100 Rules for Doing Business as a Chaoshan Native

People from Chaoshan are called the “Jews of the East.” Not because they’re smart, but because the rules they follow in business are different from those elsewhere. My name is Chen Rui, and I’m from Chenghai, Chaoshan. I grew up surrounded by people in business.

My grandpa started from nothing and opened three shops. The first two failed spectacularly, but the third finally took off and stayed open for seventeen years.

My uncle never signs contracts. A verbal agreement is more reliable than anything in writing. Everyone in the Chaoshan business community knows he keeps his word.

My grandma can’t speak Mandarin, but she keeps better accounts than a company’s finance department. How much money the family has, who owes whom, when to collect, when to wait: she keeps it all straight in her head and never gets it wrong.

My cousin Chen Kai went to Shenzhen at twenty to make his fortune. His first night, he slept at the Chaozhou Guild Hall in Huaqiangbei. Later, a fellow townsman helped him get his first shop stall. Now he has three stores.

Then there’s my granduncle, the oldest businessperson in the village. He taught others just one thing in his whole life: “In business, be a good person first.”

This book isn’t here to teach you how to make money. It’s a collection of one hundred rules I’ve learned from these people over the years. Some are rules my grandpa learned at the cost of three failures. Some were upheld by my uncle’s lifelong reputation. Others my grandma passed on to me, one sentence at a time, by the stove and over gongfu tea. Behind every rule is a true story. You don’t have to be from Chaoshan to understand them. Because, when all is said and done, these rules are about one thing: how to be a person, how to do things, and how to take them seriously. Rule one: Before doing business, pay your respects to the local deity. You’re not worshipping a god, but your own dedication. There are ninety-nine more. I’ll tell you them one by one...