Last night I went to the China Chicago Club meeting in Shanghai. If you are in Shanghai and have ever been in or near Chicago (or heard it mentioned somewhere), you should get on their mailing list: Chicago.china.club@gmail.com and drop by the next meet. I don’t usually think of the CCC as a barometer of Sino-US business trends, but last night I definitely saw a sign of things to come. At least 3 people handed me business cards with handwritten cross-outs and new local phone-number, accompanied by long explanations instead of short introductions. They’re here. America’s economic refugees are washing up on Shanghai’s shores.

The pattern is subtle, and if you haven’t been here a while you might miss it. You meet a respectable looking grownup(35+) and you introduce yourself. “Hi”, you’ll say. “I’m Andrew. I lecture at NYU and consult with MNCs about sales management and negotiation. I also write a few websites on China-US business. What do you do?” Then you get a story. It’s always he same pattern. ‘I didn’t want to come here, but my company/ clients/ partner/ senior management absolutely demanded it. We have so much business in Shanghai that we needed a senior manager out here right away. I had no choice.’ Then they give you a card that doesn’t match their story.

November is an odd time to transplant ones’ self to Shanghai. International business tends to slow down in China a few weeks before Christmas and stays slow until after Chinese New Year - which ends this year around the first week of February. I imagine that the real inflow of western refugees will start showing up around then. Late winter, early spring. After the holidays.

I hope these guys do their homework and figure out exactly what they plan on doing. Shanghai isn’t as bad off as NY or LA, from what I hear about those places, but no one is handing out consulting contracts at the airport. It’s expensive, competitive and slowing down.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 11th, 2008 at 4:27 pm and is filed under Bear wrestling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.