A dead body in front of your office- Mark Schaub

The battle stories on doing China business in the past illustrate how much China has changed for the better. Shanghai-based Lawyer Mark Schaub recalls in the book A Changing China, produced by the Chna Speakers Bureau, how his legal profession has become much more professional over the years.
But still, the old stories are too nice to be forgotten, and Mark Schaub recalls one very specific incident with a client in Wuxi:

On a Monday morning around 10 o’clock I received a call at the office; the person calling was very nervous. He said there was a dead body in front of his hotel door. At first I thought it was a joke, then I realized that he was a German and it wasn’t therefore likely to be a joke. What had happened was that on the previous Friday, a 35-year-old man had a small accident at the factory. The company didn’t have any relationship or procedure in place to deal with the local hospital. When they took the man to the local hospital, the hospital said it was going to cost 7,000 yuan to fix him up. It would be expensive to sew him up.

They went back to the factory to try to get money. They collected about 3,000 yuan. The doctor said

A Changing China 91 they weren’t trying hard enough to get the money, and the injured man actually bled to death in the hospital. His family members recovered the body and put the body in front of the general manager’s hotel room door. Then things got even more out of hand for the general manager.

Relatives and friends were bussed in from all the over the place and staged a riot at the factory.