China-Singapore Suzhou Industrial Park — untold story #2 ： Helping to bridge the cultural, business and economic differences as a young “interlocutor”
One of the most interesting jobs as a young man trying to learn my ropes in early part of my career was in Suzhou City, working on the project between the China and Singapore governments. Even though I was “recruited” initially to help in marketing the industrial park, but I was lucky to be later “tasked” in the one of the most challenging jobs as the “interlocutor”, which I acted not only as a translator but also interpreting as a communicator which I hope today can be a reference and encouragement for many young people.
Mentioned about posting to China then was not considered a “good” posting for a young person like myself during my time. It was viewed as “hardship posting” and we were even given “hardship allowances” to overcome the daily challenges of living in a 2nd tier city in China. The city then was rather undeveloped during those days. However, blessed by some “lucky” stars, I was sent to Suzhou while working in the Ministry and thus became one of the biggest decisions of my life.
I was “sent” to Suzhou to market to Japanese investors because I spoke Japanese and Mandarin and could act as an “interface” to promote FDIs to SIP, by helping Japanese to understand the intricacies of the policies as well as explaining the investment requirements of the Japanese to the Chinese partners and government people. Many internal reporting had to be written and communicated in English given it was a joint venture between China and Singapore. I learnt that as a young man that being multilingual did help, at least to allow me to gain experience in China during those days. Of course, beyond just purely translating commercial agreements or investment lingos, it became complicated sometimes when I had to learn to start drinking and having meals with both Chinese and Japanese at the same time. That was when I really had to juggle my brain as a dictionary for both sides. So that was when I understood how vastly different yet similar in the way businesses were conducted by Chinese and Japanese.
However, knowing just the languages was not deterministic of what might be the future for a young person. After the role of marketing SIP for slightly more than a year, there were many issues on the ground between both the Singapore and Chinese parties. Being one of the youngest Singaporeans based in the JV company, one of my bosses then approached my immediate marketing bosses to ask me to “help” in both the corporate communication and corporate planning of the joint-venture company. Being young indeed had its advantage, because the bosses believed the enthusiasm and opportunities to provide training for young person could help to do many “leg-work” for him. To me, being young, there was not much to consider except to ensure that whatever the bosses wanted me to do, I would try my best to complete or fulfil. But what attracted me to work hard was that I thought I would be able to even accompany my “big” bosses to travel, meet lots of other important people as well as able to have many cuisines as a “foodie”. Yes, food did play a part especially for me, especially when choosing the opportunities given to me then. I had thought that the more tasks I undertook, the more opportunities I got to travel and tried different cuisines in different places. It was a very simple and naïve thinking, to work hard as a young person.
Once I took on the new tasks, I started to learn how to wear “3 hats”, handling Japanese marketing, doing media and communications work, and helping to drive the company’s direction and later helped in the various negotiations with the local Chinese authorities, as a representative with my bosses on Singapore’s interest.
One of the most interesting experiences which I had, which I later understood the word “interlocutor” came from meetings with then the City Mayor of Suzhou, Chen Deming, who represented the Chinese interest in the joint venture. I was usually brought in to help in taking minutes and notes, both in English and Mandarin, sometimes with an interpreter from both parties. Before the start of the meetings, my bosses would always remind me to make sure that minutes taken were to capture all points and to be written in verbatim, whereas once inside the meeting, Mayor Chen would remind me to take the minutes properly in both languages to ensure discrepancies and nuances were not misunderstood. He would say to me in mandarin, calling me “Xiao Chen” (both he and I were the same surname, and in China, believing we came from the same ancestral tree), and cautioned me to write the minutes with good interpretation and not caused any misunderstanding as “fellow chen-s”; if not, he as a mayor would be implicated if Singapore-China’s relationship was affected, given that SIP development was a major project between 2 governments. (Later years, Mayor Chen was promoted to be one the Minister of Commerce and National Reform.) Come to think of it today, Mayor Chen’s remarks then became a doctrine that I learnt, about communications, especially this “small” task as taking minutes for important meetings. I remembered how stressful it was then, given that all minutes of meetings taken had to be sent out in 24 hours. Imagine those days without internet and direct translations from google translate !
On other occasions, while Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew visited Suzhou, I was also given the opportunity to interact and also dine with himself and his wife together with my bosses, and sometimes put in front of him instead of my bosses, to share as the “interlocutor” on the issues facing both sides. So being young, anything I said probably with these important people was likely to be much “forgiven”, and it became important learning experience for me of what should be said, how it should be said it and what and how was written, no matter how small my role was, could make a difference.
Thus, the word “interlocutor” became part of me. Not only did I have to translate as part of my work, I had to ensure the interpretation of nuances were as important of understanding both sides in terms of communications. I realized sometimes that it was not the way language were being used, but the way of communication that is important to generate understanding and trust, because even in the same language, communications could be lost. So, even though note-taking might be a mundane or arduous task, I had taken it seriously as a young person and it became a good training ground for me to gather and digest critical information and then interpret it to another party. Therefore, instead of being just a translator, I learnt the skill to “speak and interpret in between” as an interlocutor, so that misunderstanding that leads to risk of any kind could be reduced. Perhaps, these experience I had could be good learning points for young people today.
