RTCPODS - China English Podcast Hub

What's China really like? What are the differences between the business culture in China and elsewhere in the world? Are there any areas that international businesses need to adapt to when entering the Chinese market? For a lot of people who have not been to China, there are still aspects of the world's second largest economy that they are curious about. Hi, I'm Ninh Jin. Today, I have with me someone who can give us some ideas of doing business in China. My name is Stephen Baek. I come from Hungary. I've been living in China for 19 years now. I'm leading a Hungarian company here called Buck & Roshta. I work in the cultural industry doing cultural digitization. Stephen Baek, a Hungarian who has been running his business in China for about 16 years, shares with me his experience in doing business in China and the secret to achieving success in the country. Mr. Baek, you have two titles. One is the general representative in China of the Hungarian National Museum and the other the CEO and founder of cultural digital firm. What does your job involve with these two roles? I guess they complement each other. Yes, my day job, of course, is with our cultural digitization company, which is a Hungarian company working in China for more than 15 years, actually, now. We have been working with a lot of cultural institutions all through our China. For example, museums, science centers, also some local governments doing some very immersive engaging exhibitions or some visitor engagement projects. This is how we got to know a lot of Chinese cultural industry players, a lot of government offices, agencies, and had a lot of very successful cooperation projects. Building on this successful network, we also started doing cultural exchange. That's why the Hungarian National Museum gave us an assignment to look for potential partners to do exhibition exchange or other cultural exchange with here in China. Do give us some idea about your company, like how many staff you have, what's the size of it, and what does your company do? Sure. So our head office is, of course, in Budapest, Hungary, but we have our daughter company here in Shanghai, which was registered in 2008. So we have been working with a lot of people here. Currently, we have about 40 or 50 people working in the company here in Shanghai. But we work not just in this city, but all throughout the country. We have projects in every province of China. We have worked with basically all the major institutions in the museum field here in China, such as the state administration of cultural heritage, the National Museum, the Palace Museum, the Shanghai Museum, all of these wonderful top-notch cultural institutions in China. We have been connecting these institutions with our Hungarian counterparts. So those are two very important parts of our work. One is to engage more and more local people, Chinese people who come to museums, come to science centers to learn more about Chinese history, culture, art in general. That's one thing that we do. And the other thing is to bring in our Hungarian or European art, culture, and history resources to China to showcase them to Chinese people, and also to take Chinese, such cultural content out to Europe, and let Europeans, Hungarians learn more about China in general. Now that you've mentioned that you are also taking some Chinese relics and cultural products to Europe, are Hungarian people interested in Chinese relics and Chinese culture? Yes, I have to say it is quite beyond our expectations. We have recently been taking beautiful exhibitions to Hungary, also some cultural products, and all of them were received very well by Hungarian people. Of course, also we have many Chinese people living in Hungary. They are also always coming to our events and our exhibitions in Hungary. But in general, I can say that there is much larger visitor numbers at our exhibitions than we expected in the beginning. So I can say that all those projects that we took from China to Hungary have worked out very well and had very large visitor turnover. I'm glad to hear that. Mr. Baek, I know that your company has a magic war, and I've learned that it's a highly immersive war. Do tell us a little bit about the magic tricks of this war and what inspired you to develop it. Sure. One of our key technological innovations is the magic war, interactive, large video war, which is actually a very suitable item in almost all museums today in China. By now, it has spread out so well that almost all museums are using it. It's a very beautiful dynamic surface where you can showcase your collection, you can let the visitors take some time and get to know your content a little bit more deeper, not just passively walking through the exhibition, but also engaging with all the content. If those are historic relics, then let the visitor turn them around, maybe touch them, enlarge them, learn more about the stories behind them. I guess it's more convenient than sometimes the audio guide. If you visit a museum, you want to rent an audio guide. Sometimes you find the right spot for that item. I'm really eager to try that out. Now, you've established your company in China in 2008? First we established a representative office in 2008. It took some time to register our LTD, our Wufi company, actually. It was ready by 2009. So that's, yeah, I think 15, 16 years now. Okay, so it's been 16 years. May I ask, how is the company doing? Sure. We have had very good 16 years, I can say. So we have always been profitable. Of course, the pandemic gave some hardship to businesses in general and also experienced some difficulties in our work. But in general, I can say that we are doing quite well. Of course, the cultural industry is a very stable and a very important part of publicity in general. And fortunately, China is, of course, very much interested in promoting this industry. Also Hungary is very similar. So we have very large scale cultural constructions going on in Hungary. They have been going on for many years and we hope that the future is also very bright. So we are active in both countries and also in other European countries. But I can say that Hungary and China are actually kind of brothers in arms there. So our cultural industries are fast developing parts of the economy. Let's travel back in time to probably 18 or so years ago, you were in Europe and freshly graduated from a university and you studied computer science and then got your PhD degree in psychology. Then you decided to come to China. What prompted that decision? First of all, I had a lot of friends in university, so I did my PhD in Holland, which is also very welcoming to Chinese students, Chinese teachers as well. I had both classmates or schoolmates from China and also some teachers and I was very close to them. It was always very easy to communicate with them. I slowly learned Chinese from them and then eventually I also applied for some grants which enabled me to come to China and do some of my research part of my PhD in Shanghai, Nanjing, different places and later I kept coming back and in the end I chose not to go back anymore. So I'm still here. I've read somewhere that your coming to China has something to do with your love affair with terracotta warriors, the underground army of Emperor Qin Shi Huang. Is that true? Sure, sure. I was a little kid when we had the terracotta army exhibition visiting Hungary, one of the first countries actually that time to have this exhibition hosted and it was an enormous success. We had long queues at our national museum and I believe it was the most successful temporary exhibition in Hungary up to now. So you can imagine that's 36 years now. It is still the most successful exhibition and we do hope to repeat this performance to invite again the terracotta army to Hungary soon. Right. When you came to China, did you come with a specific business plan? Well, first of all, I came to learn, to study Chinese. Of course I was working in a company but at the same time I was working on my Chinese and also immersing myself in Chinese culture because of course it is one thing to learn the language when you are in a different country. You can do a lot of self-study which I did but you get this real powerful learning curve when you actually come to China and you just immerse yourself into it every day. What was the size of your company when you first started it? Of course we started from zero, from one person. I was the first one I guess and we grew every year. We had a profitable year every year so we kept growing one by one increasing also our clients circle and also increasing our colleagues numbers and also including our partnerships with local companies and local institutions. We have a team of course not just our own employees but also vendors, partners and distributors as well. I think for a lot of expats, sometimes people living outside of China, they are really curious about how a foreigner can start a business in China. Was it hard to set up a company in a country like China as a foreigner? I have to say that time of course in 2008 it was probably more difficult to start a company than today. It took I think about six months to do all the paperwork and then wait a little bit longer for the registration itself to go through. So that's why we first started with a representative office which is a different company type but in the end it worked out very smooth. Of course you always need the help of local people and this is what we did and I can say it was quite smooth from the beginning. And today I believe it is even much faster to start a company. In fact we do have more companies now also for different geographic regions but also for different activities. We have a specific company now for cultural digitisation and for cultural exchange. Those are relatively separate domains so yes we can register a company in a matter of weeks, one or two weeks even today. A matter of weeks, that's really speedy I would say. Are there any differences between business practices and business culture here in China and elsewhere in the world? First of all I've always been very happy with Chinese business culture obviously otherwise I wouldn't still be here. I can honestly say that in general the business culture is very good in China. It's based on trust, very similar to the way that it is in the West. One key difference is really the trust networks in China may be even more important. So let's say I have a friend who introduces me to another friend, I will be responsible to keep the good relationship with this new friend not just for myself but also for my friend I have to save his face as well. So saving face, giving face is maybe something especially important in China, something that people are more conscious and more careful and more responsible for here in China. So I think that's in general a very reasonable and very good and stable way to do business interactions as well. I would say business practices are very friendly in China, it is also very welcoming to foreigners. It is very easy to get to know new partners, to partner with local companies but also local institutions and even government agencies are very welcoming and friendly to us Hungarians or foreigners in general. Have you ever come across any major challenges in your business operations? Like the most challenging thing about doing business here in China? It has been quite smooth, we have been very successful. We always try to innovate, give beautiful products to our clients that they actually need. I mean as long as you do something that there is a need for, it's not difficult to do business. Of course there are small challenges with workforce, workforce is very dynamic here. How to keep people motivated in their daily job is a little bit different from Hungarians or Europeans in general. So we had some challenging times during the COVID outbreaks but in general I think we weathered it all quite well and we are still here and we hope that there is a period of growth coming now so we are quite optimistic about the near future. Right, we have some listeners who are quite interested in knowing how foreigners can succeed in doing business in China, would you care to share with us? I think the most important is that you have to deliver good products, competitive products and China is a very large country of course, it has very high rewards if you can do something that is needed everywhere in China and you need to work on keeping your competitiveness. Chinese people are very quick-sinking, they will catch on to everything that works well so you need to constantly improve yourself, your business processes and of course your product to make sure that there is a demand for your high-quality token of product. Are there any areas that international businesses need to adapt to when entering the Chinese market? Well, of course it is very important if possible to know the language, it can be very helpful if you can speak even a little bit of Chinese. Second, the culture itself, the way of communication, to understand Chinese people's thinking and what they put emphasis on to respect their thinking is very important to be open-minded, it helps a lot of course. What would you say about the cultural market potential here in China? Well, we are very much looking forward to more growth in this sector, it has been amazing a few years in China. China is of course very much focused on building more cultural institutions, cultural projects and we are very grateful and honored to be participating in those projects and we do look forward to more cooperation between Hungary and China as well to have more successful cultural exchange projects. Right, since you have engaged in cultural exchanges between China and Hungary for these many years, was there any project that you were particularly proud of? Sure. Just about digitization, I'm quite proud of our Magic War traveling exhibition in 2017 and 2018 for two years. The Magic War was traveling around China together with a very beautiful Hungarian exhibition Princess Sisi and Hungary, which was a very popular exhibition and we had a very beautiful digital part of this exhibition where we showed much more content to visitors than we could physically bring from Hungary. And this exhibition also gained attention from the International Council of Museums ICOMM and we also got the highest award from the audio visual subgroup of this association which is a very proud event for us to have such an international recognition of our technology. Another project that I would mention is something that we did very recently, actually an ongoing project. Right now we have beautiful Han Dynasty cultural history object exhibition in Hungary. We are already working on the second stop of this exhibition where we took these ancient 2,000-year-old relics from Shanghai and also other museums in China to Hungary. And we have a very beautiful, very engaging exhibition in Hungary right now. That's also a recent project that we're very proud of. The one that you mentioned, the Han Dynasty exhibition, was that the one on the, what do they call it, like the gold thread and jade pieces clothes? Yes, the idea was to put this very special piece of object into the exhibition and take it to Hungary. This is an object which is very, very precious and very, very rare. So it's very difficult to take it out of China. It has to be a special occasion and our exhibition in Hungary can say it's such a very special occasion where we got permission to take this very large piece of object made up of very small jade pieces thread together by a golden thread. It's a burial armour for the ruler at that time. I can say it is, of course, something amazing for visitors to look at in Hungary. When Hungarian art pieces and relics come to China for exhibition and for tours, are Chinese people enthusiastic towards the art pieces? Do they know a lot about the Hungarian relics and art pieces? Well, of course, you need to find the right topics, which are interesting to both countries, the visitors. In general, I can say that I have my personal impression is that Chinese people know much more about the West than the West knows about China. So this is both a useful situation, but also something that we need to work on more to let more Europeans know and learn about China. But in general, it is a very rewarding work, rewarding job to design exhibitions for Chinese people from Europe. We have a list of very beautiful resources that we are still planning to bring to China and we do hope to turn those into very successful exhibition projects. I guess you have visited most of the museums in China. Any museums that you particularly like? Sure. I can say in so many years, my work took me to hundreds or possibly more than 1000 museums so far. Basically, I go daily to different places, different cities and different museums. It is very difficult to pick a single one as your favorite, of course, because each place in China has its own culture, its own special history, its own special art, maybe intangible cultural heritage and so on. So there is just so much to learn about here in China. If I have to suddenly pick one, I would really recommend the Shanxi Archaeological Museum that is a very recent museum with an amazing, absolutely fantastic collection. Of course, they are part or together with the Archaeology Institute, which is of course one of the richest archaeology organizations in China working in Shanxi province, which basically has so much things to unearth still. So they have a constant supply of new findings and this museum has just a superb collection throughout all the ages. Basically, they can demonstrate the whole history of China or even mankind through their local unearthed findings. And also the museum is designed very well, very beautiful. I would recommend anybody to visit it. And if you were to recommend a Hungarian museum to the Chinese, which one it's going to be? Sure. We have very beautiful museums in Hungary as well and a very large number of museums in fact. I would say there are two places very close to my heart. One is of course our National Gallery, also called the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, which has an amazing collection of not just Hungarian, but also European art spanning through the centuries, oil paintings, sculptures, very, very beautiful from European old masters, including Italian, Dutch, German, French, Spanish, and so on. That's one museum I would definitely recommend. Because my hometown is Budapest, we have also a very amazing institution called the Budapest History Museum, which is also responsible for a lot of archaeological findings. And they have very interesting, very beautiful locations dealing with Hungarian history and also ancient history. So starting from ancient times, the ancient Roman Empire, or even earlier in fact. You've been in China for quite a long time. Since you were a young man, you have been living and working here in China. What has kept you here for so long? Of course, I love my work here and it is, I think, the most interesting job I can think of, actually, to travel the country and visit different cultural places in China, learn more about history, art, and culture. But of course, I have my family here now and I'm, of course, very happy in my private life as well. I have two beautiful kids who were born in Shanghai and they can speak very good Hungarian as well as, of course, Mandarin Chinese. So I have a very happy and full life here in China. Do you find life convenient here? Absolutely. So, of course, China has gone through a very rapid development in smart technologies. My friends visiting me from Europe are always surprised that I just go out the door and don't take anything with me except my mobile phone. And you can do everything online, you can do everything on your phone these days. You don't actually have to hold cash in your hand anymore. It's been a long time I did so. You can drive a car, you can use your electronic driver's license, so really no need for anything. It is a breeze also to do travelling. So I do a lot of business travel within China. Everything is very fast, very smooth. Yeah, in general, I have to say things work out very well. The high speed rail network, the plane network, everything is very convenient and fast. Any major business plans for you for the future? Sure. Of course, we are constantly working on new big projects. Hungary and China are very important strategic partners for many years now. And also we hope to promote more cultural projects. We are working on very important new digital technologies as well that we are deploying as we speak in different places in both countries and also including other European countries. And we hope to constantly increase the exchange, the people exchange and the exhibition exchange between China and Hungary and let people learn more about each other's countries and also to bring people more together, to interact more together and to become even better friends in the future.