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Book Review: Globalization and its Discontents

learned to read the implicit business rules, understand the value of face to his local sales agents and employees, develop great patience and skill in bargaining and negotiation, and judge the integrity of local agents despite their apparently similar “agate eyes, lineless skins and serene mouths.” When Chase was promoted to an oil station manager, his knowledge of local culture enabled him to build valuable relationships with an influential local sales agent, Ho. The friendship between Chase and Ho eventually helped Chase to increase oil sales and gained him much respect among his employees and colleagues. Beyond the common themes on Chinese business culture, 400 Million Customers and Oil for the Lamps of China also offer different kinds of knowledge in understanding the Chinese market. 400 Million Customers thoroughly describes the particular tastes of Chinese customers and the unique business practices of local distribution channels. Crow stated that the Chinese were the most loyal customers in the world but meanwhile the most difficult to persuade. Local stores only displayed a few brands due to the habitual tastes of customers. When the modern tools of promotion such as price cutting, giving away free samples, and extending credit terms were used by local stores, the result was profitless business. Meanwhile, language problems also produced English advertisements that were full of errors and created difficulty in communicating the functions of products that were novel to local customers. Crow further used pharmaceutical and food industry cases to demonstrate how the conventional attitude of Chinese customers toward medicine and the distinct diet habits of Chinese consumers made Western medicine and food products fail to achieve their ambitious sales goals. In general, 400 Million Customers stresses the importance of comprehensive market research, which emphasizes the challenges of the various segments and contrasts the complex differences between the Chinese market and that of the Western world. In contrast to Crow’s detailed description of the local market, Hobart placed greater emphasis on the challenges that a foreign businessman faces in China. Through carefully delineating Chase’s personal need for companionship in the foreign land and his desire for job security and satisfaction, Hobart painted a picture of the difficult adjustment process a young foreign sales representative goes through in an environment characterized by harsh living conditions and diverse values and rules of doing business. Moreover, Oil for the Lamps of China also reveals the challenges Chase had to face when attempting to return to his motherland. The knowledge and experience he accumulated in the unique Chinese market did not seem to be appreciated by his home fellows, and he had fallen behind the development of modern society by spending many years in a nation where the economic development is far slower. The strict rule-oriented organizational culture of the American oil company formed a sharp contrast with the relationship-oriented Chinese local culture. The two books complement each other and provide a comprehensive view of the Chinese market and the challenges it presented to Western business a century ago. Both books were written by authors with vast experience in China and therefore provide valuable firsthand information on the Chinese market. As Crow mentioned in his book, the insights on the Chinese market are more valuable when they are from people who have lived in both Western cultures and in China. “In fact, asking the native of any country about the tastes and the psychology of his own countrymen is like asking an orange tree how an orange blossom smells. The tree doesn’t know because it has no basis of comparison.” (Crow 1937, 129). Some topics covered in the books are specific to the certain historical context. Many others, such as the relationshiporiented business culture, however, have remained essentially the same. More importantly, although written in a period when American marketing was changing from a production orientation to a sales orientation, and customers were considered targets to be persuaded, both books stress the importance of understanding customer needs and analyzing local market conditions, which are key to the current customer orientation of marketing practice. Marketing academics and practitioners who are interested in studying Chinese markets and conducting business in China are recommended to read these two volumes, which provide a fascinating view of China. The historical insights offered by 400 Million Customers and Oil for the Lamps of China would benefit researchers and business people alike.