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Open your heart

 Katharine, another Chinese sales girl at EF who I counted among my friends, as well as an additional Chinese teacher. On a late night walk home after work, she asked about how I was getting along in China, and assured her I was fine, but needed more friends. She always would give the advice that to make connections with people in China, you have to 'open your heart', whatever is meant by that. It's a phrase that was repeated by a later colleague, Angela, in Nanjing who also said that I needed to open my heart in order to meet 'the one' in China. 

It was also a phrase used in a business context too when businessmen were developing their 'guanxi', or network, and that opening the heart was necessary to sealing contracts, business deals and obtaining business partners. This centred around drinking in China, specifically Baijiu (白酒), which is a colourless liqueur of between 35 to 60% alcohol by volume. Indeed, a business contract isn't sealed until a drinking session or few have taken place before and after signing, with some situations the negotiation begins AFTER the contract is signed. Protocols around the process of making, signing and negotiating business contracts varies according to region. Some cities business partners will sign the contract and shake hands in the morning at around 10am, in time to have lunch and begin drinking, while for others they'll shake hands in the evening, have dinner and drink together with majiang until 5am in the morning, and these were considered the ways in which Chinese would 'open the heart'. It inextricably linked business, with drinking, with secrets and trust, as drinking brings out confidence and lessens the inhibitions, while the slip of 'dirty secrets' is a mechanism that keeps people close. 

This was a similar culture to that of the UK doing business in the 1980's when drinking a pint during lunch at the pub would be a venue to do 'good business', before we banned it. But it seems that drinking was an integral part of the culture, especially among businessmen in China, as just a 'given' that in order to business well, you needed to be able to hold your liqueur. 

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