My neighbour is a retired high ranking PRC civil servant. Her grand daughter used to tell us her wonderful childhood stories. Meat and fish etc are a luxury to most families but she got so sick of eating them cause people are always giving gifts such as food to her grandfather. Sometimes she will find stacks of cash after the first layer of biscuits in the bistcuit tin, sometimes she can get a surprise golden ring in the stomach of the fish.........
That's old school bribery. Here's a more updated version:
A businessman give an ordinary painting (say worth RMB100) as a gift to a civil servant, very normal as its a Chinese culture of giving gifts and since its a low value item (very much like a corporate gift which you don't have to declare to your company), the civil servant can accept it and hang it in his house. The businessman then send another counterpart to visit the civil servant at his house and pretend to like the painting so much that he offers RMB500k for it.
Can you fault the civil servant for selling the painting? Can you question the buyer for paying a high premium for a painting "he likes very much"? Afterall, can you put a mkt price on "a piece of art"?
You got the picture? Is this what our scholars that we send to PRC should learn too?
Any more such stories to add?
That's old school bribery. Here's a more updated version:
A businessman give an ordinary painting (say worth RMB100) as a gift to a civil servant, very normal as its a Chinese culture of giving gifts and since its a low value item (very much like a corporate gift which you don't have to declare to your company), the civil servant can accept it and hang it in his house. The businessman then send another counterpart to visit the civil servant at his house and pretend to like the painting so much that he offers RMB500k for it.
Can you fault the civil servant for selling the painting? Can you question the buyer for paying a high premium for a painting "he likes very much"? Afterall, can you put a mkt price on "a piece of art"?
You got the picture? Is this what our scholars that we send to PRC should learn too?
Any more such stories to add?