What I learned in Wuxi about business, food, people

You have heard of Wuhan, but probably not Wuxi. 

I took a trip to Wuxi-Nanjing and it really opened my eyes. 

Back in July, I spent five exciting days traveling through Wuxi and Nanjing with TransFong, visiting tech parks, companies, government partners, investors and innovation ecosystems. 

But looking back, some of my biggest takeaways were much more human. 

The author (middle) talks with fellow attendees during a business conference. [Photo provided to en.wuxi.gov.cn] 

Immerse yourself before you try to understand a market. 

You can read reports about China all day. It is different when you sit at the table. 

Even the food tells you something. 

I remember this laden with fantastic dishes — incredibly sweet, with crisp, golden eel at the heart of it all. There was a quiet intricacy to every plate, a sense of deliberate craft. Each dish has its place, told its own story and its own way of being appreciated. 

Business culture is similar. 

You understand far more by being there, eating together, observing how people communicate and seeing how decisions are actually made. 

The author takes a group selfie at a round-table dinner. [Photo provided to en.wuxi.gov.cn] 

In China, pragmatism goes a long way. 

Do your homework before the meeting. 

Understand who you are meeting, what you can genuinely offer them and ideally walk into the room with concrete ways to work together. 

Come up with an idea. 

The conversation moves much faster when both sides can immediately see where the value is. 

Being good isn't enough. You have to SHOW that you're good. 

This one stuck with me. Singapore has incredibly capable companies, strong talent and genuinely sophisticated technology. 

But sometimes we assume the quality should speak for itself. 

It doesn't. 

I saw Chinese companies put enormous effort into demonstrating their technology, showcasing use cases, building impressive spaces and making their capabilities immediately understandable. 

There is a lesson here: technology needs theater. 

Not empty marketing. Good demonstration. 

If you've built something remarkable, spend the extra 20 percent making sure people can see why it is remarkable. 

Learn to make small talk in someone else's language. 

This may be the most underrated lesson of the trip. 

Sometimes, 10 seconds of joking, asking about a dish, talking about the city, or attempting a phrase badly but enthusiastically does more than another 10 slides of PowerPoint. 

For those few moments, you're communicating something beyond information. 

Curiosity. Energy. Character. Respect. 

And people remember that. 

We pitched. We met companies. We explored industrial parks. We visited ancient towns. We ate extremely well. And somewhere between all of that, we learned how business here actually works. 

The author takes a selfie with his peers during a night outing at Huishan Ancient Town. [Photo provided to en.wuxi.gov.cn] 

Durwin Ho, a Singaporean entrepreneur, visited Wuxi this July. 

If you would like to share your Wuxi stories, then send us your writings at wuxiexpatstories@163.com.