My own common sense to deal with the rules and norms

“He used my fork.” If I didn’t watch this movie, Late Autumn, I couldn’t understand the meaning of the fork because it was not just a fork. If you want to know another truth of the fork, please watch the movie on which Tang Wei appeared.

Our company in China has seven office workers including me and fifty factory employees. Everyone except for me can make a shopping bag well. After the first interview, new employees should fold several shopping bags for a week or ten days.

 

Even more than that, they would have practical training for every work at a factory. This is the basic one that everyone should know because they need to know about a shopping bag, and then they can carry out accounting business or manage a factory.

 

It’s has been a long time since I recruited. Ms. RiRi is the latest person who entered our company. Almost all employees are Han Chinese, but only Mr. Kook is Korean-Chinese.

I don’t particularly like Han Chinese, but when population ratio is taken into account, China has much larger Han Chinese for my business as my Chinese is getting improved.

 

Mr. Kook is in charge of managing and supervising all processes of production in our company, and his wife, Mr.Chin, is a real boss of our company in China and the president of our corporate branch in Shanghai. Running a business in China, I feel that following all rules and norms is too cumbersome. There is a cultural difference, so there are so many things that I don’t like and just skip.

 

I consider carefully that there should be rules and norms, but I am confused whether they actually exist or not. Other words of rules and norms are order and value. In fact, it’s such a silly thing to discuss order and value with people who have lived their own life differently from me. This is too much to hope they are locked in the appointed box.

 

I think the rules and norms in Korea seem to speak for a wait-and-see attitude, consideration, and indifference in China. Those are the representation of the existence, but I sometimes represent my Korean way of thinking.

Thus, I would be not good at expressing the rules and norms.

The norms are the value-judgment. I think that it is just a poor idea to calculate people’s value because we just try to judge the value of a company or its products. There are not titles of honor in China. Ms. Chin sometimes calls me as ‘You’ that is a pronoun that Korean people usually use when they call only their friends of the same age. She says ‘You did so.’ In Chinese, ‘You (你)’ means literally you, but it is different in Korea.

 

So, I told her how dare you called me as ‘You.’ After them, she never calls like that. When I made a phone call and asked Mr.Whang about the processes of production, he said just ‘Yes.’ So, I also told him how dare you said just ‘Yes,’ and he said ‘Yes, Sir,’ again.

 

I only have rules and norms. Those things are just my way of thinking. I think they might regard me as an old and evil president.

Whenever Mr.Kook asked me, ‘How about this?,’ I said ‘How about this, sir?’ again to learn to speak more politely. From a Korean point of view, it’s an absurd answer. Now, I just naturally accept their languages because they are Chinese.

 

There is an old saying that do as Romans do, when in Rome. The obvious thing in Korea would be controversial in China, whereas the strange thing in Korea is reasonable in China. Even though I’m running a business in China, and it’s been ten years since I knew about China for the first time, I just seem to know about the ways to my home and factory.

 

It’s obvious to make a big difference between thoughts about mutual communication, a division of labor, and performance, and what I think. However, Chinese companies have their own rules and norms. I just want those things to be expressed as consideration, mercy, and the will to their goals rather than an existential superiority. I don’t want them to treat me with rules and norms.

 

I just would like them to have those things about their companies.

I think the first step is to find order and value regarding their assigned tasks. However, I realized that I always break the formalities. I ended up digging my gravy by myself.

 

I have a headache again. I am always worried about some problems caused because I am Korean, but I am living in China. The result is that people are problems, not because there are so many problems in China, but South Korea doesn’t have any and not because I do accept the difference and similarity or not.

 

A gap between people is the real problem. Fork doesn’t mean a real fork. This means ‘a mistake,’ or another emotional expression towards others.