When I was in China two years ago for the Butler in Asia program, I experience a huge culture change with the way the Chinese conducted its business. I worked for a subsidiary of Microsoft called Wicresoft, and I had to get accustomed to the way they get to and from work as well as how they worked. They way they get to work is very similar to the United States as they take trains and buses, but the difference I noticed was the aggressiveness people would do to get on the train. People would shove and be very physical at one another just to get on the train, even though there was another one coming about four minutes later. I then noticed how people in China work. Where I worked, the employees did not talk to one another as they all worked independently. In the workplace, it’s way more strict than in America, but one thing that surprised me was the way Chinese employees interact outside of work. It is very common, in China, to meet for dinner or drinks after work. They would also all take naps around the same time at their desk right after lunch before they started working again. Another difference I had to work with was the internet situation. The Chinese government banned and censored google and other internet browsers as well as social media. In order to get on the internet and conduct business. I was assigned a VPN to use in order to complete the research and work for my internship. Occasionally, the VPN would be very hazy as it would stop working for some short and long periods of time. It wasn’t very difficult to use, but it was very different. It was very fascinating to see how the average worker there compared to the average worker in the U.S.
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