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Thread: Soon to work in Harbin , Need to learn language fast! Starting now from Wisconsin USA

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[quote=METAPHORE,260726]Again thank you all for the wonderful advice! I am  Preparing  for the first visit in middle to late  January. my friend said to bring  brandy ?
 he said  his friends  over there  were very pleased with  ginger flavored  wisconsin brandy. Ok so I will bring some brandy and  old bourbon ( 10-16 year old ) spirits just to  share   but  I do not know  if it will make it past customs. I would hate to  have Very special  gifts  removed  by customs agents. does anyone know what the ruels are  in this  matter?

I am  excited by  the prospects and challenges I understand  are in store for me.
 I will be working with a brewing equipment manufacturer and a bottling and canning line manufacturer.

My friend who is  sending me  to harbin  said it is  difficult ( for him) to  get changes done  to plans that were  made  by the  designers and planners of the equipment  . Making changes that here in America I would just  point to and ask be done would be finished in an hour  or two, bang bang!

But in Harbin he said every little change takes many meetings and a week or more  with much protesting that it is impossible when  it is just a simple thing to  understand or do  ???  things like  welding an extra  fitting onto a tank. I am wondering if my friend is lacking the tack or cultural sensitivity to  get along  well  or maybe it has to do with  other  business / cultural  factors. like perhaps   needing to pay off   people  or  maybe something as simple as fear of  loss of  face or  job? 
I  know these things are  subtle matters in an in environment  where one is well immersed in the culture  and I will not be able  to have the luxury of subtle understanding  but for  living there for ten years or more.

Here in Wisconsin almost everything is  upfront, and  fairly easy to  do  and understand how to get done.  if a welding man  is supposed to do a job to  please the customer  he does it  to keep the customer happy and his boss  without much  delay or trouble ( IF the request is  reasonable) . If there is an extra charge it  can be told what that extra charge is  in a matter of an hour or  much less.

So I need to understand  better my friends  difficulties  in having changes made in equipment . I know  He is not patient , He is  an abrupt individual who  can be brought to frustration and  then screams to get   things rolling and he said he often  needs to  make big noises to  get things  moving  to  have  mistakes fixed or  changes made.

So I was wondering are there any books that might help me understand  how  to get  things done in  a manufacturing environment  in china  or should I not ask so broadly to say china, and just  refer to Harbin as  things may be done  in a different way  up north as they are down south?

More in next note as I have exceeded 3000 charaters![/quote]

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