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Buildings in Shanghai. Photo by Peter Van Schaik of FIAT-IFTA.
Technical Difficulties and a Tour of Shanghai
Soon after I walked into the trade show, a very pleasant, knowledgeable, English-speaking gentleman started hanging around and talking with me. I was relieved, since I was starting to feel a bit like a dope, looking at displays but unable to talk to any of the exhibitors. We talked about merchandise and he introduced me to people and we were having a grand time. Every time I walked on to another exhibit, he would be back at my side within moments. I wasn't sure whether he was my chaperone or just a nice guy helping out, and I didn't want to abuse his friendly gesture, if that's all it was.
It turned out he was an official from the Shanghai Civil Affairs Bureau, responsible for helping produce the conference. I still don't know his name; I always called him "Laugher" because of his delightful, high-pitched (and genuine) laughter that added immeasurably to our trip.
From the exhibit hall we headed upstairs to the auditorium, where I was introduced to a polite smatter of applause. I saw a computer on the podium, and a mouse, but not having been instructed to use it, I assumed that the four guys at the A/V table had the technical end under control.
About two minutes into my PowerPoint presentation, the show stopped running smoothly. Every slide or two, someone had to run onto the stage to reboot the entire presentation. After a several rounds of this, some earnest guys started plugging in extra laptops, which only seemed to confuse things further. Finally, I just made an A/V guy stay onstage with me to try to keep things going. I noticed his hands were shaking a bit and got a little rattled myself. Finally, I remembered that in the end, no one would really care anyway, and the tension eased a bit.
Apparently what happened is the presentation had arrived in China via e-mail, in small sections. They had taken the time to painstakingly title each slide in Chinese and translate the speech, but they never tried to run the whole presentation until I got onstage. It turned out that it was still in pieces, each of which had to be brought up separately. Needless to say, all the other speakers benefited from my disaster. Complete run-throughs were scheduled for every other foreign presenter.
As for me, there were lots of apologies, handshakes and nodding, but you can't unring a bell. My first speaking engagement in China was a lost cause. On the other hand, the curried chicken at lunch afterward was terrific. The Shanghai noodles-almost worth the trip!
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The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. My chairing duties consisted of introducing speakers and watching the locals take their post-lunch naps in the audience. Apparently, there were gobs of no-work "jobs" during the long history of the Cultural Revolution, and some people got used to taking a bit of a snooze at work, especially after lunch. Added to that was the introduction of some European traditions during the colonial period, making a bit of a siesta not out of order. Things are changing pretty rapidly in China, but not quickly enough to keep an afternoon audience fully awake.
After introducing a speaker, I would quickly don my simultaneous translation headphones and switch to the English channel to listen in. There were three channels: Chinese (I could never really figure out the audience for that channel), Japanese (for a smattering of Japanese visitors) and English (for a Dutch representative from FIAT-IFTA, the largest European funeral association, two French Canadians, two eastern Canadians and me.)
Almost all of the presentations had a central theme: China, having been granted admission into the World Trade Organization (WTO), was opening up. The people were not satisfied with their funeral service industry. Although the "satisfaction" rating was abut 90 percent, they wanted 100 percent of their customers to be satisfied. As a result, they needed and were progressing well on developing better systems in all areas of their businesses. Technology, management systems, reporting and customer service were the critical factors.
Although at this point I wasn't sure whether there was actually any competition in the industry, all the speakers acted as if there was and they were going to respond appropriately. They also talked a lot about cremation and how they are "strongly encouraging" it. It was interesting to see various speakers struggling with notions of customer service and organizational systems. Some spoke with clear conviction and knowledge of what customer service and competition are all about; others seemed uncomfortable with these concepts.
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Dinner, a desultory affair in the hotel banquet hall, was highlighted by something called, "Beef Slomach." I took out my pen and altered the sign, but that did nothing to enhance the experience. I stuck to the simple stuff.
We then boarded buses to go to the Shanghai Circus. As we drove through the city, I realized that Shanghai is huge, the only place I have ever seen that matches New York in size and scale. Reportedly, there are over 3,000 buildings more than 30 stories tall. The population is supposed to be 13 million, but everyone admits there are about 4 million "extra" people doing the menial jobs around town, trying to make money to take home to their farms.
There are lots of newly opened buildings and lots of buildings under construction. The residential housing market is booming, and private ownership and development are now well entrenched. There is a great deal of gimmicky architecture, including buildings with holes and cutouts, and buildings where the outside curtain wall is curved to look like ribbon. Overall, the city is strikingly modern at the high end of the skyline. Down at street level, it's full of old buildings ready to come down.
Buildings in Shanghai. Photos by Peter Van Schaik of FIAT-IFTA. Click here to see more of his photos of the city.
We passed the famous Bundt area, where colonial powers made their stand, building banks and other trappings of power. This is a gorgeous street, beautifully lit at night for maximum impact and every bit as nice as some parts of Paris, lit up and ready for picture taking. The contrast with modern Shanghai across the Yangtze River is quite something.
Our bus was a small one reserved for the 10 or so foreign dignitaries, and as we drove through rush hour traffic, we all nervously glanced at each other when our driver honked others out of his way, pulled around cars and generally made a nuisance of himself. After a while, we all concluded that he was simply nuts.
As for the circus, well, let's just say that it appears that someone decided that foreigners would like the same circus that Ozzie and Harriet would have seen in their prime. Cliche after cliche. With all the talent in Shanghai, they certainly could put on a world class act, but apparently those in charge haven't given the OK yet.
David Shipper, center, expounds on his non-existent knowledge of lion-taming at the Shanghai circus. Photo by Peter Van Schaik of FIAT-IFTA. Click here to see more of his photos of the circus.
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The educational sessions the next morning were pretty much a repeat of the first day's, with one striking exception. A large Japanese funeral concern sent a speaker who told us about the state of the funeral industry in Japan. He talked about increasing competition from low-cost providers, people having smaller and smaller services with less pomp and circumstance, preneed advertising not working as well as in the past and how the drive for personalization was causing some families to turn to resources outside of his funeral home. It all sounded quite familiar.
That afternoon, Peter van Schaik, the FIAT-IFTA rep; a French Canadian landscape architect; a French Canadian funeral college professor; a Canadian grief specialist/funeral director and I were to present a workshop on funeral licensing. No one had any idea exactly what this two-hour workshop was supposed to be about or which one of us was going to say what, but by that time we had all realized it didn't matter.
About 25 people showed up for the seminar, which turned out to be a lot of fun for everyone. We had superb translators and discussed several subjects of general interest-even licensing. A philosopher in the crowd kept bothering all of us with the responsibility of the funeral industry to teach the meaning of life to people who have had a recent experience with death. The speakers and audience worked together to try to have the philosopher thrown out of the room.
I had an especially good time explaining that while Chinese funeral administrators have a problem serving all of their customers, Americans spend all of our time getting customers to serve.
The audience seemed entertained with my explanation that aside from issues of personal pride and service, a big reason we create such strong customer-focused businesses with beautiful physical infrastructures is to make more money. Toward the end of the session, whenever I would spread my hands in a certain gesture, the audience members would simultaneously murmur in English, "more money." Except for the philosopher, a fun time was had by all.
We then attended the closing ceremony, where some of the heavyweights of the Chinese funeral industry and a guest from Taiwan shared their thoughts and answered questions. The moderator was Zhu Jinlong, the director of Shanghai Funeral and Interment Center, commonly known as FIS. I always referred to Zhu as "Smiley" because of his near constant, infectious smile. Having spent some time with him, I learned he is a very knowledgeable, progressive manager. In addition to being a delightful host, he is thoroughly conversant in customer service and the other factors required in a competitive situation.
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Click here to proceed to the next chapter: The seminar wraps up; dining in Shanghai.
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Copyright ICFA 2003
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