Guanxi: "It's not what you know...

...but who you know."

I'm not sure how much I've written about "guanxi" in past blogs but in light of my last 10 days of traveling, I just feel the need to fill you in a little on how things operate in China. I promise to add pictures from my travels in the next few days!

The Chinese word, guanxi, is basically translated to "connections" and it is very important in China. Aroma, the friend who I was visiting, even said..."You can't really do anything in China unless you know the right people." It's so true and I saw it more up-close than ever this past week. Aroma teaches at a private boarding school for junior high in Sichuan Province and parents pay over 15,000 RMB (about $2,000 USD) a year to send their kids to this school. Only wealthy families are able to afford this and so Aroma has a lot of guanxi with wealthy families throughout Sichuan and Yunnan Provinces. Here are some examples of how we saw the power of guanxi at work this week:

1. While I was traveling with Aroma we stayed in hotels every night. Out of those 10 nights of hotels, we paid for only 2 nights.
2. Not only did we not pay for the hotels, but we got put into the nicest hotels in the cities we stayed in - one hotel room was 600 RMB a night (keep in mind this is only about $85 USD but if we were paying for our own rooms we would be staying in hotels that are less than 200 RMB a night). This particular hotel came with a jacuzzi-style bathtub that pumps hot spring water from 2500 ft. underground...or so they say...


3. The 4 days that we were in Kunming we paid for NOTHING...we were taken to all of the scenic spots with the entrance fees paid, dinners were covered, everything. This may not seem too odd, just some hospitality, but the person who was taking us everywhere and paying for everything was a complete stranger...to both of us! He was Aroma's student's father's brother (or friend) - are you following? So, he really had no connection to either one of us except for the fact that his brother/friend asked him to take care of us...he gave up 4 days from his own schedule at the drop of a hat, literally since we decided to go there one day in advance, to become Mr. Tour Guide to two complete strangers.
4. The father of the student, whom we did not see even once while in Kunming, sent us each home with a box of red tea that costs somewhere in the neighborhood of 600-1200 RMB...I've never met/talked to/seen or will ever meet/talk to/see this person.
5. At one point on the trip we needed bus tickets to another city and when we called there was only one ticket left. After a quick phone call from another student's father we suddenly had two tickets...I feel very sorry for the person whose guanxi didn't "measure up" to ours because he was out a seat on the bus.

These are just a few of the examples from the last 10 days - I often found myself wondering, "Why would these people want to do all of this for us?" Guanxi... I guess I've experienced a bit of my own guanxi on a much smaller scale - it's how I got the magazine article gig, the speech competitions, the high school conversation recordings. My friends here in Tianjin are quick to point out, "But, Shannon, you don't know anyone; you have no guanxi!" :) Actually, they're right - but I do know some people who know some people...