Upon President Xi Dada’s forthcoming visit to the US, a video -- When China Met Carolina was released by the studio The Road to Rejuvenation, briefing you in 5 minutes about how Chinese enterprises help American laid-offs reemployed.
With its film-caliber music and scene, the video tells the turn of mind of the local after Chinese enterprises’ pouring into South Carolina. It became an instant hit online. And now let’s have a look.
Americans: I don’t mind if my boss is a Chinese.
At the very first the folks were worried about Chinese acquisitions of their firms.
It seemed awful in the TV news.
-Sherry Carter, Worker at Greenfield TDC America
The company president Ty Taylor thought previously that When a Chinese company purchases a company in the US, I think the thought is they're gonna come here, they're gonna buy the company, take the brands, move all the manufacturing to China, and not do anything to help the US market economy.
What the workers worried about was "We were all concerned that when they come in they were going to bring their group of people and exclude us from what was going on. But they found out that it is totally different from what they had thought!".
The CFO Anthony Tosti first recalled the company’s downfall and resurgence: This company in 2009 was dying. There were only 116 employees in the company, when the Chinese invested over 20 million in this company, to build it back up– to organize everything here in South Carolina and build up the business to the point that we have 350 employees.
Owner of Brock's Seneca Jewelers Bill Brock also knows well the difficulty in finding job near home.
When the textile industry started going out, people were unemployed. So the job situation hurt the economy and the local businesses, and a lot of people had to go out of the county hunting jobs. But with high tech jobs coming back, you know, Greenfield did a good job downtown getting that back revitalized.Since 2000, Chinese enterprises have invested over 46 billion USD in America,bringing in more than 80 thousand jobs.
The locals speak their mind on the changes brought by Chinese enterprises: I don't mind the company being owned by Chinese as long as they bring good jobs in and keeps the economy going.
Chinese philosophy: company is family.
The video also taps on local people’s reflection on different philosophies after Chinese values are melted into their enterprises.
Member of Carolina’s Chinese Chamber of Commerce in China Carrie Tucker holds that:What would surprise you about American and Chinese citizens is that we are more like than we are different. Because both cultures are based on family values.
Anthony also considers that Chinese values are matched well with indigenous ones.There's a lot of Chinese values that filter down into the company but they also fit with South Carolina values as well. There's also very much a long term philosophy: we don't look at hire and fire philosophy; we like to get our people trained and go long term.
Manager of Tides and Times Group USA Inc. Ralph Lahghter is deeply touched by Chinese companies’ taking the employees as families.I did not know what to expect from a Chinese boss man. Never worked around any Chinese people. So it was quite an experience, and it was a great experience too. He put a great number of people back to work. Well, Jimmy he counts us all family. When we have our meetings that it was the first thing he'll says, "He is my family", so he includes all of us as his family and he always has.
The Chinese and the Americans: we all have dreams
At the end of the video, Taylor’s word is inspiring:
We all have a dream, right? And whether it is an American dream or a China dream. It doesn't matter where you're from. And I think if we're working together and we're talking about what our goals are, what is our dream, what do we want to be, then we have a chance to getting there together.
