Cartwheels in China
By Jared Smith
When I was living in China in 1997 I made an important discovery about communication. Now I’d like to warn you up front that I am reluctant to disclose how I made this discovery. When I told this story to my friend Jason in 1998, he laughed so hard that the Cheerios he was eating came out of his nose. Now keep in mind, Jason was laughing at me, not with me, and he has an odd sense of humour…and large nostrils…
Living in Nanjing, I used to wake up at 5:30 every morning to get beat up by an old kung fu master in a nearby park. To get there, I had to negotiate my way through a busy street market—a hodgepodge of Chinese colors, smells, sounds, and chaos. Being over 6 feet tall, white, and hairy, I attracted a great deal of attention, but after a few weeks I had grown oblivious to the gawking stares and children’s giggles. On one particular morning, as I hurried to pass a vendor at a fruit stand, I was forced to a sudden halt. The vendor had abruptly stepped out in front of me, pointed his finger and screamed “SHUI GUO!!!” at the top of his lungs.
I was learning Mandarin, so I decided to look up SHUI GUO in my handy, one inch by one inch, three font, red, pocket dictionary. I was surprised to find “cartwheel” next to the word, but shrugged it off and continued on my quest to make it to the park in one piece. For the next week, every morning, the fruit stand man yelled “SHUI GUO” each time I passed him—and after considerable deliberation—I finally conceded, and I performed the best, relatively gangly-looking, straight-leg, toes-pointed cartwheel I could muster! You should have heard the roar of laughter that followed. Before long, I became somewhat of a celebrity in the market and each morning, larger and larger crowds would gather around the man’s fruit stand to see the big, hairy white guy perform a cartwheel (or several cartwheels if I was in a showy mood).
After about three months of daily performances, my friend Mao Yun Feng joined me to go to the park. When we passed the crowd at the fruit stand and the man yelled, “SHUI GUO!!”, I proudly performed my cartwheels. Mao Yun Feng looked at me with a stunned expression on his face, wondering out loud what planet I was from, and why I would perform a cartwheel when the fruit stand man was just trying to get me to buy some fruit. After all, SHUI GUO means WATER MELON.
Epiphany: he was just trying to sell me some fruit!!!!
Having overcome some of the humiliation, I’ve learned that in business, the audience, or “target market”, frequently misinterprets the intended message. Companies using industry buzz words and complex messaging to describe their value proposition are often surprised when their prospects, employees, and clients misinterpret their message. In our experience, the key to enhanced messaging is to keep things simple, tangible, and personal to your audience. Speak their language! And don’t be afraid to ask people what they actually hear when you tell them about your business…you might be surprised.
