Hardware vs.Software 裝備及服務

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Nowadays in China at least in major cities, the buildings,transportation, and miscellaneous infrastructures that make up a modern city,rival and often times are newer than the best of the world. Routine service provided by these units are adequate. However, when service request even slightly out of the ordinary occurs, problem often occurs. A very perceptive high official pointed out to me during this visit of mine to China the following: “ while in cities China has more than caught up with world class standard in hardware, she is deficient in the development of software associated with these hardware”.

Very true!

Hardware can be purchased with just money or copied relatively easily. Given the abundance of human resources, China since 1978 has accomplished a miracle of development. But software are culture dependent and take years to assimilate and acquire. You cannot easily catch up or conform to the rest of the developed world. Here are three examples I experienced this time in China (before China-firsters rush to accuse me of only reporting things that need improvement in China, I let my record speak for itself and urge readers to examine them with an open mind)

1. One day I needed a taxi and asked the front desk of the hotel where I am staying to order one. After 20 minutes with no reply I called again but was told that there were no taxi available at that time. Okay. But I asked why did you not inform me of this fact and let me wait in vain? The reply was “you only asked me to try to get a taxi. You did not tell me that I need to inform you if I fail”.I was flabbergasted (don’t know to laugh or cry)

2. I was invited to give a lecture at a research institute in Beijing on a given day and given time. My host informed me that hewill send a car with his Phd student to pick me up ½ hour before the appointed time. On that day I started to wait for the student and car to show up at myTsinghua address. They were ½ hour late (of course my lecture was also delayed½ hour with a larger audience waiting). What happened? The student neglected to do two basic things which are routinely done in the West when entrusted with such responsibility – study in advance on how to get to an particular address so you do not get lost or be late, get a phone number so that you can call ahead to let the waiting party know in case unforeseen things happens. I am sure the student is very smart and wanted to do a good job, but he probably is an only child raised by two devoted parents and four grand parents who see to his every need since birth. Besides getting good grades and pass exams, this is probably the first time he was asked to undertake a task on his own. It never occurred to him the need to prepare which most of us learned very early in life. There is something to be said of sending your child abroad to study. One quickly learns to take care of oneself and the ways of the world as I myself did at age of 15 some 66 years ago.

3. On our Fujian tour there were crowds often on narrow walkways. One time a hurrying tour guide simply pushed my wife aside without excuse in order to rush ahead. My wife was rather upset. So I eased her annoyance by clearly saying (also for the benefit of the tour guide) that she probably did not know how to say “excuse me” or apologize for impolite behavior. Where upon the tour guide turn around and said angrily to me “What if I don’t wish to apologize?”. In the West where “the customer is always right”, such behavior can easily cause the guide to lose her job. But in tourist area not yet aimed at foreign tourists, I suppose such occurrences are not unusual.

In this 21st century, it seems to me China has two choices: 1.Adapt as quickly as possible to the western cultural norm in external dealings or 2. Force the rest of the world to conform to Chinese cultural standards. In this respect, the late great Singapore premier, Lee Kwan Yew, had a great line when he was asked about Sino-US competition referring to the fact that China has 1.3 billion human resources vs. US’s mere 300 million. Lee replied, “Wrong, the US has 7 billion human resources because of her immigration policy”.