The Illustrious Madam Liu

A little more than ten years ago, I had the great fortune to travel to China and to live and work there for several years. The beginning was tough because the first company I had signed on with ended up being somewhat flakey and unclear about the mission it wanted me to fulfill.

Under that company's flag I lived in Hong Kong for a few months, and then I was transferred to Shanghai to start up a new branch there. Within weeks after arriving in Shanghai, I sent a report to the office in Hong Kong stating that the new venture would probably not show a profit until after two years. Upon hearing this, the Hong Kong office peremptorily decided to fire me, and relayed instructions for me to pack up and go home.

I had been sacked...

DIGGING IN

Within days upon my arrival in Shanghai, I knew that Hong Kong was no comparison to Shanghai. The city "On the Sea" (Shanghai's literal meaning) was the place for me. I would have done anything to stay there.

I had been fired, but I shot a message back to the Hong Kong office telling them to get stuffed. I determined to forgo their offer to ship my worldly belongings back to America. At the end of that day, I was left with a large pile of unpacked boxes in my apartment, no job, no prospect for a job, enough cash to fill the palm of only one hand, and a lot of hope and love for this new and wonderful city - a city under whose dazzling bright lights I found myself basking.

After about two weeks of frantic job searching, I started to become disheartened. Money was soon running out, and the prospect of losing a foothold in my new home was an ever-growing nightmare on the immediate horizon. I stopped myself in the midst of my panic, and stood in the middle of my home. I forced myself to relax and spoke aloud, intending exactly what I felt in my heart: I had to stay in Shanghai.

Luckily I stayed on for some of the best years of my life.

A NEW JOB & THE AMAZING LARS

The day after making this resolution, I made a telephone call to the right place at the right time.

On a lark I decided to call one of my previous employer's main competitors. After being passed around on the phone a few times, I ended up speaking with Lars Amstrup, a wonderful Danish man who was later to become my future boss and good friend. As I got to know him, I saw Lars had a brilliant mind: multilingual (at least 6 languages), energetic, an inspiring leader, and an absolute madman during drinking hours.

Luckily I had caught Lars at the right time: he was looking earnestly for a qualified person to fill in as a new manager for his Shanghai sales and operations office. His company's current manager had only three weeks left. After a lighthearted interview and a few follow-up discussions with Lars, he made an offer. After a little bantering we reached an agreement and shook hands.

I had a new job: Shanghai was my home!

ANOTHER START

The next day I reported to work and met Chris¹, the manager whom I was to be replacing. After about two weeks of intensive training in a trade I previously knew absolutely nothing of, Chris took off and I was left holding the bag.

Luckily I wasn't entirely alone. My new boss, Lars, kept me company and guided this new fawn in his first uneasy steps into the meadow of China cargo logistics. Under Lars' encouraging tutelage, within a short time I was confidently making sales calls and bringing in some cash. Working with Lars was a pure joy. After his return to his faraway office in Beijing, his support continued from there in the form of frequent phone calls and faxes. What a great guy to work with!

The company I worked for was a joint venture (JV), and according to Chinese law all foreign JV's had to have a native Chinese constituent, preferably a member of the China Communist Party. While Lars represented the foreign (Danish) side of the business, Lars' clout was equally matched by a chosen Chinese partner in the business.

In this case his JV counterpart was a powerful woman. In Chinese we called her Liu Cong (General Manager Liu), but the Chinese staff and I frequently called her by her English name:

Madame Liu.

A CULTURAL TANGENT

Before I get started on Madame Liu, I have to explain something.

In mainland Chinese culture one would appropriately refer to Madame Liu as a cadre. In a more formal definition - as Wikipedia would have it - a cadre is:

"Cadre (from the French); are the backbone of an organization, usually a political organization... Cadres existed historically in Communist China as small factions of Mao Zedong's Communist Party who could maintain the party for as long as needed."

One thing it doesn't say here is that cadres in China are usually older folks (Madame Liu was in her 60s) and are pretty darn conservative, old-fashioned, spouting off about the good ol' days, etc.

While Madame Liu harbored all of these characteristics in some manner, after I got to know her a little, I can also say she was admirably spunky and well aware of herself and her surroundings for someone of her age and relative health - and given the many wonderful and horrible things she no doubt had seen in her lifetime.

THE ILLUSTRIOUS MADAME LIU

I had worked for the company for several weeks, but had not met Lars' Chinese counterpart, who also lived in remote Beijing. Madame Liu's name was spoken of among my Chinese colleagues with evident respect, and not a few times without the smallest edge of fear.

It seemed that an unseen wall had been erected between me and my Chinese boss - amazingly I never "officially" met her until about six months after I started work. Yes, she did come to visit the office about every two months. But, as she would have it, she never met me face to face. Those few times we were in close proximity, she never looked me in the eye. She didn't cast her eyes in my direction, to speak to me, and she refused my entreaties to sit down and talk with her.

In simple words, for Madame Liu I did not exist.

I was somewhat hurt by her strange behavior. I spoke with my managerial counterpart, Miss Amy Wang (seated at far right the accompanying IMAGE 1), and Amy answered simply, "She's Chinese. She's old-fashioned. Give her some time."

As I said, I finally didn't really meet Madame Liu until six months later.

FIRST MEETING WITH THE MADAME

After this much time had passed, Madame Liu flew in from Beijing one day and made her usual rounds among the Chinese staff, ran some errands, had lunch with some bigwigs, and return to the office in the afternoon. Then she took me by surprise.

She yelled out my Chinese name: "Ma Yue-han!"

Everyone jumped. All eyes darted about the office apprehensively, looking first at Madame Liu, then at me, and then back at Madame Liu.

"Hai!² Liu Cong!" I answered her in a clear voice. I jumped up from my desk and strode briskly across the office to her side. I finally had the first chance to meet my Chinese boss!

"Ma Yue-han. Let us go outside. Let us go walk in the park."

A RARE COMPLIMENT

I could see that all of my colleagues were stunned. Madame Liu was asking me to walk with her alone outside in the greenery area which surrounded our office complex. This was a rather unusual invitation, for she never asked anyone in my office to do this before. Also, in traditional old-fashioned Chinese culture, pretty much only two kinds of people were allowed to go for walks in parks: scholars and retired people. Since Madame Liu was definitely not retired, I began to wonder if she was likening our walk to two old friends - two old scholars - taking a walk in the park while engaged in friendly banter. In a few moments, I was to see that I was right.

Madam Liu fortunately got straight to the point. This is what she told me (translated from the Chinese):

"Ma Yue-han, I want you to know that I have spoken with your colleagues in the office. Over these last few months you have consistently treated them well. They say you treat them as they are equal. When they speak with you, they feel as if they are not speaking with a foreigner. There is a reason why they feel this way. Before I tell you why they feel this way, I have to explain something to you about the history of this company.

"You see, we are a split company: we are staffed by Chinese people, but we serve mostly foreign clientele. Because we serve these foreigners, we determined at the founding of this company that we would always need a foreign manager to head the company. When all of our foreign guests and customers would see our company, buy our services, it would be the foreign manager that they would be shaking hands with and handing their money to. Our customers would be under the comfortable illusion that they were doing business with a Western company represented by the Western manager / salesman.

"When you go to your sales meetings, you are a Western man and you meet other Westerners. When it comes time for service, everybody quietly looks to the side because they know the actual work is being done by Chinese people. We here agree to do this work under these conditions because we get paid, and your job is to make sure that we are paid well.

"When Mr. Lars hired you, he said that you were very special. I did not believe him. Why? Because almost every western manager we have hired before you were either somehow unextraordinary or openly treated us like dogs.

"The foreigner before you did very well in business but remained aloof. He did not get very close to the Chinese staff. He remained separated from us. The Western manager before him was Hong Kong Chinese, spoke English well and knew how to act like a Westerner. But when he turned his face to us, he looked down upon us like all those proud people in Hong Kong look upon us mainlanders. In this way, he was not one of us also. In some way or another all of the other Western managers before him remained separated from their Chinese colleagues in the office.

"Ma Yue-han, I have been watching you. I have asked your office colleagues about you and your behavior. They say you like to have fun, but you are also good at business. They say you do not live life here in China by yourself. They tell me you have a Chinese girlfriend (see IMAGE 5). They tell me you are always hanging around with Chinese friends, speak Chinese, eat common Chinese food made by the Chinese office Nanny with your colleagues in the lunchroom. In this way you live your life like a Chinese person. Perhaps this is not unusual because some other Westerners have done this before.

"However, your colleagues feel like you are their equal. You treat them like they are people, eat lunch with them, and stand next to them to help them with work."

Then Madame Liu scolded me.

"Ma Yue-han. They tell me sometimes you go into the warehouse and smoke with the workers there. Don't you know smoking is no good! Then you roll up your sleeves and move boxes and crates around, too. Don't do this! Your hands should never be dirty because you are the Manager. From now on, make sure you act in ways befitting your station!"

Before I could say anything Madam Liu quickly changed the topic to business matters. Then she told me about the old days. She spoke of the revolutions she had witnessed, the starvation, the wars, and the good days that began after Nixon's visit to China. After about an hour of walking outside, we found ourselves at the footstep of our office again. I opened the door for her, let her in first, followed after her, and quickly asked Office Nanny to get her some tea.

After she had stepped back into the office, Madam Liu quickly became busy again - taking care of various office matters, making phone calls... After a while she gave me a cursory goodbye while walking by my desk out the door before she went back to the airport to catch her plane back to Beijing that evening.

After she left, a couple of my colleagues came up to me and asked what we had talked about. I told them briefly what words passed between us. After a few moments, one of them spoke up and said that for her to have walked with me was an honor, a really big deal - something she had never done before.

Her visit was on a Friday. That weekend I gave her words some thought.

While it would have been too forthright for Madam Liu to thank me for my behavior, this is basically what she was doing when she spoke to me. It seemed she was pleased that the company finally had a Western manager who got along well with the staff.

SCOLDED AGAIN

About two months later Madame Liu came for another visit on a Wednesday. She was to stay for a couple days and then leave Friday afternoon.

On the first day of her visit she took care of some business as she usually did. Before the office closed that evening she told me she wanted to meet me Thursday morning to discuss some bill collecting problems. I cringed somewhat at this comment, for I had several customers that I was having tremendous difficulty collecting payment from. For me to be unsuccessful at doing this basic business function brought up the prospect of me losing face.

The next morning Madam Liu and Miss Amy Wang (my Chinese office counterpart, who also doubled as the Company Controller) met alone in the lunchroom with our lists of customers and printouts showing the company's profits and losses.

Madam Liu was overall satisfied with the performance of the company under my direction, but she said that she was very concerned about some uncollected bills. There were about three long overdue smaller bills (perhaps less than 10,000 Chinese yuan each), and three other bills ranging upwards in size, with the largest one being about 200,000 Chinese yuan.

We discussed all of these in an escalating fashion: starting with the smallest and working our way up. Madam Liu was especially concerned about the largest bill worth ¥200,000 yuan (about USD $24,000). She grilled me mercilessly on this bill, which was actually a compilation of several bills incurred quickly over several weeks. The final amount had risen to its present value, and I had recently begun to refuse service to this particular customer because they had not paid their bill. While they had provided small partial payments towards their account in recent months, in a kind of "retaliation" for my recent suspension of service, they stopped making payments altogether. Despite my persistent phone calls and visits to their office, I walked away empty-handed.

After I told this to Madam Liu, she beheld me under a sharp stare for several moments. It was such an uncomfortable silence that even Amy stepped up to support me, saying I had tried as hard as anyone could. I looked downward in shame: I was losing face for not having successfully collected the bill. I quietly said I wasn't sure what to do next. I said maybe Lars could help me.

After a few more moments of unbearable silence, Madam surprised both me and Amy (I saw Amy start in her seat) by saying that she would help me. (Later Amy would tell me that Madame was never so openly generous).

Madame turned to Amy and asked her to create a invoice detailing all charges and interest up to that day. She then stood up, summarily ending our meeting, and left the meeting room without a word. Amy and I looked at each other quizzically in silence as we followed Madame out of the room. Madame belted out some orders to some people standing nearby, and then she grabbed her coat. She walked over to my colleague Annie's desk (Madam Liu always ran her errands with Annie) and told Annie to get ready quickly for some important errands. A few moments later - with crisp new invoice in Madame's hand - they were both out the door and gone.

They returned about five hours later, both of them smiling and good spirits. They both had bags in their hands, thus showing they had gone shopping after taking care of business. After putting her shopping bag down, Madam Liu walked up to my desk. Without a word she elegantly produced a check for the entire 200,000 yuan and placed it on my desk.

"According to company regulation, it will need your chop and signature for deposit," she declared. She spun around and walked off. Although I didn't see it, I could have sworn she was smiling.

After about 10 minutes of visiting with some of my other colleagues, Madam Liu left for her hotel to retire for the evening without saying goodbye.

After Madame left, Annie, walked up to me with a smile, holding a scarf she Madame had obviously just bought for her. I shot off a question before Annie could speak.

"What exactly did Madame do to get this check so easily." I asked, holding the check up.

Annie laughed out loud and proclaimed, "For that, Lao Ma³, you will have to take me out to lunch."

"Okay, but you must tell me now." I spouted back, now smiling a little.

Annie agreed to my bribe for a later lunch. She and I walked into an empty meeting room, sat down, and then she told me a most interesting story. (see Annie in IMAGE 4)

"GENTLEMEN'S AGREEMENT"

Before I tell you Annie's story, I'll give you a little background on the customer I was trying to collect from.

During the time I lived in China, it was pretty common to hear about disagreements and artifice among Chinese companies. On the other hand, it was relatively rare that such disagreements took place among foreign constituents. While China's laws were unclear (and for the most part may not have applied to foreign enterprises), it could have been much easier for foreign entities to rip each other off right and left and get away with it. However, knowing that one could easily walk into a casual party hosted by a mutual friend, or at a large formal consular party, foreign company managers usually chose just to do business honestly without having to watch one's back all the time for angry pursuers. In those days, business was somewhat conducted among Westerners in a kind of "gentleman's handshake" venue.

Unfortunately sometimes there were exceptions to such chivalry. Apparently my customer chose to be the exception.

A BAD CUSTOMER

The large account that I had so much trouble collecting from was an Asian (non-Chinese) electronics firm. They had big money invested in China, and big executives with proportionally large egos. A mid-level manager had initially contacted me to contract my company's services. I bid against several other contenders for their business and won the race. I bid somewhat low in order to win their business because I had never had dealings with them before.

The Asian gentleman who negotiated with me convinced me to drop my prices even slightly more after I won the bid. He said if I did him this favor, it would make him gain great face in front of his boss, and I was be sure to be in his favor for large volumes of future business. I figured "what the heck". My proposed prices to him were only valid for three months. After three months I could raise my prices slightly and regain any losses sustained through this first round of low bids.

Soon after that, business between us commenced briskly, and my company sent off several of their shipments by air within a short time. I promptly billed for my services.

Usually payment from most of my customers wasn't provided until some days after the air shipment arrived elsewhere in the world. While my contract terms dictated immediate payment, it would have made my company look bad to hold up delivery of my customer's air shipments at their destination, especially since they usually had agreed to pay a much higher price for air shipping. The problem at hand was that this company had sent many shipments within a month's time, and I had not yet received payment for even the first shipment.

Given the volume of business they were giving us, I decided to take a respectful yet progressively firm stance in collecting payment from them. At first it was a few polite phone calls. Then I offered to provide a nice lunch for my sales contact, which he accepted. I met the guy, and we spent a few hours in pleasant chat. At the end of lunch we parted ways having shaken hands, my ears ringing with his promise for payment within several days. A week later another round of phone calls had me leaving messages through a secretary who was obviously screening his calls.

Within a few days my calls were more frequent and the messages I left were progressively more blunt. I sent a few faxes. On my daily errands, I made it a point to stop by my contacts office about every two days. He was never there. I did speak to a big boss once, but he brushed me off - saying he didn't "deal in small affairs".

In the meantime my staff had received one or two phone calls from my customer's shipping supervisor asking for us to provide further services without payment. It became clear at this point that these guys probably were not going to be making payment anytime soon. They were taking me for a ride.

Luckily, this was when Madame Liu showed up. The following is the story Annie passed on to me.

MADAME LIU WIELDS THE HAMMER & SICKLE

When Madame Liu and Annie left the office, they hopped on a taxi and went straight for my customer's office.

Upon their arrival they were greeted by a young receptionist who spoke to them politely in Mandarin. They presented their cards and asked to speak with my contact. The young lady walked down a long hallway and came back a few moments later saying that he was not there.

Madame Liu then asked to speak with the company's General Manager. The young lady then asked what business they had. Madame produced the new invoice and asked the young lady to give the GM her card and the invoice. The young lady reappeared a few minutes later saying the GM would see them in a few minutes. Five minutes went by, ten, then fifteen. Madame, not used to waiting, lost her patience. She stood up and told the young lady to have the GM come out - and now!

The young lady reappeared, saying the GM wasn't ready to see them yet, and could they wait a while longer! Madame turned up the volume now, and spouted off a furious train of Mandarin. The young lady made the mistake of coming back with some attitude, which in turn opened the faucet for Madame's full wrath. She caused such an audible commotion that several people appeared at the edge of the hallway and watched Madame chew out the young lady.

After seemingly forever, a tall dignified Asian gentleman came to the young lady's rescue. He spoke to her in his foreign Asian tongue, and she responded in kind. The man was extremely rude to Madame in that he never introduced himself to her, never looked at her, and spoke to her only through the young Chinese woman translating for him now.

Basically, they found out the man was the foreign company's Regional GM, the highest ranking the principal in the company. He spoke quickly with his secretary. And who was this crazy old woman who was making such a commotion in his office? What? She was here merely to collect a bill? You disturbed me for this?

The man turned and walked out. The young lady, determined to get rid of Madame, spoke harshly, "He will not see you! Make an appointment with the man who agreed to this contract!" She spun on her heel and strode back behind her desk. Madame stood there a moment, recomposed, and then with a chillingly icy voice she spoke to the woman behind the desk who ignored her.

"Young lady, do you wish these doors to be open tomorrow?" Madame gestured to the front entrance.

It was not what Madame said, but the way she said it.

Up until this time, Annie noticed Madame had spoken in a relatively flat Mandarin tone - a tone that made it relatively easy for most folks to understand no matter what part of China you was traveling in. At the same time, it made it difficult for the listener to pick out what part for the China the speaker was from. When Madame asked the young lady the last question, she had dropped this neutral "traveler's tone" and had reverted to her full Beijing accent.

The woman's head snapped up, a hint of alarm showing.

In the young lady's sharp mind a picture was quickly beginning to form. She had just heard the old woman speak in a deep Beijing accent. This older woman was from Beijing - the very seat of this country's government. Beijing - the mouthpiece of authority. It was an unseen Beijing-accented speaker that broadcasted the national news on the radio every afternoon while millions of workers paused to listen proudly to their country's latest accomplishments.

It was in this same voice that Madame had finally spoken to this woman.

She responded with, "What did you say...Ma'am?"

Madame coolly responded, "Young lady, go ask the Tall Man if he wishes to see these hallway doors open for business tomorrow."

Madame briefly explained that if she did not wish to see the doors chained shut tomorrow while Tall Man waited alone in a room for questioning - that she should fetch the Tall Man and instruct him to come pay attention to the Old Lady.

Madame used keywords bearing certain nuances that I will not explain here. Madame spoke with certain subtleties conveying a deeper, more powerful message than what showed on the surface. The young lady was Chinese. She grew up hearing rumors of Beijing's totalitarian hand. It was an unseen hand, yet an all-powerful hand that, only a few years earlier, quickly crushed a rebellion of thousands in Tiananmen Square. The young lady turned to look at Madame Liu.

Madame stood before her patiently, dressed humbly in plain clothes, yet spoke in a northern dialect that could command the masses to action. The light of realization began to dawn on the lady's face. This woman is from Beijing. She is old enough to be one of the original revolutionaries. And... This woman was a cadre!

The woman jumped up, bowed and promptly apologized to Madame and Annie. She promised to fetch the Tall Man again. She turned quickly, and then she ran!

Madame turned away to look outside, commenting to Annie, "The weather is so beautiful today, isn't it? Still, the sunlight is too harsh for a woman's fair skin. You carry a newspaper to keep the sun off yourself, don't you, Annie?"

Annie smiled sweetly, "Yes, Madame, sometimes. But here I usually walk in the shadows under the buildings."

Madame grunted her approval and turned back to the hallway.

They had heard Tall Man's voice bellowing again. He was obviously angry that the young woman had bothered him again. Annie and Madame heard the young woman pleading, now furiously shouting at Tall Man. He could not understand whom he was pissing off!

Other voices - speaking both in Chinese and the foreign Asian tongue - conferred for a few moments in the hallway room. Men's voices, women's voices - all speaking in rising and lowering tones. Whispers... The young lady's voice again, pleading... Unintelligible speech, and then there was silence, followed by footsteps coming down the hallway.

Tall Man appeared with the young lady again, whose face beamed with friendliness. Tall Man's face was devoid of expression. He looked briefly at Madame and Annie, and then rudely turned to his translator again.

Tall Man wanted to know who Madame was, that she would frighten this young lady so? Threaten his company, so she said? Who was she to do this?

Madame identified herself as the JV partner of a simple cargo company that was trying to do business, and collect a bill.

Tall Man became angry again: A mere shipping company - everywhere demanding money. Like flies.Why hadn't she taken this up with his subordinate who had signed the original contract? You're wasting my time!

"Young lady... Young lady..." Madame chimed quietly.

The lady turned to Madame and apologized. She looked down at Madame's open wallet and then her eyes froze in fear.

From this distance, the printed details of Madame's credentials on the card didn't matter. What the young lady saw was this: A photo of Madame on a card, and across the face of the card was a chop (an official governmental seal) of a giant encircled Red Star whose impression was so large that it walked off the edge of Madame's ID card. Only powerful people had this kind of card, and this was perhaps the first (and last time) the young lady would ever see one in her life. (see IMAGE 2)

Madame's credentials showed that she was a member of the People's Congress, a level of government adjacent to the Central Committee, whose membership included the President Of China.

Madame was indeed a cadre.

The young lady grabbed Tall Man's sleeve and pointed at Madame's card. Apparently Tall Man was smart enough to change his attitude when he saw the Big Red Star. He looked up at Madame and offered a smile and spoke to her face directly now, albeit in his own foreign tongue. Young lady translated.

I am sorry to keep you waiting so long! Are your comfortable? Do you want more tea? No? How may I help you?

Madame produced the invoice again, "This needs to be paid now."

Tall Man politely relieved Madame of the invoice and looked it over. He spoke to her directly again with a smile.

"I will pay you immediately. Please wait a moment while I write the check. Please, have some tea."

He and the young lady walked down the hallway while someone else rushed up to offer Annie and Madame glasses of freshly poured tea.

Tall Man did not return, but the young lady came back within minutes bearing a check for the full invoice amount. The young lady again apologized for making them wait so long. She even walked them out to the taxi queue outside the building. A few minutes later, Madame and Annie stepped into a taxi.

Annie looked at Madame, hoping in her heart that she would hear the magic words Madame spoke each time they finished running their business errands. To her delight, Annie heard the words now...

"Let's go shopping!" Madame declared.