05.11.07

The Huan Ying Guang Lin Meeting

Posted in Barbershop at 11:24 am by Benjamin Ross

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One fiasco that I have seen on many occasions in China, but never been a part of is the work meeting. Uniformed employees are rowed up in plain view outside hotels and restaurants, as their boss yells instructions at them. Passersby can watch and awe at how rigidly strict the establishment is about the quality of its staff.

I have seen barbershops do the same, so this is what I was expecting yesterday when I heard the rumor that Mr. Zheng was holding a meeting for all the little brothers and sisters after work.

While the protocol was not exactly the same as depicted above, the content was somewhere along the lines of a pre-battle briefing or a Super Bowl halftime speech. The meeting began at about 10:30, just after we had closed the doors and finished the nightly cleaning of the shop. Mr. Zheng sat all of the little brothers and sisters down at the tables in the shop, and began by giving a quick rundown of business for the month.

After the obligatory statistics and figures, the speech turned motivational. Mr. Zheng is a young guy, probably in his mid-thirties. His hair is slicked back in a wave, and he wears clothes up to date with the current Chinese fashions. Essentially, he is just like one of the workers, except he has been in the industry for 15 years. He has put in 11 hour days, swept floors, cleaned bathrooms, washed thousands of heads, and given thousands of haircuts, but today he sits as the boss over 17 people doing the work he labored through for so long. Normally he is laid back and mild mannered, but as the meeting ensued his demeanor morphed into that of a barber-turned-football coach.

“What was your goal when you chose this job?” he yelled at all of us. Nobody answered.

“Xiao Fang, what was your goal when you chose this job?”

“Make money,” he replied after an awkward pause.

“Chen Lin, what was your goal when you chose this job?”

“….make money?”

“Jie Lun, what was your goal when you chose this job?”

“Make money!”

Mr. Zheng gazed across the room with a scowl on his face.

“You’re all wrong! If your goal was simply to make money, you should quit right now and go tomorrow to work at the karaoke bar. You’ll make more money. There are lots of pretty girls there, and it’s more exciting. Why do people choose this industry? You guys all know you don’t make very much money. But why work here?…It is because you can improve yourself. You can learn something.” He paused to give us a minute to process. “You start by washing hair and giving massages, then you learn how to do dyes and perms. Ultimately, if you succeed you can become a 师傅 (literally master, this is what we call the barbers). Maybe some day open your own store.”

Of all the goofy motivational speeches I have sat in on during my various stages of employment, I could honestly say this was the most sincere. I am the only employee in the shop with a college education, and one of very few who even went to high school. Their job options in life are limited to those of the lower stratum, and ascending to the top of that particular stratum (as Mr. Zheng has done) is realistically their highest possible level of self-actualization. As much as the purpose of the meeting was to ensure the livelihood of Mr. Zheng’s shop, I do believe he was also trying to bestow some of this wisdom upon his underlings as well.

After the pep talk, Mr. Zheng moved on to another matter of business, that of the 欢迎光临 (huan ying guang lin). For those of you who have never been to China, huan yin guang lin, is the Chinese approximation of “welcome,” except whenever you enter a restaurant, hotel, or barbershop, a chorus of employees shouts it at you as soon as you walk in the door as a means of acknowledging your presence. Personally, I have always found this extraneous noise to be as welcoming as nails on a chalkboard, especially when I am trying to enjoy a quiet meal, as the huan yin guang lin choir welcomes guest after guest.

I had never thought much about the “huan ying guang lin,” other than that it was annoying, and that it couldn’t possibly make anybody feel welcome, since every single service industry establishment does it as robotically as the next.

“Lately our customer service has been pretty shitty. You guys need to stop being so lazy about customer service. You all act like the customers owe you 1 million dollars…Do the customers really owe you 1 million dollars?” Mr. Zheng yelled at us. “You need to be more attentive, more caring, more….光临 (guang lin)….huan ying guang lin….those are the four most important words for customer service. Everybody say them.”

“Huan ying guang lin,” we all replied with the enthusiasm of 10 people who just finished working an 11 hour shift.

“Louder!” Mr. Zheng exclaimed.

“Huan ying guang lin!”

“Still not good enough….Jie Lun come, stand up in front of the group. Put your hands in the air and repeat “huan ying guang lin” 20 times, counting on your fingers. After each time he says it, I want you all to repeat.”

Jie Lun stood up and walked to the front “Huan yin gua—“

“No,” Mr. Zheng cut in. “Say it like there is a customer at the door right now, 20 times”

“Huan ying guang lin, Huan ying guang—”

“What are you doing?” Mr. Zheng piped in again. “Don’t over-emphasize the first syllable. It’s not “HUAN ying guang lin”, it’s “huan ying guang lin,” just let it flow.”

Finally a sufficient “huan ying guang lin” came out of Jie Lun’s mouth and the rest of us repeated in unison.

“Huan ying guang lin!” “HUAN YING GUANG LIN!” “Huan ying guang lin!” “HUAN YING GUANG LIN!” “Huan ying guang lin!” “HUAN YING GUANG LIN!”

After Jie Lun finished 20 huan yin guang lin’s, Mr. Zheng called Xiao Fang up to the front. After 7 or 8 huan ying guang lin’s he cracked up and Mr. Zheng made him start over again. Every little brother and sister, myself included had to have their turn. When it was Johnny’s turn, he threw in a “Ni hao, huan ying guang lin” in the middle, much to the chagrin of Mr. Zheng.

Over 400 huan yin guang lin’s later, Mr. Zheng reiterated the rules. “Customer service IS the most important aspect of this business. Starting tomorrow, whenever a customer comes in that door, I better hear ‘huan ying guang lin’ from all of you. No more slacking.”

I am still not totally convinced of the enamoring effect of the “huan ying guang lin,” but I’m willing to take a leap of faith, and accept Mr. Zheng’s knowledge from 15 years in the business as proof. So in accordance with barbershop policy, Thanks for reading my blog today

欢迎下次看我的博客！ 请慢走。

(Welcome, next time read my blog, please walk slowly)

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