By George Koo
Despite recent tragic events, we are lucky to be living in America. This
is a country of generosity, in space and in spirit. This is a country
that has room for everyone and anyone. Anyone with the desire and the
drive has the opportunity to succeed here in America. As previous
speakers have already recounted, nowhere exemplifies this fact more than
here in Silicon Valley.
According to latest U.S. census figures, more than one out of four persons
living in Santa Clara County is an Asian American and one out of every
fourteen is a Chinese American. Walk through any high tech company in
Silicon Valley, and one would meet engineers, managers and executives from
all over the world. If America is the land of opportunity, then Silicon
Valley is the source where opportunities originate.
Silicon Valley is the living proof that diversity is the strength of
America. All of us that live and work in Silicon Valley have become to
varying degrees multicultural professionals. We have to develop
multicultural sensitivities in order to communicate with each other, to
work as effective teams and therefore to be successful. Tragically, it is
the lack of diversity and cultural sensitivity that kept our intelligence
gathering agencies from detecting and preventing the recent acts of
terrorism but that's a topic of discussion for another day.
Today however, I would like to talk about the merit of being a bicultural
professional rather than multi-cultural. More specifically, I would like
to talk about being a professional person that takes advantage of being a
Chinese and at the same time being an American.
In 1978, more than twenty years ago, I joined Chase Manhattan Bank to help
American corporations do business in China, thus making use of my Chinese
background as well as my consulting experience and my technical education.
At that time, China was just opening its doors to the west and I took the
job with Chase Bank with a sense of adventure and it did not occur to me
that being bicultural could serve as a basis for a professional career. In
fact, many people I met in China and not a few in the U.S. had trouble
understanding what a person with a doctorate degree in polymer science was
doing in an intermediary role of uncertain calling.
Today is very different. China has become the sixth largest economy in
the world, the only major trillion-dollar economy expected to double
within ten years, and has become a major trading partner of the U.S. and
of California. Today opportunities abound for those who can move
comfortably and get things done on both sides of the Pacific and who can
function as a bridge between the east and west. For the twenty some odd
years that I have been going back and forth to China, I find certain
practices and ways of doing of things essential to a successful career.
One is that I take careful notes. Basically it is never a good idea to
rely solely on one's memory on important matters, such as your wedding
anniversary, but it is even more important when you know you are jet
lagged. When you are jet-lagged, it is amazing as to how easy it is to
get order of events, people seen, nature of discussion and decisions made
all mixed up just a few weeks after it all took place.
Another important characteristic is careful and active listening, or
listening with empathy. This means listening in such a way that the
speaker feels assured that he/she is being understood, not feeling the
pressure from a listener who is anxious to interrupt and get a word in. An
active listener is learning from the conversation and meeting, absorbing
and digesting and understanding. Most of us leave a lot on the table
because we have never paid enough attention to becoming a good listener.
Active listening is a part of effective communication.
To be an effective listener in a cross cultural situation is even more
challenging because it requires the person to be constantly switching the
contextual background. A Chinese may be saying certain things that have
certain significance while an American might be saying similar things but
mean something quite different. A bicultural person has to have the
ability to put the remarks in context and be able to explain one side to
the other. There are many occasions when I have been called upon to assist
with the interpreting between Chinese officials and American business
executives. My command of the Chinese language is never good enough for
me to be a professional interpreter. But ironically, because I cannot be
a word for word interpreter, I concentrate on making sure that the meaning
and intent is accurately conveyed. For this, I get expressions of
appreciation from both sides of the conversation.
To be a truly bicultural person is someone who can explain what one side
is saying in the context such that the other person from the other culture
can understand it. To be honest, I think I am pretty good at this and I
do it naturally and do not really think about what I am doing. In that
environment, my brain is constantly switching back and forth from the
Chinese context to the American context, to the point that I am not even
aware of what I am doing.
While I take a great deal of satisfaction in being able to help bridge the
cultural gap between the Chinese attitude and the American one, sometimes
the line seems blurred between explaining a position and taking a
position. Sometimes one has to be able to distinguish between explaining
China's policy versus defending China's policy. As an American citizen, I
have an interest in helping Americans understand China's policy, but I am
not sure that I should be in any way defending China's policy and be
labeled an apologist for China.
For example, China has been criticized for their one child policy and
their sometimes rather draconian ways of enforcing such a policy. I would
point to the alternative, namely without the policy there would be 300
million more Chinese today than there already are. Certainly, I would not
defend or even try to explain the extreme lengths some officials in the
countryside have gone to enforce the one-child policy.
On the matter of protection of intellectual property (IP), I would explain
to my American client that this is a big headache and needs serious
attention. I might indicate that lack of respect for software is part of
Asian culture endemic throughout Asia, that the solution will take a long
time and require not only enforcement and prosecution but a great deal of
education to promote understanding and respect. Again I would not defend
or even condone piracy. In fact every chance I get when I am in China I
would point out that protection of IP is in China's self interest and is
crucial to China developing a serious software industry.
China, of course, has been severely castigated over their so-called human
rights record. Usually, this matter does not come up in my business
assignments but does come up when the overall bilateral relationship is
the issue. Again, I do not feel that it is my duty to defend China's
practices, especially since I have no way of gaining enough expertise to
say anything authoritative about many of the practices. What I have said
to my American clients and political leaders is that human rights
conditions in China are better now than ever. I have on occasion while in
China with my clients, and as we stroll along the Shanghai Bund, to
quietly ask those first time visitors if the China they see is what they
expected. Did China seem like a police state to them as portrayed by the
American media? Of course, I have no respect for individuals who go the
other extreme, i.e., those who fabricate and distort the situation in
China to increase bilateral tension in order to make a living from it.
In explaining China, it's important to avoid using the party line from
China for the simple reason that words from China tend to be doctrinaire
and sound like slogans. For example, I think it is less persuasive to
label the [Falun Gong] to a dangerous evil cult, than it is to describe
some of the teachings of their founder. Such concepts as levitation, power of the spinning wheel
to ward off bodily harm, and sickness as punishment for sins that cannot
be cured by medication, do a lot more to show the cult aspects of this
movement than does all the name calling.
As a member of the Committee of 100, I am very proud to be part of the
team who has been engaged in preparing and updating a position paper on
the U.S. China relations, entitled "Seeking Common Grounds While
Respecting Differences." We've been issuing this paper about every two
years and the intended audience for this paper is The White House and
Congress. In this paper we claim the advantage of bicultural perspective
in pointing out that China is different from the U.S. in many ways. We
encourage frequent interactions between government leaders to promote
understanding and mutual respect. We argued that hectoring and lecturing
and making highly public demands of China to modify their behavior to suit
our American standard is not productive and not useful. Every year, we
organize a conference and part of the program is to promote greater
understanding between our land of origin and our adopted country.
As a bicultural person, I also devote efforts the other way, that is
helping China better understand America. In the days of the late 70s and
early 80s, my efforts were mainly directed at trying to convince people in
China that the streets of America are not paved with gold and that
everybody works hard for the admittedly high standard of living. The
image of a matronly woman in fur walking down 5th Avenue of New York with
a poodle wearing a cute cashmere sweater and dainty booties does not
typify America.
Today, I don't have to do that anymore. China has largely caught up and
in general understands the U.S. better than the other way around. Now, we
talk about high tech development and ways of attracting foreign
investments. Everybody is interested in the secrets of Silicon Valley's
success. Every chance I get, I explain that Silicon Valley's success is
in the people. When they ask what should the government do to create
another Silicon Valley, my answer is that the government should do nothing
other than create an open environment. How does one create a venture
capital industry to breed successful high tech start-ups? I say first get
the stock market up to international standards, let the market conditions,
rather the government, decide on who should go public and who should not
and do not limit windfall profit a venture capital firm can make on a
successful investment. Of course, to really attract foreign capital and
venture capitalists the Renminbit needs to be freely convertible.
We Americans love to think that democracy is the best form of government
and the right one for everybody. I happen to think a democratic
government is one that I would prefer to live under but I do not presume
to think that it necessarily is the only form of government nor
necessarily the best one under all circumstances. In any case, I do not
believe unsolicited lectures on the superiority of democracy is a very
effective way of convincing anyone. On the other hand, when appropriate I
wouldn't mind explaining to my friends from China about the concept of
democracy by using actual real life situations.
Let me give you an example. A few years ago, I was driving some visitors
from China along route 280. Suddenly, I had an idea and pulled into a
rest area that featured a really ugly sculpture of Father Junipero
Serra. "See this garden and flowers in this rest area," I said to my visitors,
"That's the work of a homeless priest." I then told them the story of
this priest who was homeless and spent his time beautifying the rest area
and sleeping there. The authorities found out about it and wanted to
evict him. The public found out about what the authorities planned to do
and raised uproar in sympathy with the homeless priest. In face of the
public pressure, the authorities relented and allowed the priest to stay.
Somebody, I don't know who, even provided the priest with a small camper
trailer so that he did not have to sleep in a tent anymore. Today if you
go by this rest area you will see even more elaborate gardens as well as
the camper in the back. End of a beautiful story.
Why did I tell the story? Because of its human interest and because it is
a good illustration of the benefits of a democracy where public opinion
counts. In my view, telling the story is a way of making some points
without being obnoxious about it. Hopefully I have demonstrated and
convinced you that in acting as a bridge between China and America, in
speaking about China to help America better understand China, you do not
have to defend China. For sure, you should not feel any sense of divided
loyalty.
As a citizen of this country, you owe your allegiance to the
United States. Period. This is not negotiable. As we know well from the
recent experiences of [Wen Ho Lee]t, there will be plenty of people that
will suspect you of divided loyalty
anyway. You must not give them cause and you must fight back when they
discriminate and practice racial profiling. As I alluded to at the
beginning of my presentation, to be a bicultural person is to have the best of both worlds. As China grows in preeminence
on the world stage, there will be a growing need for people that can
communicate, facilitate and motivate on both sides of the Pacific. But
the opportunities are even broader than just those that can go back and
forth.
China is now actively recruiting those that have been trained and working
in the U.S. to go back to China, much like Taiwan did about 10-15 years
ago. Why? Because these people have the kind of training, experience,
skill set and mindset, and network of contacts of value to China. When
China completes their reform of the securities market and open up the
venture capital market and makes the Renminbi convertible, the trickle of
people returning to China to live and work there would become a torrent.
Opportunities in Silicon Valley are also growing for the bicultural person
as well. Every new ethnic shopping center that opens means more jobs from
chefs and waiters to clerks and shop owners to managers and small business
operators.
The venture capital (vc) industry used to be virtually an all white
business. Thanks to more and more high tech companies successfully
started up by Chinese American and other Asian American entrepreneurs, the
VC firms now realize that they are the ones missing out on deal flow if
they do not have some partners who can interact with the Asian American
founders.
Same with us here at Deloitte & Touche. We recognize the opportunity to
serve increasing number of companies founded by Chinese American
entrepreneurs as well as companies coming to Silicon Valley from China,
Hong Kong and Taiwan. Thus we have formed Chinese Services Group with
bi-lingual and bi-cultural members to provide an array of services.
My friends, we are facing tough tough times right now. When it's the
gloomiest, it's most difficult to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
But inevitably the economy will turn the corner. The long-term future for
Silicon Valley, for China and for those of us that can live and work in
both environments is bright and exciting. I wish all of you the best for
the coming era, an era where multiculturalism and multilateralism will
triumph.
(About the author: Born in China, George P. Koo immigrated to Seattle,
WA as a child. He has BS and MS degrees from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a
ScD from Stevens Institute of Technology and a MBA. from Santa Clara
University. Dr. Koo is the Deputy Director of Pacific Rim Services
at Deloitte & Touche in San Jose, CA, and is a board member of the
Chinese American Forum, Inc., a non-profit corporation which publishes
the Chinese American Forum, a cultural and educational quarterly magazine.)
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