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Booze, Sex, and the Dark Art of Dealmaking in China (2015)

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Re: Booze, Sex, and the Dark Art of Dealmaking in China (2015)

#91

Post by PakG1 »

bpizzi wrote: post #85
merinowool wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Men are not wired for monogamy. It is like saying you might be bad person because you breathe. In a relationship this is a mutual effort to resist those needs, but failing to do so doesn't make you bad.

Actually, cheating involves lying. A spouse is explicitly or at least implicitly expecting the other part no to lie about extra relations. If lying about those extra relations in this context doesn't makes you a bad person, then I don't know what is.

Fair point. If I knew a couple in an open relationship, I'd be uncomfortable, but I wouldn't make a judgment on their integrity.

Re: Booze, Sex, and the Dark Art of Dealmaking in China (2015)

#92

Post by PakG1 »

merinowool wrote: post #72
2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would not trust any person who cheated on their spouse either. Nor would I want to hang out with colleagues at a strip club if we were not friends outside of work. I don’t think this is some gender thing. Maybe be men are more likely to be coerced into doing these things. But I think they’re having fun.

It is easy to take moral high ground if one has never been in such situation. Those things are complicated.

There are plenty of people who have been in that situation and have regrets. They themselves take the moral high ground in condemning themselves. Hopefully, they heal by also forgiving themselves. People who refuse to admit wrong are more on the sociopathic side of the psychological spectrum.

Re: Booze, Sex, and the Dark Art of Dealmaking in China (2015)

#93

Post by user5994461 »

rimliu wrote: post #75
2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would not trust any person who cheated on their spouse either. Nor would I want to hang out with colleagues at a strip club if we were not friends outside of work. I don’t think this is some gender thing. Maybe be men are more likely to be coerced into doing these things. But I think they’re having fun.

> I would not trust any person who cheated on their spouse > either. In personal relationships—by all means. In business matters—it depends, unless you think that someones views about family directly transfers to the business world. If anything I'd speculate there should be an inverse correlation: the more seriously someone treats their business the more sloppy they can be about personal relationships. I would not be…

>>> I would not be surprised if workaholism caused more divorces than cheating.

Doubtful. The man is traditionally expected to have the job and provide for the family, while the woman can take care of the children at home. It's somewhat assumed that the man will spend a lot of time at work.

Re: Booze, Sex, and the Dark Art of Dealmaking in China (2015)

#95

Post by xenadu02 »

ryandrake wrote: post #82
greggman wrote: post #31

is it all that different in the USA? It's certainly the stereotype we see in movies for wall street. Not having worked there I have no first hand experience. When I ask friends that have they tell me "oh the stories I could tell" but they don't actually tell.

Surely in the past, even at seemingly boring engineering companies. You used to hear about all kinds of stuff going on in the office. People getting blackout drunk at company Christmas parties, drugs in the restroom, co-workers banging each other in the conference rooms.. then all of a sudden, you didn’t hear about it anymore. Whoosh, it was gone! I entered the workplace as this stuff seemed to be dying down and just…

You only hear about the crazy stories. Most workplaces then (as now) were probably very boring.

Same reason the news doesn't do stories about "Husband and Wife went to work, picked up kid from daycare. Situation Normal".

Re: Booze, Sex, and the Dark Art of Dealmaking in China (2015)

#96

Post by bmarkovic »

irrational wrote: post #63
greggman wrote: post #31

is it all that different in the USA? It's certainly the stereotype we see in movies for wall street. Not having worked there I have no first hand experience. When I ask friends that have they tell me "oh the stories I could tell" but they don't actually tell.

I don't know about other companies, but I work in global sales for an american Fortune 150 company and everyone knows that if there is even a hint of a rumor of something like the things being described here happening you will be fired faster than you can blink.

I'm pretty sure that, while they apparently party much harder on their private time, north-western Europeans appear to be much more "prude" in their work life than any other group in the world.

I also believe it's actually a part of their cultural inclusivity. It's a very stressful pressure if you're expected to go to a strip club with your colleagues after work if you're female, gay or in a relationship where such behavior would be sanctioned by the other party.

Americans and Asians apparently expect others to "fall in line" in all corporate policy matters, including this one. So as a result of globalization the corporate policy matters that one is expected to "fall in line" to have slowly become the least common denominator of all this cultures and that's the type of business chastity that is normal in today's HR rule books and everything outside is hastily sanctioned.

Re: Booze, Sex, and the Dark Art of Dealmaking in China (2015)

#97

Post by linuxkerneldev »

55555 wrote: post #15
dm3730 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I see this as an East Asian phenomenon, I see this as one of the effects of European colonialists on East Asia and South East Asian colonies. The practice of colonialist generals/warlords, typically of a naval background of using brothels as a place/culture to bond with other warlords/generals and their local puppets is the predecessor of the current "elite level" business culture observed in these former colonies.…

I'm pretty sure it's always been very normal in Thai society. The sex tourism, at least for westerners, started with the RnR stuff, as the story goes, but Huai Kwang is 98% Thai clients and probably 30X+ the size of any of the more visible Bangkok "sex tourism spots" (patpong, nana, cowboy). 97%+ of the sex being paid for in Thailand is being paid for by Thai people. The main thing that changed due to foreign influen…

> I'm pretty sure it's always been very normal in Thai society.

It is unclear which "it's" you are referring to. Group sex dealmaking or using group sex for bonding business partners as per the original article? I don't think that is normal in Thailand or any Asian society for that matter.

As for the history of prostitution in Thailand. That's a well covered subject. You're points are somewhat accurate but OP's point appears to be different than what you are addressing. I thought he/she was implying that the Vietnam war had overarching societal and economic consequences, one of which was the availability of vulnerable exploitable migrant and rural women in Thai cities.

https://www.endslaverynow.org/blog/articles/history-of-prost...

The location of Thailand plays a key role in the success of the sex trafficking industry. It is close to war-torn Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia. China and Vietnam are also nearby. Various waterways along with porous borders also facilitate trafficking.

If the point that was being made was that the Vietnam war had huge side effects, including enabling horrific sex trafficking and exploitation, then yes, I would agree.

Re: Booze, Sex, and the Dark Art of Dealmaking in China (2015)

#98

Post by godzillabrennus »

da02 wrote: post #48
godzillabrennus wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I helped a sales focused tech company as their CTO for a few years. The sales team met at the bar for lunch and after work. Drugs were everywhere. The CFO kept a liquor cabinet in his desk drawer. There were parties all the time. Orgies were not uncommon. They ended up being acquired before they could get full on wolf on wallstreet going but it was damn near close. I drank with them but never took it any further. It’…

Why would they get acquired? They were doing good work in-between the partying?

They 24X'd revenue in 12 months.

Whatever they did produced results.

Re: Booze, Sex, and the Dark Art of Dealmaking in China (2015)

#99

Post by pastage »

ryandrake wrote: post #82
greggman wrote: post #31

is it all that different in the USA? It's certainly the stereotype we see in movies for wall street. Not having worked there I have no first hand experience. When I ask friends that have they tell me "oh the stories I could tell" but they don't actually tell.

Surely in the past, even at seemingly boring engineering companies. You used to hear about all kinds of stuff going on in the office. People getting blackout drunk at company Christmas parties, drugs in the restroom, co-workers banging each other in the conference rooms.. then all of a sudden, you didn’t hear about it anymore. Whoosh, it was gone! I entered the workplace as this stuff seemed to be dying down and just…

Partying hard is away to bond and form a brotherhood of exclusiveness. It's a relief not having to bother with that anymore, it just leads to misery in my opinion. Sure that brotherhood feeling can feel great, but it's so easy to take advantage of if you know anything about group dynamics, just takes one psychopath or an experienced player.

I'm really glad alcohol isn't an requirement anymore.

Re: Booze, Sex, and the Dark Art of Dealmaking in China (2015)

#100

Post by dang »

hackits wrote: post #35
lovich wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know a lot of Thai people and the men might be fine with this but none of their wives or girlfriends are. You don't have to accept something that you think is immoral just because it's in someone else's culture

The point I was making is you're making a moral judgement based on your upbringing to a different culture that has different cultural normal around sex and Business. In essence you're putting your moral judgement above the men you're associating with. Do you really believe their wives and girlfriends are princesses who are innocent little delicate snowflakes that need your manly protection? You're getting played my f…

You've broken the HN guidelines by making this personal. We've warned you about this before. If you do it again we will ban you.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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