CNReviews Mind the Gap Wednesday: The Trust Factor
CNReviews Mind the Gap Wednesday focuses on the gap — or difference — between China and the West, in the technology, culture and business worlds, as well as other places where there is a large gap.
Take your average train station — Beijing Subway or Zurich Main Station. You see two very different systems at work…
• Beijing Subway: Someone has to stand (stand guard?) next to the machines where you touch in your subway transport card. Nobody is spared; if someone tries to break the rules, a very loud “Ay, ay, ay!” is uttered and the offender immediately isolated. If the going gets tough, more subway personnel or even the police is called in.
• Zurich Main Station: The Swiss trust you to either validate your multi-passes or to buy a ticket. Spot checks are rare, but they are not easily dodged: the inspectors sometimes are not in uniform and arrive unannounced, catching some folks unawares. Relax — you did buy yourself a train ticket, right?
From things as basic or as down-to-earth as checking your train tickets, we see the difference between the Chinese and Western worlds: the trust factor.
It’s not that in China, no-one trusts no-one; nope, that would be a national disaster. But those who try to spot tiny holes in the legal system or trust system often get their way, and if there is a way to “play dirty”, some do. It’s not that the Swiss never “play dirty”, either; but there are more folks in China who choose the “easy way” out. Unfortunately, not all “easy ways out” are necessarily “clean ways out”. An example that I’ve been through: some other Mac site in China helps me get the word out about a BeiMac meeting. When I’m really in need, though, I request them — kindly — to help me out, and they get tough, going, “Who the heck are you? Why should I help?”. In China, to make sure that your deal is indeed sealed, you need a jiandu or supervision factor — to make sure you get to sleep at the end of the day. That’s, to some extents, the subway lady checking if you’ve touched in at the stations.
China: Come on, come on, show us the ticket. Trust? Hmm…
The Swiss aren’t exactly the opposite — you can’t say that there are no liars or folks who take the “easy way out” in Switzerland. But the Swiss (the majority of the Swiss, at least) do believe that you have to be responsible for what you do — and that playing foul, or violating the law, is not a good idea. Try it; throw even a napkin around, and more often than not, the Swiss will express disapproval — instant disapproval at times. The Swiss believe in the law more than the Chinese do (it shows!), and if a Swiss agrees to something, it’s a done deal, no doubts about it. There’s less worries in the West; not a lot of effort is put into the jiandu-ing or supervising because most people trust each other.
Switzerland: We trust you, but if you play foul, you’ll be fined.
From things as basic as checking your tickets at train stations, we see the differences between trust in the Chinese world and trust in the Western world (with Switzerland as an example). The concept of trust is catching on in China, though, so for those in China for the long term — bluer biz skies are in the forecast…
2 Responses to “CNReviews Mind the Gap Wednesday: The Trust Factor”
It was my second time to take Beijing Metro early this month when I was in Beijing. I have to say, if there is nobody standing next to the entrance, I won’t know that is the entrance. And I bet people from countryside may also run into this problem or even don’t know that ticket is required to take the subway.
Ten years’ ago, when the coin boxes were first set up in some buses in Shanghai, there was always a person sit next to the coin box to “supervise” people buying tickets. But now, most bus lines don’t need the supervisors any more.
Living in Shanghai, I can’t exactly corroborate what David is saying about Beijing here. In my experience, there isn’t much supervision at the entrance or exit turnstiles the vast majority of the time. During rush-hour when people are getting to work or home, there might be some supervision but even then, I’ve noticed quite a few people hop or duck the turnstiles to avoid paying fare.
To a degree, the phenomenon of supervision does reveal that there are violators of rules in China. I reckon, however, that the powers-that-be who mandate such supervision aren’t so much bothered by the inability to trust the masses as they’ve simply accepted that it will take a lot of hand-holding before you can socialize the society of a developing country into good public citizens.