'Cause Chinese don't take,we don't take a lot of time off in December, we taketime off in Chinese New Year.

– [Jennie] Yeah, around January, February.

– [Dan] Yeah, so it'sequivalent of the North America Christmas.

– Christmas, yes.

– Yeah, so that's pocket money.

– And then usuallyChinese take a month off.

– A month off.

– Just so you know.

Yes, everything stops.

If you get manufacturing in China – Everything stops.

– Like, where the hell are these guys? Yeah, one month off.

So they don't work for a month.

– The incredible thing withthat is, there's so many people in China that theGovernment is considering having staggered holidays because,I don't know if you've seen some of the photos, wherepeople want to go back home to visit their familyduring Chinese New Year.

– Yeah, hundreds of millions of people.

– They get stuck on thishighway where there's like not an exaggeration, like20 lanes of cars trying to merge into 2 and they'restuck on the roads for like a week, or like a month.

– And the train station,you see millions of people getting stuck.

– [Victoria] Exactly, andthat's just really another thing about understanding the culture.

A New Year's for them isnot the same as New Year's for us here.

– Yes, yes, yes.

– Even on Labor Day.

They have a long holiday, theyhave a whole week labor day.

You go to all the like GreatWall, those kind of tourist sights, Chinese people arejust like zombies attacking! – It is.

– It swarms, yes.

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