2005-12-06 17:26:14
来自: Jean
(San Francisco/Bay Area)
One Billion Customers的评论
想了很久，写这篇评论该用中文还是英文？
用英文比较简单，不用翻译来翻译去的。而且写中文多半要捱人骂。
但是。。。最后决定用中文。因为觉得这书虽然是给到中国做生意的外国人写的，对国人的用处应该也很大。至少大家可以反思一下。用一个不同的视角来看我们现在的社会。
作者:James McGregor
1990年任华尔街日报驻京中国总编，后来是道琼指数中国总执行官 (CEO of Dow Jone's China)。在台湾住了五年（1985－1990），在北京住了十五年。会讲中文。他对中国的了解令我很是服气。
全书八章，第一章讲了中国近代史，之后每一章挑了一个中国的行业来讲：银行，走私，财经新闻，航空，新闻媒体，电讯。结尾那章以中国的BiMBA商务管理课程来推断中国商界的未来。
所有的内容都是围绕一个个详细的商业案例来解说他的观点：
－中国加入世贸的诸多内幕，包括中国高层和美国高层间的一些重要事件
－摩根士丹利与建设银行的合资成败
－赖昌星小传
－新华社和道琼，路透争夺向中国股市传送世界财经新闻的”战役“
－道格拉斯和波音在中国投资前后
－美国媒体大王默多克在中国的起落，凤凰电视的起步，中国《财经》杂志的创办
－中国电讯集团,中国联合通信, UT斯达康的生成发展，和相互之间的争斗
－哇哈哈集团的发家史，潘石屹和张欣的地产王国
内容涉及历史，政治，地域涉及中美欧洲日本南亚。所有这些商业案例都是发生在这过去十五年的真人真事。种种商业运作，勾心斗角，不比如今网上的一些流行小说差。十分引人入胜，何况都是真事真人？
作者的资料搜集很是地道。文笔幽默。观点也新颖。每章结尾有一小段名曰"如上这些对你意味着什么" (What does it mean to you?)，再后是一两页他总结出来的“商业铭言”，冠以“商业红宝书”的题目。模仿过去那本人手一本的红宝书。
书中令我印象深刻的一些观点：
－中国与WTO的恩怨其实开始于两百多年前的大清。那时中国的茶，瓷器，丝绸等在欧洲卖的极好，白花花的银子流到中国来。英国对这个贸易逆差非常不快，派了使团带了洋枪洋炮自鸣钟来试图卖给中国政府。同时派出的使团也去了日本。日本立刻买下枪炮开始改良军队。中国则给他们吃了闭门羹。在门里偷笑这些蛮夷不知天高地厚，我们堂堂大清如何看的起你这些破铜烂铁。两百年后英国被美国取代，再一次要求我们跟他们一起玩。这一次中国可聪明多了。
－等洋人开着军舰带着鸦片再来的时候，李鸿章成了中国历史上第一个外交大臣。在没有任何军事后援的情况下，坚守着只能租借，不能割地的原则，签了那些“不平等条约”。李鸿章其实已经是尽心尽力了。被我们的历史贬为卖国贼其实有点不公平。
--Layer your mangement. Your top managers will surround themselves with their own kind, be they Hong Kong Chinese, Taiwanese, Shanghainese, or Beijingers. For your corporate culture to dominate, instead of the ethnic culture of Chinese pecking order rivalries, place foreigners and Chinese from various places at all levels in the management structure.
把你的公司管理层做成一个千层糕。不然你的最高管理人员会自动建立自己的小圈子把自己围在中间。无论他们本人是香港人，台湾人，上海人，还是北京人，都会把自己围在老乡中间。如果你想建立一个公司文化，而不是中国历史悠久的地域文化（地域间的打斗），那么你一定要把外国人，中国各地的人搀在一起，从公司的顶层一路到最底层都做成千层糕。
－Firm control from the top has always been considered the only path to peace and prosperity in China. One reason is that China is a shame-based society, very different from the guilt-based West. In the West, with society's religious orientation, many controls are internalized. Guilt, which is ultimately the fear of sin and eternal damnation, puts a check on bad behavior. In China, it is the fear of exposure and the accompanying shame that tarnishes the entire extended family. As a result, the Chinese can feel pretty good about doing almost anything as long as they don't get caught. In that atmosphere, the only efficient form of law and order is a strong and omnipresent government that increases the likelihood of getting caught if you do something wrong.
（这个我就不翻了，嘿嘿，觉得是全书我最同意的一点，甚是有理。如果有人能举出反例就更好了，求之不得。）
－If the business community is the "old boys' network" in the West, the Communist Party is the "old boys' network"in China. While few, if any, officials believe in communism, they do believe in the system, that it should be protected and that it should and can be improved. The party today operates much like a corporation in the way it makes decisions and deals with people. Like a coporation, there is some democracy at the top of the party and almost none at the bottom.
-Cheng Yizhou, age thirty-nine, a principled and rist-taking editor of the Southern Metropolis Daily in Guangzhou. In the summer of 2004, he was arrested by local Communist party officials on trumped-up charges of corruption involving newspaper expense accounts. The real reason was that local officials wanted to shut down the paper's aggressive reporting. ...On his release, Cheng described journalism in China: "Freedom means knowing how big your cage is." 自由就是知道你的笼子有多大
--Chinese entrepreneurs tend to diversify into anything and everything rather than paying attention to the core business. The consequences are often fatal.
中国的创业者喜欢开杂货铺，不愿意专心做好某一个专业，不讲究商业核心(Core Business)。结果往往是致命的。
12/13人推荐
> 我来回应
One Billion Customers的评论
想了很久，写这篇评论该用中文还是英文？
用英文比较简单，不用翻译来翻译去的。而且写中文多半要捱人骂。
但是。。。最后决定用中文。因为觉得这书虽然是给到中国做生意的外国人写的，对国人的用处应该也很大。至少大家可以反思一下。用一个不同的视角来看我们现在的社会。
作者:James McGregor
1990年任华尔街日报驻京中国总编，后来是道琼指数中国总执行官 (CEO of Dow Jone's China)。在台湾住了五年（1985－1990），在北京住了十五年。会讲中文。他对中国的了解令我很是服气。
全书八章，第一章讲了中国近代史，之后每一章挑了一个中国的行业来讲：银行，走私，财经新闻，航空，新闻媒体，电讯。结尾那章以中国的BiMBA商务管理课程来推断中国商界的未来。
所有的内容都是围绕一个个详细的商业案例来解说他的观点：
－中国加入世贸的诸多内幕，包括中国高层和美国高层间的一些重要事件
－摩根士丹利与建设银行的合资成败
－赖昌星小传
－新华社和道琼，路透争夺向中国股市传送世界财经新闻的”战役“
－道格拉斯和波音在中国投资前后
－美国媒体大王默多克在中国的起落，凤凰电视的起步，中国《财经》杂志的创办
－中国电讯集团,中国联合通信, UT斯达康的生成发展，和相互之间的争斗
－哇哈哈集团的发家史，潘石屹和张欣的地产王国
内容涉及历史，政治，地域涉及中美欧洲日本南亚。所有这些商业案例都是发生在这过去十五年的真人真事。种种商业运作，勾心斗角，不比如今网上的一些流行小说差。十分引人入胜，何况都是真事真人？
作者的资料搜集很是地道。文笔幽默。观点也新颖。每章结尾有一小段名曰"如上这些对你意味着什么" (What does it mean to you?)，再后是一两页他总结出来的“商业铭言”，冠以“商业红宝书”的题目。模仿过去那本人手一本的红宝书。
书中令我印象深刻的一些观点：
－中国与WTO的恩怨其实开始于两百多年前的大清。那时中国的茶，瓷器，丝绸等在欧洲卖的极好，白花花的银子流到中国来。英国对这个贸易逆差非常不快，派了使团带了洋枪洋炮自鸣钟来试图卖给中国政府。同时派出的使团也去了日本。日本立刻买下枪炮开始改良军队。中国则给他们吃了闭门羹。在门里偷笑这些蛮夷不知天高地厚，我们堂堂大清如何看的起你这些破铜烂铁。两百年后英国被美国取代，再一次要求我们跟他们一起玩。这一次中国可聪明多了。
－等洋人开着军舰带着鸦片再来的时候，李鸿章成了中国历史上第一个外交大臣。在没有任何军事后援的情况下，坚守着只能租借，不能割地的原则，签了那些“不平等条约”。李鸿章其实已经是尽心尽力了。被我们的历史贬为卖国贼其实有点不公平。
--Layer your mangement. Your top managers will surround themselves with their own kind, be they Hong Kong Chinese, Taiwanese, Shanghainese, or Beijingers. For your corporate culture to dominate, instead of the ethnic culture of Chinese pecking order rivalries, place foreigners and Chinese from various places at all levels in the management structure.
把你的公司管理层做成一个千层糕。不然你的最高管理人员会自动建立自己的小圈子把自己围在中间。无论他们本人是香港人，台湾人，上海人，还是北京人，都会把自己围在老乡中间。如果你想建立一个公司文化，而不是中国历史悠久的地域文化（地域间的打斗），那么你一定要把外国人，中国各地的人搀在一起，从公司的顶层一路到最底层都做成千层糕。
－Firm control from the top has always been considered the only path to peace and prosperity in China. One reason is that China is a shame-based society, very different from the guilt-based West. In the West, with society's religious orientation, many controls are internalized. Guilt, which is ultimately the fear of sin and eternal damnation, puts a check on bad behavior. In China, it is the fear of exposure and the accompanying shame that tarnishes the entire extended family. As a result, the Chinese can feel pretty good about doing almost anything as long as they don't get caught. In that atmosphere, the only efficient form of law and order is a strong and omnipresent government that increases the likelihood of getting caught if you do something wrong.
（这个我就不翻了，嘿嘿，觉得是全书我最同意的一点，甚是有理。如果有人能举出反例就更好了，求之不得。）
－If the business community is the "old boys' network" in the West, the Communist Party is the "old boys' network"in China. While few, if any, officials believe in communism, they do believe in the system, that it should be protected and that it should and can be improved. The party today operates much like a corporation in the way it makes decisions and deals with people. Like a coporation, there is some democracy at the top of the party and almost none at the bottom.
-Cheng Yizhou, age thirty-nine, a principled and rist-taking editor of the Southern Metropolis Daily in Guangzhou. In the summer of 2004, he was arrested by local Communist party officials on trumped-up charges of corruption involving newspaper expense accounts. The real reason was that local officials wanted to shut down the paper's aggressive reporting. ...On his release, Cheng described journalism in China: "Freedom means knowing how big your cage is." 自由就是知道你的笼子有多大
--Chinese entrepreneurs tend to diversify into anything and everything rather than paying attention to the core business. The consequences are often fatal.
中国的创业者喜欢开杂货铺，不愿意专心做好某一个专业，不讲究商业核心(Core Business)。结果往往是致命的。
12/13人推荐
> 我来回应
本评论版权属于作者Jean，并受法律保护。除非评论正文中另有声明，没有作者本人的书面许可任何人不得转载或使用整体或任何部分的内容。
One Billion Customers
作者: James McGregor
副标题: Lessons from the Front Lines of Doing Business in China (Wall Street Journal Book)
isbn: 0743258398
书名: One Billion Customers
页数: 312
定价: $27.00
出版社: Free Press
装帧: Hardcover
出版年: 11 October, 2005
2005-12-06 17:47:20 Jean
另：据作者本人说：本书的中文翻译已经完成，将在香港和台湾发行。在大陆发行尚未被批准，可能需要删节后才能在大陆出版中文版。洽谈中。2005-12-07 10:33:47 yzsh
期待中译本，不知到哪能买到？2005-12-09 15:33:56 eraser
啊，吸引人！到时候买本看看。就是不知番成咋样了，删成咋样了。2005-12-10 16:36:00 dotann
heh, I don't have an exact count-example of the Chinese "shame-based" culture vs western "guilt-based" culture, but speaking of religious guilt itself, it can be very superficial just like the "don't-get-caught" shame-based culture, a perfect example would be the still on going catholic church scandal, or the current Abramoff Lobbying scandal, in which some Christian group was easily bought off to help pass pro-gambling bill. I'd say there is no single "most efficient way"...;)2005-12-10 17:17:50 Jean
Nice try, but not what I'm looking for.To summarize.
A == a, B == b, while a<>b, and a seems slightly better than b. I'm looking for a conter example that either says, B == a, too. or b might be better than a.
What you said was, A is not perfect either.
That's okay. I'm not looking for perfection.
2005-12-10 17:52:50 dotann
Oh well, there's no better example of a guilt-based culture in China than in the heat of cultural revolution, even a law-abiding "good" citizen gets this automatic guilt about everything he does, some of these are illustrated in xiao-bo's literature works, in the beginning the regime created fear, when things got out of hand, people were actually overwhelm with guilt as well as fear.No doubt that in reality the western world is much better than the Chinese in many aspect, I am open to hear everyone's explaination on why it is so, but isn't the author's arguement too generalized? I'm even more skeptical when he got down to the "Chinese culture", because the Chinese culture is not that homogeneous like our ruling party. :D Maybe I need to read his entire book to understand the context. So many politians and philosophers came to tell us that they know this one solution to straighten out a society's natural order and guard against human nature. But no, I don't believe there is one single good solution. A solution that sounds good can be executed just as badly as a bad solution. ;)
2005-12-12 14:32:46 Jean
hmmm... will you promise you won't delete everything you posted when i got up tomorrow morning?No matter, I'm copying your words below. :)
I think there are two misunderstandings.
1. You apparently have a different interpretation of what "guilt-based society" is. I would never have categorized China during culture revolution as guilt-based. feat-based maybe. but absolutely not guilt-based.
I see guilt-based as a self-censorship of some sort. How one would do a self-critic before perform anything in public. "Is it the right thing to lie?" "Do i have the right to pretend i've never heard of this interview question before?"
Would you mind to explain how do you define "guilt-based society"?
2. What exactly is "the solution" that you feel so strongly against? I didn't see a solution in the book and i certainly don't have a solution. Now i'm curious what you had in mind as this solution you are disagreeing with?
2005-12-10 17:52:50: dotann
Oh well, there's no better example of a guilt-based culture in China than in the heat of cultural revolution, even a law-abiding "good" citizen gets this automatic guilt about everything he does, some of these are illustrated in xiao-bo's literature works, in the beginning the regime created fear, when things got out of hand, people were actually overwhelm with guilt as well as fear.
No doubt that in reality the western world is much better than the Chinese in many aspect, I am open to hear everyone's explaination on why it is so, but isn't the author's arguement too generalized? I'm even more skeptical when he got down to the "Chinese culture", because the Chinese culture is not that homogeneous like our ruling party. :D Maybe I need to read his entire book to understand the context. So many politians and philosophers came to tell us that they know this one solution to straighten out a society's natural order and guard against human nature. But no, I don't believe there is one single good solution. A solution that sounds good can be executed just as badly as a bad solution. ;)
2006-07-18 14:23:06 RPIB
Quote:－Firm control from the top has always been considered the only path to peace and prosperity in China. One reason is that China is a shame-based society, very different from the guilt-based West. In the West, with society's religious orientation, many controls are internalized. Guilt, which is ultimately the fear of sin and eternal damnation, puts a check on bad behavior. In China, it is the fear of exposure and the accompanying shame that tarnishes the entire extended family. As a result, the Chinese can feel pretty good about doing almost anything as long as they don't get caught. In that atmosphere, the only efficient form of law and order is a strong and omnipresent government that increases the likelihood of getting caught if you do something wrong.
（这个我就不翻了，嘿嘿，觉得是全书我最同意的一点，甚是有理。如果有人能举出反例就更好了，求之不得。）
This is a useful framework to think about differences of the West and the East, but not a very rigid one. Jim McGregor is stating a fact “The Chinese can feel pretty good about doing almost anything as long as they don't get caught.”, and the reason is what he called the “shame based society”. Is it really?
First, let’s examine the fact. In the commercial and political arena, people do seem to behave that way, with few exceptions. But if you look at the bigger definition of society, the majority of Chinese does have moral standards. How else would you explain anonymous donations to help the poor students? If what Jim said was true for the entire society, “people feel good about almost anything as long as they don’t get caught”, then not donating is guaranteed to “not get caught” since its voluntary, then people should not donate since keeping money in the pocket while feeling good not getting caught sure beats losing money. So, a better interpretation of the fact should be “people feel good about almost anything as long as they don’t get caught in commercial practices.”
Secondly, let’s look at the logic. I believe there are many reasons that contribute to the current low moral standards in Chinese market. Which contributes more to this phenomenon: the level of development of legal and credit system, or the psychological restriction mechanism? If the psycho effect is indeed there, shouldn’t it apply to the Chinese society at large, instead of just commercial practice in China? Or let’s examine how everyone is behaving in other developing economies, say Russia? I see the same level of unethical conduct if not worse. We can’t really call Russian society Eastern, or shame-based, can we?
Again, it was a good observation and there is some level of truth in his society psycho restriction mechanism. But it’s far from perfect and should be viewed with a critical eye.
2007-12-24 14:52:22 乱翻书
我刚刚看完，印象深刻。正尝试把它翻译出来，权当个人兴趣。
http://zhouzq.spaces
2008-04-16 12:57:16 edwardyang
正在看乱翻书同学的中文译版，译的非常非常专业，也非常非常的好看给后来者再次隆重推荐下
http://zhouzq.spaces
以及
http://www.yeeyan.co
ps：这书的英文全文在网上找得到么？