Comment

By lingo! Speak local, please

By Lara Farrar (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-04-27 08:08

I visited a friend last week who works for a Chinese company. While I was there, her Chinese colleagues were doing various tasks around her. And they were all speaking Mandarin.

My friend, who speaks some, but not much, Chinese said something to the effect: "Could you please speak English so I can feel included in this conversation?" Her colleagues ignored her and continued speaking in Chinese.

Certainly there are a number of non-Mandarin speaking foreigners here working at domestic and multinational companies with Chinese colleagues who do not speak English around them. Should they? And how does it impact the office environment - relationships, trust, for example - if they don't?

Foreigners with whom I have spoken say working in such a situation can, at times, create a feeling of isolation, even mistrust, between them and other staff. That is underscored by an expectation the Chinese can speak English, should speak English and want to speak English.

It is not that simple.

First, regarding the work environment, the issue at hand should be analyzed through a different, and I would argue, logical lens. Chinese or any foreigner working in companies in America, France, Germany or other countries would be expected to speak the local language.

Staff, unless it is some special circumstance, would not go out of their way to speak, say, Chinese to accommodate non-English-speaking employees.

The foreign staff moved to that country to work. It is their responsibility to learn the respective language and to speak it with their colleagues. Why should it be any different for foreigners working in China?

True, English is considered the internationally accepted language for business, but should there be an expectation that English is spoken to conduct the daily operations of a company located here, even if not doing so does create a rift between local and expat staff members?

This question takes us to the deeper issue of looking beyond the language barrier to what I would call language as a barrier.

Foreign friends moving to China expect that English is widely spoken in major cities such as Beijing and Shanghai. Not true. Doing business with domestic companies, in most cases, means international firms will have to have employees who speak Chinese.

Furthermore, I have conducted interviews with Chinese college students who have said they no longer feel, due to China's growing strength, that they need to truly learn English. The world will now have to learn Chinese, they said. Not the other way around.

In that sense, language becomes a barrier, a barrier of protectionism. For Chinese working or doing business abroad, knowing (most likely) English is necessary. But to do business here, to work here, Chinese is mandatory. And it is meant to be that way. Not everyone can be on the inside. There will be rifts, misunderstandings, certain layers of culture foreigners may never be able to penetrate. Is it strategic? I would say so.