I have learned that the main reason that I have ever experienced any misunderstanding in China was simply because of the issue of face. My gallery director did not wish to come across as a person who could not speak English well enough to communicate with me and as a result never informed me that he had a secretary working in his office, who spoke fluent English. Had I known this, I would have never had any trouble. But that is the Chinese way.
As a result of all of this, my art was held in customs for an extended period of time and my exhibition had to be postponed. This is where it gets really interesting.
I was back in Australia having booked my tickets to Beijing and hotel rooms, for both myself and my wife to go to the opening, completely unaware that my artworks had not been released by customs. It was only as were transiting through Japan that I received a message from my businessman friend in China that the artworks had not been released. It was too late to turn back.
We arrived in Beijing and called my businessman friend and asked him what was happening. Even he was not able to say to me in that moment that my artworks were still in Customs. It wasn’t till later that evening on our first day in Beijing when we went to dinner with the gallery director, when we discovered in casual conversation that the exhibition was not going to be opened two days later on Saturday evening as planned.
I took it pretty much in my stride, knowing that these type of hiccups have been known to happen in China due to misunderstandings and things being lost in translation and went about rescheduling the exhibition for two weeks later. My wife and I had planned to go on to Amsterdam to spend time with her family for a couple of weeks and then return through China to see the exhibition for its last week.
I remember being in Amsterdam on our last day there, sitting in the office of my art dealer, when on a whim I told him I wanted to quickly check my e-mails prior to his giving us a lift out to the airport. I received e-mail from the gallery in China, from the fluent speaking secretary who told me that the artworks were still in customs. This was two hours before we were about to leave for China.
My wife was completely exasperated. Somehow I was not surprised. My Amsterdam dealer immediately said to me that this is the sort of thing he experienced all the time when he was working with the Chinese, as he had been importing art from China for many years. My wife was insisting that we ask for our flights and accommodation to be paid for by the gallery and in simultaneous voices both my Dutch dealer and myself said that’s not going to happen, it’s just not the Chinese way. It’s not the Chinese way simply because they would lose face.
So when I got back to China, I arranged to see the gallery director at the gallery with the secretary, so that we could have a meeting and discuss the next move. We all went to lunch and over lunch I remember saying that I am a very positive person and believe that these circumstances often happen so that the very best result can have a way of occurring. The translation from the secretary from what the gallery director had to say about this was, “You are very kind”, and in that statement I knew I had won an enormous amount of goodwill with my gallery director. He could see that I understood the Chinese way and that I wished him to completely safe face and he was eternally grateful for this.
The gallery went on to create a small book, which acted as a catalogue for the exhibition and beautiful gold embossed invitation cards and posters. I knew I was in safe hands from that moment on. It was inconvenient, there was many a moment when I felt like hitting the roof with frustration, but the memory of the proper etiquette of the Chinese way, has helped me to deal positively and successfully with the Chinese and I look forward to many years of friendship and prosperous business associations with the Chinese that I know.
