It is well known that Chinese businesses operate on their own levels of what is acceptable and what is not and often those levels sit at extreme opposites of what is acceptable in the US (and most other developed nations as I imagine). A few weeks ago I decided to ramp up my networking efforts to help my job search. This lasted all of one evening because I was reminded of why I despise networking events. Making small chit chat with people about mostly mundane topics ("so how long have you been in China??, What do you think of it?, etc) is not my ideal evening but on this occasion I volunteered to go for the group I was doing an outreach project for. It was exactly as I expected but, begrudgingly, I tried to make the best of it. I met a few people and decided I had done enough and was about to step out when a friendly, older Chinese gentleman stepped up and said hello. I obliged and engaged him in conversation and it turned out he had lived in San Diego for over 20 years and was in venture capital so we had an interesting discussion on China and start-ups, etc. He asked if I spoke Chinese and I responded in Mandarin with a common reply to something when you want to be modest to which he responded with a remark about my appearance and ability to speak Chinese. Annoyed, I tactfully said it had been nice talking to him and I had to go. I wouldn't normally care about such comments but I received this email a few days later:
This is just a ridiculous email on so many levels I really could only laugh at it. It wouldn't be so significant if this hadn't been someone I'd had a very respectable conversation with. I never responded to his email and try to avoid thinking about how he was cheered up otherwise on his "lonely overseas journey."
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