But China is not all entrepreneurs， not even just independent street-folk like vendors， cobblers or barbers. Although Chinese are very reluctantly working in dependence of others， most of them do it， anyway， no different than other people elsewhere in the world. To the benefit of those companies who offer vacant positions， including our own subsidiary in China. Now in all the guidebooks you will read very quickly and in the first place the same thing that you hear from all the China experts， being that the loyalty of Chinese staff to the company employing them is close to nil (if you want to have it euphemistically). You cannot even hire new people as fast as the staff switch from one company to another. Be happy if your own staff at least do not constantly work against the company employing them！
Well， I had to try for better or worse， for we needed to hire technicians， desiring to provide technical services in China， producing for our chemical processes that we develop in Germany， and exporting to China. So we searched and hired.
In the course of the past six years， we have hired and fired about a dozen young men and women， with six of them remaining at the end. These six cooperate as a solid team， they are precious gems and very loyal and committed.
We have not found them immediately； at first， after SunLi had become my first employee， we hired a number of staff who were slightly or fairly decently speaking English. But before long they gave in to the pressure – the pressure of problems， the pressure and the attacks of criticism from Chinese customers， the requirement to be available and respond within minutes and even at night， sometimes until well past midnight.
The secret of success in my view： I gave up the requirement that our staff should be able to speak and write in English.
Irritatingly， I heard and read later： Many Chinese companies， including HuaWei， do not hire Chinese who lived at some point during their life in the West， as a student or even professionally， nor any who had worked in China for a company with Western background. Their reasoning is： anyone who has been there is spoiled and wasted. The claims were to western standards， demanding to work a maximum of eight hours per day， free weekends， holidays， wages， benefits， protection.... such claims are not satisfied with HuaWei.
There is another group of claimants： technicians and engineers who speak English well enough. They want to work in foreign companies. Cisco， IBM and Microsoft are offering good conditions， unfortunately most of the Chinese whom we first employed believed that our company was as rich and suffering equally little problems， that they could work with us as they believed they might work for Cisco， IBM and Microsoft.
And definitely the work requirements of HuaWei and Cisco China are different， fundamentally different. And our needs for manpower were as fundamentally different from those which are sufficient for Cisco and IBM China. So we have relied at the end on something completely different： You ask reliable friends， they ask around and recommend reliable acquaintances， no matter if they know to speak English， or， more precisely， they could hardly speak English， but performance， loyalty and competence were of importance. From now on I only hired staff who got a good judgement from reliable people， thus， in the end， former colleagues of former colleagues or former staff of customers.
And this finally solved our problem： these staff are still with us. Some of the previous we screened out. I cannot remember all of them， there were too many. As China has proverbs for probably all kinds of events， observations and situations， there is also a classic one describing people who are “unable to achieve anything， but capable to spoil anything rather than help” 成事不足 败事有余Chéng shìbù zú， bài shìy.u yú. We had them first as well.
LiHai (李海) was lazy and cowardly. Whenever there was a problem to be solved， either the bus was late or the highway completely blocked for hours， so that “it is no longer worthwhile even trying to drive to the customer.”
LuQiang (陆强) lasted less than four weeks with us， the stress at the customer was too high for him.
ChuFeng (楚峰) had acquired a German doctorate in chemistry. He could never accept the fact that our customers thought so rarely in scientific terms， that on the contrary they often had to be taught in basics. Nor could he understand that in a German company in China he was not supposed to work in accordance with German rules (“eight hours， overtime pay， no work at night and no work on weekends”)， but according to the rules of the Chinese market， ultimately simply complying with the requirements of our customers， seven days a week for 24 hours and troubleshooting “right now”， not in two weeks. We parted amicably after a year.
MaiDi (麦迪) was just too slow in every respect， and whatever she did not want to do she shoved off with a remark that this was not within her responsibility. As a last resort she was sick and “at least today” could not do that job.