Listening to your podcast in Beijing, and I would like to preface that unless you are in Rome, you simply don’t understand Romans.

Your comments about the way that Apple-dot-US should be changing the salary complexity in the Chinese factories are waaaay out to lunch, man. Seriously. I’m paid a local salary here, and I *chose* my salary structure to be more like US: simple monthly number. My coworkers choose their structures, and they *choose* the complex arrangement: base salary, allowances for transit, services, utilities, etc. In this way, the complex salary received by the factory workers is exactly the complex salary arrangement that my coworkers choose when given the alternative of a simple US-style structure.

This is China, man, and that’s how they like it.

Unfortunately, I think the question is whether business in China should be done in Chinese, or English — whether business should look like a foreign method, or a local method. As a counterpoint, how would you like to choose your preferred salary, and someone came and broke your contract, saying “the foreign office requires us to renegotiate your contract, you have to accept this new one, or you cannot work here anymore, and your family goes hungry.” Seriously, you’d be a bit unhappy about that too.

Come to Beijing. See the Great Wall. See the Forbidden City. See what it’s like, and you’ll understand that Chinese make Chinese choices, they are not forced upon them.

Realize too that even the changes forced upon them from the US, well, Chinese just accept it. Very accepting society.

Allan