Why Chinese people call a friend before calling an office

Growing up in a small town in southern China, I watched my father make one phone call before he did almost anything.

Before he went to the hospital, he called his cousin's wife, who knew a doctor. Before he bought a refrigerator, he called a classmate who worked at the factory. Before he applied for a permit, he called someone who knew someone. I thought this was just how small towns worked — a habit that would disappear once China became modern.

It didn't.

Last winter I sat in a coffee shop in Shenzhen with a product manager in her late twenties. She had a good offer from a large company, but before she signed, she did what her father would have done: she asked a former colleague to introduce her to someone inside the team. Not to ask about the salary. To ask one question — is the person I would report to someone I can trust?

That question is the whole thing.

There is a book I keep returning to: From the Soil, written in the late 1940s by Fei Xiaotong, a sociologist who walked through Chinese villages with a notebook when most of the country was still farmland. He described Chinese society as a set of circles — like the ripples when you drop a stone into water. Each person stands at the center of their own circle. Trust does not come from a contract or a badge. It travels along the ripples, from people you know to people they know.

In a country of 1.4 billion, that sounds impossible. But it explains something foreigners often find frustrating: why a Chinese colleague will spend three weeks finding an introduction before sending a cold email that would have taken three minutes.

A contract can tell you what happens if someone breaks their word. A relationship tells you whether they will. When courts were slow and enforcement uncertain — for most of Chinese history — the second question mattered more. So people built the answer into daily life, one dinner, one favor, one introduction at a time.

The modern version looks different, but the logic is the same. WeChat groups replace the village. A classmate's referral replaces the cousin's wife. The circle is bigger, faster, and digital. It is still a circle.

Does this mean a foreigner cannot do business in China? No. It means the first meeting is not the first meeting. The real first meeting already happened — in the conversation between the person who introduced you and the person you are about to meet.

If you are coming to China, here is the one thing I would tell you: do not underestimate a warm introduction. It is not a shortcut. It is the door.

— Billy Li, Zhuhai