What purpose this book does not serve yet is meant for (Author’s Preface)
This book is not a travel guide and no instruction set for how to behave in Chinaas a tourist or a business(wo)man， it does not contain any tips on how to avoidpitfalls， and no hints about how to live as a foreigner in China.It is a description of those observations as I could make in China during my now over six years working there. Because some of these observations contradict some of the advice， tips， rules， instructions and manuals for China， this book has been first developing in my head， then in my camera and finally on my laptop.
This book is not a counterargument to the manifold Chinese books that you can buy. Some I have read that present themselves as tourist guides， as guides to discover China， or as indispensable reference works， without which you cannot do in China any work or business successfully， without which you cannot avoid those pitfalls as are lurking everywhere. Even if some of my observations may contradict some statements about China made in other books， I will not object to these books. Contradictory statements about China may be (but not necessarily are！) correct.
China is huge， China is very diverse. What you will find in BeiJing (北京 ) with its many government officials and foreigners， or in ShangHai (上海)， the economic centre with a high proportion of foreigners， and what may be representative or normal there may be very different from what you will find in the boom-town of ShenZhen， the fourth-largest city in southern China. This is a modern， new city， virtually without history， consisting of 99 % immigrants and relatively few foreigners. I am living there since over six years. From there， I’m travelling on business inside and outside China.
China and the Chinese are much more varied and unique and different from each other than for example the Americans. The cultural diversity is more comparable to Europe. There are much less cultural and linguistic differences between Texas and Alaska， between Kansas and New England， than between central ShangHai and peripheral ShangHai， let alone between ShangHai， ShenZhen and ChongQing (重庆). You don’t have to understand it， but you should simply take note， that you wouldn’t generalise everything. Wait a moment， I am sorry – readers and other authors may generalise and try to understand as they like， it is just me who doesn’t want to generalise but simply to describe my personal observations during my time in China， when I had to do (at work and in the free time) almost exclusively with rather normal average Chinese.
And I would also not like teaching the Chinese about what I believe to be their weaknesses， nor how we think they should reform their government and better organise their society. Because I do not know how the Chinese could improve either， I do not even know how we could improve our society in Germany (although I think I know quite well what is going wrong with us)， how can I， as an outsider， give advice to the Chinese？ The other authors seem to think different.
There is no country in the world that you would get to know and really understand as a foreigner on holiday or on business trips. I bet you cannot even understand France when viewed from Germany (and the French are our neighbours) just by one or a few voyages.
Can even Northern Germans really completely understand inhabitants of the Ruhr area， Bavaria or the Rhineland？
How much more difficult we find understanding the incredibly diverse and sophisticated， but not uniform Chinese culture. As a foreigner (probably not even as a Chinese) you cannot grasp China “as such” by observing the situation in BeiJing or ShangHai where most of the foreigners in China live and where the authors of the Chinese books that I know spent some time.
Even from ShenZhen you cannot grasp it. Perhaps no one can understand China comprehensively， but only partially. China is too large， too diverse and of much more varied structure than we Europeans might think. In my opinion， this cannot be described in a single book. The attempt of doing so would require more than a human life (and China would be then again different).
I do not try and do not claim to describe and explain “China”. I also do not claim to know more than the writers of other China books nor want to correct them. I only intend to describe some of my observations， and I am committed to reproducing them correctly and authentic.
I cannot guarantee that they are typical， only that they have taken place more or less as told here. In any case， my stories describe some facets of Chinese life， not Chinese life as such.
I am describing a little bit of life in China as it occurs every day， in diverse and different form from what you may have thought， and even after reading this book there will be new observations everywhere and ever again that will be different from what we expect them to be (and different from what I would expect and describe).
This book is conceived of as a complement to other books on China. Although it was not my intention， it may happen that some reader may get practical hints out of this book. In any case， I would like to help setting apart， expanding and enriching our understanding of China.
By the way： some “China expert” customers buying the German 1st and 2nd edition and the 1st English edition kindly reminded me (before they started reading) that “LaoWei” were not correctly written. I should better write “lao wai”.
I confirmed everyone that “LaoWei” is the correct writing， in Chinese 老卫 and that is my nickname here. I am also a “lao wai” (老外)， a foreigner， but that is not how my friends are calling me. You will see while reading this book from the beginning to the end.