Update from China 1

Dear friends (as our President likes to say),

I feel that it is the right time to share my first impressions from life in Shanghai before I get used to what I see around me and will consider that to be a normal practice and before my excitement ends. Enjoy the reading before lunch.

Settling in took some time as well as some admin / bureaucratic procedures. I found good apartment close to the office (15 min walk). But buying necessary stuff for it was so annoying. It took 4 visits to Carrefour store. Its good that the Company reimburses expenses for any additional home appliances necessary (up to a certain limit).

Had a little adventure this week. Local embassy in Kiev issued a tourist type visa for me valid for 30 days only. So I had to extend my visa locally. But it turned out that I can not apply for an employment visa in China but should go outside of the country and apply through the embassy. Ridiculous situation. So the nearest place was Hong Kong. And I had to go to HK to open visa for China. Luckily it took me 1 day but …. It turned out that I needed a separate visa to enter HK.

So when I arrived to HK on Tuesday without visa I had to spend 2 hours in the immigration police with all sorts of illegal immigrants from India explaining why I came to HK without visa. And because I had all the documents for Chinese visa with me they finally let me in. (Unlike in Ukraine the police in HK was very polite and cooperative). HK is a very exciting place. Generally more expensive than Shanghai but prices for electronics are cheaper than in Shanghai and much cheaper than in Kiev (approximately 25-30%). And density of life here is just amazing. The business city centre is a concentration of skyscrapers with offices, trade centres with all buildings connected with each other by underground and 2nd floor passages. It would be very easy to get lost it there was no extensive information support on every corner.

Shanghai is a big megapolis with over 13 million people, thousands of shops and restaurants. It is quite dirty (not that there is rubbish on the streets but due to a dust in the air from numerous construction sites). Plus there are a lot of cars, bicycles and motor bikes on the streets and it is very noisy. I have never seen a clean sky here because of the smog. Maybe it will be cleaner in the spring. Traffic in the city is quite convenient. Metro lines cover substantial part of the city. Main highways have two floors and a lot of road junctions have 5 floors. Prices for taxi are cheaper than in Kiev and there are thousands of them around (price is the same in all taxi companies and there is a meter in every car). Sometimes it may be difficult to catch a taxi in busy hours or when it rains. None of the taxi drivers can understand any English/ International word. So if you say Metro, Carrefour, hotel or airport - they will not understand you.

Shanghai is a city of contrasts. You can see places in the city centre where on one side of the street is a fancy shopping centre or a residential compound where foreigners live (with own security) and across the road are slums where people live just like they were living there 50-70 years ago.

Shanghai is a real heaven in terms of food. You can spend years here visiting different restaurants. So far it was only few times that I visited the same. You can have a good lunch here for a little more than USD 2 (you will not be able to eat everything that is served). And if you go to a good restaurant and eat a lot of seafood, crocodile meat, drink fresh mango juice etc it will cost you around USD 30 (for 2 persons) - in Kiev this would cost at least USD 150. And you can find any sort of cuisine in this city.

It is also a heaven for shopping. The number of shopping centers is amazing. It seems like if I spent all of my 18 months in Shanghai for shopping I would not be able to visit all the shops in the city.

Very few people can speak English. The common problem for Chinese people is listening and speaking English. A lot of people can read and write but have difficulties speaking and understanding spoken language. I think this is due to the nature of the Chinese language. I am getting used to everyone speaking Chinese around me ( It does not sound funny anymore) and to "Chinese English". Especially this relates to people from HK and Singapore who know English very well but they have Chinese pronunciation and you just have get used to it in order to understand. I do not continue my language studies so far. I suspect that if I do it will take all my time and will not have time to enjoy my time in China. So I leave this burden to my wife who will have more than enough time to do it. But really without local language knowledge I sometimes feel myself like invalid. You just could enjoy a much more interesting life if you knew the language. Once more thing - due to the nature of the language it is not possible to write any international word in Chinese to make it sound the same. So they have to find characters to form the name that would sound very similar but would have a separate meaning in Chinese. For instance my name in Chinese sounds like Ge Li Lu (and means polite).

Also because of the competition for life here people are usually more aggressive in business. For instance real estate agents had to literally fight for me to conclude the contract though them. Also the traffic in Shanghai is horrible. Primarily because of motor bikes and bicycles. Also cars are frequently changing lanes and a beeping on every occasion so it is very noisy. On every crossroad there are police assistants controlling that drivers adhere to rules. A big difference with Kiev - when cars are turning left or right they will not let pedestrian cross the road for a green light first. They will go through the crowd. So you have be very careful even when crossing the street for a greed light. And in general it is not advisable for foreigners to drive in China.

Life in KPMG.

Hong Kong and China are one partnership. Currently with office in HK and 8 offices in China it includes 5200 of professional staff and 154 partners (Shanghai office - 1200 people and 38 partners). A lot of partners and senior managers in Shanghai are from HK. Expatriates in the office are from Singapore, Japan, US, UK, New Zealand, France, Sweden (in general not too many).

Last year HK practice celebrated 50 years since establishment and China practice - 20 years.
The practice structure is pretty much the same as in other countries. There is a noticeable difference between managers and senior managers - in other countries there is a subtle difference between these positions. In China SMs have a higher status. A lot of administrative work resides with SMs: Approval of expense claim, overtime hours, etc. The yearend for HK and China KPMG is March 30. Promotions and new salaries are announced in the end of June effective from July 1. Interestingly bonuses for staff below SM are not linked to individuals' performance but depend only the company's performance. Bonuses for SMs represent a percentage of the practice's profit.

Managers do not participate in management meetings (only Partners and SMs do). Also I noted that staff are not aware of practice revenues, this information is only disclosed to senior managers. Only partners have their own rooms. SMs have their own corners surrounded by office partitions. Managers just have fixed places in general room. But this does not bother me as I do not understand all conversations around me. Sometime I miss my quiet office room.
There is a significant turnover of staff in the office - growing economy places a significant demand for qualified and experienced people. So just like in Ukraine it is not uncommon for an S1 to do the work that should be done by S3 and A2 to do the work instead of A3 or S1. One client indicated that middle level management salaries in the banking industry doubled in the past year and people enjoy very fast career growth either internally of by moving between different companies within the same industry.

A significant part of KPMG's audit practice represents statutory audits. And because there is a deadline for statutory reporting workload here is very concentrated in the period of January - April as year-end here is 31 December. The rest of the year is more relaxed. Right now 90% of people leave the office at 5.30 pm (end of business day).

What also impressed me here is an availability of professional trainings. There is a modern training centre in Shanghai office and it offers a wide range of technical and soft skills trainings. So if people have time it is very easy to enrol and participate.

I was assigned to a financial services group but I will have exposure to all kinds of industries. So far I was assigned three clients - cable producer, large bank, and a hotel. All of them are parts of multinational groups.

More pictures will follow later. Because of the permanent smog it is difficult to make good photos. Besides I just bought a new professional camera and want to collect good quality shots to share.

To be continued…..