Once there were the cave-dwellers and nomads and the hunter-gatherers. Then came simple tool use and rudimentary language abilities. Now a new breed of ex-pat is migrating into China, bringing with him new envirnomental pressures and strange new opporutnities. Prepare for the coming of the new breed of immigrant — the Corporate Man.

Type 1 Cultural adventurers. This is the old back-pack set. They really, really admire any culture not their own — and they fell for China and Asia in a BIG way. They started working in Asia because they needed money for more trekking, and some of them fell in to jobs that ended up making them some decent money.

Type 2) Opportunity seekers. They are the explorers and gold rush prospectors. These guys want adventure — but their definition of adventure probably includes an IPO and lots of international deals. These guys are responsible for lots of the JVs and B2B startups over the last 10 years.

Type 3) Unwilling ex-pat. (UEP). Had to come. All their suppliers are already here, and now most of their customers are as well. They have made a couple of business trips, but for the most part don’t know about China and don’t want to know. Want to do business and get home to their real life as soon as possible.

So where do you fall?

In Shanghai we are seeing a switch from Type 2 to Type 3. As the US MNCs ramp up for their great march into China, we can expect to see more and more unwilling ex-pats from the US and Europe flood into this market. Service levels will rise – as will prices. The locals will become even more jaded and disillusioned by westerners. And you will no longer be a minor celebrity at the post office.

T1s. The Dharma Bums never really fit into Shanghai society, even 15 years ago.

In fact, the culture kids always had trouble in China. No one really liked them too much. They tend to do better in places like Japan and India were locals have time for their culturally sensitive noise. In China, people want to make money and then they want to spend it. Some neo-hippy in a $250 Columbia windbreaker and an “Impeach Bush” patch ironed onto his convertible backpack talking about the Cultural Revolution and insulting America never did well among the locals – or other westerners. You can still find these guys teaching English in the Second Cities or provinces. Sometimes try to take the form of a T2.

T2s. The Opportunity Seekers who came out here before 2004 are still the major force.

These guys know Chinese, know China and are looking for ways to fit in with big-picture shifts in the global economy. They have paid their dues dealing with bureaucracy, roadblocks, landmines and the struggles of under-developed economies. They were movie-star-esque for a while, and could count on mild celebrity status almost everywhere they went. That’s pretty much over in the big cities, thank God. Lots of these guys went kind of ‘local’ a while ago, avoiding Nan Jing Xi Lu and other “foreigner” spots, but had their favorite bars on Mao Ming Lu or Tong Ren Lu. They would gather in western bars to bitch about China, but generally liked being here and believed they understood China. The fact was that the liked China more than they respected it much of the time, but these people had a generally strong impression of where the Chinese economy was heading. There is an unfortunate tendency for some of them to believe their sacrifices and struggles in the Old Days still means something significant. They don’t.

T3. The new guy – the Cro Mag to all you Neanderthals out there – is a company man sent by the US office.

Or maybe he’s a business owner who has no choice but to follow his supply chain out to China. The most distinctive characteristic of this type of ex-pat is that he has ABSOLUTELY NO DESIRE TO BE HERE. That’s right – he never made the choice to come to China. Someone or something else decided for him. This guy doesn’t HAVE to care about the culture or society or “the way of doing things”. When T1 or T2s bitched about China, there was something hypocritical or defeatist about it. They knew they were vulnerable to the Vibrating Death Palm of politically-correct ex-pat debate: “Well if you hate it so much, then why are you still here?”. That won’t work on these guys, because someone literally told them they have to be here. And hell yeah, he’s gonna have the double-double cheeseburger at Malones and they’d better have the right kind of ketchup. These guys are rich, they’ve got bad marriages and high blood pressure and a complete and total disdain for ALL cultures – including their own. They want to get the numbers to work – to get sales up, defects down, branches rolled out – and then they want to get the hell out of here and go back home. They don’t care about anything but work.

The T2s aren’t going away, but they are going to be rapidly swamped by the new breed of T3s who have no real connection to or with China. The big 3 cities are going to get more and more corporate — and more prosperous. So if you old-hands feel that Shanghai or Beijing are already “too civilized” you can think about opening up that second or third location is some up-and-coming little town of 5 or 6 million people. But I wouldn’t go shutting down the Shangahi operation any time soon — those T3s are going to bring some serious expense-accounts with them, and they won’t even know how to say “ni hao”.

Tai ban le.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 10th, 2006 at 11:11 am and is filed under Innovaton Corner. 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.