So, I was conversing with a colleague who lived in Beijing for five years about her experience in China.

The conversation went something like this:

Me: "Here's my original receipt three months ago and I'd like to claim."

Colleague: "No because it's faded and I can't see a thing."

Me: "Why not? You can still see the numbers. There's a '5' and here's a '8' here. Can lah. Close enough."

Colleague: "You think this is China is it?"

Thrown off

Her last line threw me off.

My mind went off like a Chinese firecracker at a wedding.

"The Chinese do their claims every quarter?"

"The receipt ink in China isn't that good too?"

"China, as in, porcelain?"

Looking at my half-wtf-half-no-balls-caught face, she said: "Go google 'Chabuduo'."

So I did.

What is Chabuduo or 差不多?

The first link brought me to this article by Aeon.co circa 2016 titled: "Chabudo! Close enough..."

To summarise the article:

• Chabuduo means close enough.
• It is the Chinese attitude of building or creating things.
• It is also often used to belittle any problems.
• Being close enough means not being 100%.
• Which means shoddy craftsmanship.
• Which means there might be disastrous results.
• Why do the Chinese have this attitude? Shoddy work is unpunished and dedication yields no rewards, apparently.
• Chabuduo could result in harmless stuff like receiving a shirt two sizes too big or really harmful consequences like the Tianjin explosion in 2015.

Tianjin explosion? Wow, that escalated quickly.

Yup, Chabuduo is a problem

Of course, one voice is never enough these days. So, I ventured into everybody's favourite forum, Reddit.

Well, look at this.

Some of the comments were pretty illuminating.

[related_story]

Chabuduo is everywhere in China and started way back.

I discovered the "what" but I wanted to know more.

I continued to stunt my productivity (thirst of random knowledge > actual work) by going down the list on my google search.

And I found this witty piece of short story called "The Life of Mr. Chabuduo" by this dude called Hu Shih.

Behold the opening paragraph:

"Do you know who the most famous person in China is? Just mention his name and everybody will recognise it. His last name is “Cha” (差) and his first name is “Bu-Duo” (不多 ). Every province, county, and village has someone named after him. It is certain that you have seen him -- and you have undoubtedly heard others talk about him. Each day, Mr. Chabuduo's name is uttered by countless people to the extent that he has come to represent the entire population of China."

Short story shorter: Hu's Mr Chabuduo embodied China's Chabuduo attitude and was ultimately killed by Chabuduo.

"Finally, the time came when Mr. Chabuduo suddenly became very sick. He hurriedly asked his family to go get Dr. Wong (汪) who lived on East Street. A family member ran off for a short while looking for this Dr. Wong, but got confused in the excitement and ended up on West Street where he happened to find Dr. Wong (王) the veterinarian. Since, after all, the doctor's name was "Wong" and it was necessary to find somebody with a medical background back to deal with this emergency, Dr. Wong the veterinarian was persuaded to make a house call at the Chabuduo residence. Mr. Chabuduo -- who was now so ill that he could not get out of bed -- knew that his family had fetched the wrong Dr. Wong. Nevertheless, since his condition had become so desperate, his pain so great, and his heart so anxious for relief, Chabuduo said to himself, "Luckily this Dr. Wong (王) the veterinarian is "chabuduo" the same as Dr. Wong (汪) the M.D. -- I might as well let him take a look at me." At this point, Dr. Wong the veterinarian, knowing that there was little time left to try anything else, approached the bed and attempted to cure his patient with the same methods used to treat sick cattle. In less than an hour, Mr. Chabuduo was dead."

What a great story. Filled with admiration, I googled Hu Shih and discovered that he was a 1) diplomat 2) scholar 3) thought leader and 4) he died in 1962.

Which means that the Chabuduo attitude started way, way back and is not a current phenomenon.

Chabuduo could be potentially lethal

After 30 minutes of jamming my eyes in front of the computer screen, I concluded that Chabuduo ranges from fairly harmless stuff like my faded receipts to a freaking explosion like what the Aeon.co author wrote:

"Separate out the dangerous materials? What does it matter, just stick that nitrate over there. Chabuduo, and a fireball goes up in Tianjin, north China’s chief port, incinerating 173 people."

Dude, really? I wondered if the officials blamed Chabuduo. Putting my dexterous hands to good use, I found more info on the Tianjin explosion.

Xinhua reported:

"After five months of investigation, the team has concluded that the disaster, "an extraordinarily serious production safety accident," was caused by ignition of hazardous materials, improperly or illegally stored at the site."

BBC reported:

"It said that the owner of the warehouse, Ruihai International Logistics, had "illegally built a freight-yard of hazardous materials, conducted illegal operations, illegally stored hazardous material and had been running inept safety management"."

Illegally stored (official account) vs not separating the hazardous materials because who cares. Guess one could say Chabuduo.

 What about my receipts?

My faded receipts were certainly not illegal but with time, my attitude could potentially burn down the entire office.

Some 30 seconds of soul searching later, I marched up to the same colleague, who looked suitably smug.

"Ok, let's not claim those."

"Thanks for respecting policy."

"Ok, here's my receipt for this month. Fresh and original."

"Where's the soft copy? I need the originals and the soft copy."

I almost said the C-word.

Top photo via

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