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MANAGING
EXPATRIATES IN CHINA
A Language and Identity Perspective

LING ELEANOR ZHANG

ANNE-WIL HARZING
SHEA XUEJIAO FAN

PALGRAVE STUDIES IN CHINESE MANAGEMENT

Palgrave Studies in Chinese Management

Series editors
Yingying Zhang
Colegio Universitario de Estudios Financieros
Madrid, Spain

Anne Tsui
Mendoza College of Business
University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, Indiana, USA
Palgrave Studies in Chinese Management Research series is a showcase
for in-depth research into Chinese management providing systematic
knowledge on the fast growing Chinese economy and enterprises from
the management perspective. Research efforts such as this are already
forging ahead and have led to the creation of a scholarly community: the
International Association for Chinese Management Research (IACMR).
The series draws on the research and knowledge being created by this
international community, seeking to address an audience of academics
and practitioners interested in Chinese management. The series provides
a platform for Chinese management researchers to exchange ideas and
research; it will enable collaboration between management researchers in
and outside of China; and push forward the development of manage-
ment research in and about China. The purpose of this book series is not
only to provide information on doing business in China, but also to cre-
ate systematic knowledge on Chinese management, both on Chinese
management of theory and on Chinese theory of management. It will
cover reflective thoughts, theoretical contribution and empirical evidence
becoming a reference point for systematic knowledge on Chinese
management.

More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/series/14646
Ling Eleanor Zhang • Anne-Wil Harzing
Shea Xuejiao Fan

Managing
Expatriates in China
A Language and Identity Perspective
Ling Eleanor Zhang Anne-Wil Harzing
School of Management Middlesex University
Royal Holloway University of London London, UK
Egham, UK

Shea Xuejiao Fan

RMIT University
Melbourne, Australia

Palgrave Studies in Chinese Management

ISBN 978-1-137-48907-4    ISBN 978-1-137-48909-8 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-48909-8

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017954730

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018

The author(s) has/have asserted their right(s) to be identified as the author(s) of this work in accordance
with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether
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Printed on acid-free paper

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature

The registered company is Macmillan Publishers Ltd.
The registered company address is: The Campus, 4 Crinan Street, London, N1 9XW, United Kingdom
 Preface

We have always been fascinated by language and identity issues. The three
authors of this book, two ethnic Chinese (Ling and Shea) and one Dutch
national (Anne-Wil), all speak English as a second language; we have also
all been “expatriates” and “repatriates” throughout the past ten years of
fieldwork on which this book is based. Each one of us has lived and
worked in more than three countries and in more than two languages.
Our constant reflection on our own experiences in coping with the
changes in our working lives and attempts to understand how to meet the
demands of our changing work environments have helped us stay pas-
sionately engaged with business expatriates in our research projects
throughout the years.
At the beginning of this book journey, Ling and Shea were both located
outside China working with Western scholars in Finland, the USA and
Australia. Thus, seeking answers on how Western, Indian and overseas
Chinese expatriates are viewed in China also held up a mirror for them to
reflect on their own acculturation and expatriate work experiences in
Finland and Australia. Later, they both repatriated to China for a period
of time, which gave them further inspiration and the exposure to under-
stand China through both local and foreign eyes.
While experiencing a repatriation shock themselves, Ling and Shea
started to question and investigate further how work life might play out
for non-Chinese individuals in a contemporary and rapidly changing
v
vi Preface

China. The frequent and at times almost daily exchanges with Anne-Wil,
based first in Australia and then in the UK, ensured the book incorpo-
rated a non-Chinese perspective as well.
We hope that we have done justice to the multifaceted phenomenon
of expatriates and their language and identity struggles in China.

Helsinki, Finland Ling Eleanor Zhang

London, UK Anne-Wil Harzing
Melbourne, Australia Shea Xuejiao Fan
May 2017
 Acknowledgements

The pursuit of this book would not have been possible without the sup-
port from our book series editors Ying Ying Zhang and Anne Tsui. We
especially thank Ying Ying for her unfaltering faith in our work during
the long journey of producing this book.
This book is built on four research projects, to which a number of
people beyond ourselves have contributed. We would like to thank all
those involved, especially Markus Pudelko, Vesa Peltokorpi and Preethi
Mohan.
We would also like especially to thank Jeff Hearn, Ingmar Björkman,
Zhixue Zhang, Tine Köhler and Christina Cregan for their support of the
two PhD research projects on which this book is based.

vii
 Contents

1 Introduction   1

2 Setting the Scene: Expatriates, Language and Culture

in China  33

3 Host Country Language: Why It Matters, and Why

Expatriates Need to Learn It  55

4 The Impact of Host Country Language Skills on

Expatriate Adjustment and the Expatriate-Local
Relationship  91

5 Gaining Acceptance from Local Colleagues: Evidence

from Indian Expatriates in China 121

6 The Double-Edged Sword of Ethnic Similarity 153

ix
x Contents

7 Conclusion: Expatriate Language and Identity

Challenges and Recommendations for Expatriate
Management 181

Bibliography 207

Index 221
 About the Authors

Ling Eleanor Zhang is Lecturer of International Management at the School of

Management, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK. A key focus of her
research is interaction across boundaries, which is manifested in contexts such as
boundary spanning of multicultural employees, social categorisation and con-
flict management between expatriates and host country employees, and the lan-
guage challenges employees face within subsidiaries of multinational
corporations. Her work has been published in outlets such as Journal of World
Business, the International Journal of Human Resource Management, and Cross
Cultural and Strategic Management. Her work on bicultural expatriates has been
nominated for the British Academy Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize for Transcultural
Understanding 2016.
Anne-Wil Harzing is Professor of International Management at Middlesex
University, UK. Her research interests include international human resource
management (HRM), headquarters-­subsidiary relationships, the role of lan-
guage in international business, and the quality and impact of academic research.
She has written more than 100 books/book chapters and refereed journal articles
in journals such as Journal of International Business Studies, Human Resource
Management, Journal of World Business, Management International Review,
Organization Studies, and Strategic Management Journal. Her work has received
numerous awards and is highly cited: she has been listed on Thomson Reuter’s
Essential Science Indicators top 1% most cited academics in Economics &
Business worldwide since 2007. Since 1999, she has maintained an extensive

xi
xii About the Authors

website (www.harzing.com) with resources for international management and

academic publishing, including the Journal Quality List and Publish or Perish,
a software program that retrieves and analyses academic citations.
Shea Xuejiao Fan is Lecturer in International Business at the School of
Management at the RMIT University, Australia. She is interested in research on
identity and expatriate–host country employee interactions in multinational
corporations (MNCs), and identifying the mechanisms when people with
diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds interact in an organisational context,
such as ethnic identity confirmation, cultural frame switching, and implicit
theory related to ethnicity and race. Her work has been published in academic
outlets such as Human Resource Management and Journal of World Business, and
media outlets such as The Conversation and Australia China Quarterly. She was
nominated for the International Theme Committee-Emerald Best International
dissertation at the 2015 Academy of Management Annual Conference. Her
paper on ethnic identity confirmation, a topic related to Chapter 6 in this book,
received the Journal of Global Mobility Best Paper Award at the 2016 EURAM
(European Academy of Management) Annual Conference.
 List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 The proportion of subsidiaries in nine host countries/regions

with at least one expatriate. Based on unpublished survey
data Harzing and Pudelko (2008–2010) 38
Fig. 2.2 The proportion of the top management team (TMT) who
are expatriates. Based on unpublished survey data Harzing
and Pudelko (2008–2010) 39
Fig. 2.3 Relative level of expatriate integration by host country
(Negative/positive values indicate less/more integration
than average). Based on unpublished survey data Harzing
and Pudelko (2008–2010) 43
Fig. 2.4 Perceived language, cultural and geographical barriers
between HQ and subsidiary managers for nine host countries
(1 = not at all, 7 = very much). Adapted from Harzing and
Pudelko (2014) 45
Fig. 2.5 Relative level of language problems by host country
(Positive/negative values indicate more/fewer language
problems than average). Based on unpublished survey data
Harzing and Pudelko (2008–2010) 46

xiii
xiv List of Figures

Fig. 2.6 Subsidiary’s financial and HR performance in comparison

to other companies in the same industry and country
(scale 1 = far below average, 4 = average, 7 = far above
average). Based on unpublished survey data Harzing and
Pudelko (2008–2010) 51
Fig. 4.1 Impact on expatriate-local employee relationship 106
Fig. 5.1 A three-level acceptance model 129
 List of Tables

Table 2.1 Distribution of sample across host country, industry

and home country 36
Table 2.2 Percentage of expatriates in top management functions
across host countries 40
Table 2.3 Use of corporate language in MNCs headquartered in
different country clusters 47
Table 3.1 Differing views of expatriates and local employees on
whether expatriates need to learn the host country language 71
Table 4.1 Facets of adjustment 94
Table 5.1 Connections between first- and second-order codes and
key concepts 128
Table 5.2 Key characteristics of different levels of acceptance 130
Table 6.1 Overview of empirical studies on ethnic identity
confirmation166
Table 6.2 Four forms of ethnic identity confirmation 170

xv
 1
Introduction

1.1 Background
In the 1970s, China opened its door to Western companies. At around
the same time, management scholars started to become interested in
the phenomenon of expatriation, particularly the expatriation of
Western expatriates. It has been noted that over recent decades, the
mobility of global professionals, including traditional expatriates, has
become much more common for destinations like China. But China
itself has also changed rapidly over the past 40 years. This may be seen
firstly in terms of economic development; it may also be understood in
regard to the attitudes of the local Chinese people towards the con-
sumption of Western products and foreign population, together with
their view about China’s position globally. Consequently, the role of
expatriation and the challenges that expatriates of all types face in con-
temporary China have changed substantially. While traditional chal-
lenges such as being unable to complete tasks successfully during
expatriation may still exist, an increasing number of expatriates in
China are realising that they cannot ignore the fact that the Chinese
language is becoming ever more important and that their local

© The Author(s) 2018 1

L.E. Zhang et al., Managing Expatriates in China, Palgrave Studies in Chinese
Management, https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-48909-8_1
2 1 Introduction

colleagues may not accept them so easily if they do not show an interest
in at least attempting to learn the local language. The purpose of this
book, Managing Expatriates in China: A Language and Identity
Perspective, is therefore to study challenges associated with language
and identity among today’s various expatriates in China. In this intro-
ductory chapter, we outline the language dilemmas that both multina-
tional corporations (MNCs) and their employees face and the attendant
challenges of adjustment, acceptance and identity that expatriates of
different ethnic origins experience. We also explain why expatriates
should be seen as a heterogeneous group; we discuss the role of local
employees in MNCs and provide a backdrop of a changing China as
the host country. Lastly, we provide a detailed description of the field-
work for this book and an overview of the book as a whole.

1.2 Multinationals and Language Dilemmas

MNCs are multilingual almost by definition, unless they expand only
into countries that share their home country language, something
which for most MNCs is not a sustainable strategy. While there are
many factors which can be seen to influence the actual choice of lan-
guage use within an MNC (Janssens and Steyaert 2014; Luo and
Shenkar 2006), MNCs have a choice of three main strategies through
which to address the multilingual challenge. First, MNCs can impose
the headquarter language in all subsidiaries: a choice common in MNCs
headquartered in Anglophone (UK, USA, Australia, New Zealand,
Canada, Ireland) or East Asian (China, Japan, Korea) countries
(Harzing and Pudelko 2013). The US American MNC Microsoft has,
for example, set English as their corporate language. A second option is
to select a common lingua franca as the MNC’s official language, such
as English or French, and to impose this language both in headquarters
and subsidiaries. The Finnish MNC Outokumpu, which employs more
than 12,000 professionals in over 30 countries in the stainless steel
industry, is an example of this: the company mainly uses English for its
operations abroad (Palo 1997). A third approach is to emphasise the
respective host country languages of the MNC’s subsidiaries. This
 1.2 Multinationals and Language Dilemmas 3

approach is more common in MNCs headquartered in Continental

European countries (such as France, Italy and Belgium), although the
practice is declining.
The emerging and burgeoning stream of research on language in inter-
national business (IB) focuses predominantly on the first two options.
Both approaches, those of selecting either the headquarter language or
another shared language as the corporate lingua franca, often result in the
dominance of one language and subsequently a great deal of information
loss, in spite of the facilitating role that a corporate language can play
(Fredriksson et al. 2006; Hinds et al. 2013; Janssens et al. 2004). That is,
having a shared corporate language does not necessarily ensure efficient
communication, and especially when it is not the native language of the
majority of the employees from either the headquarters or subsidiaries.
Research on language in IB has documented the language barriers present
in vertical communication between headquarters and subsidiaries
(Goodall and Roberts 2003) and in horizontal communication between
subsidiaries (Charles and Marschan-Piekkari 2002) and also the negative
influence that such language barriers can have on the interactions between
managers from corporate headquarters (HQs) and subsidiaries (Neeley
2012). To overcome such language barriers, one frequently adopted prac-
tice in MNCs is to communicate via translation. However, this may
impede work processes, as working via a translator usually takes more
time (Heikkilä and Smale 2011; Maclean 2006). Translation is also
unlikely to convey the full cultural connotations of words (Blenkinsopp
and Pajouh 2010; Wilhoit and Weaver 1983; Xian 2008). Paradoxically,
translation can therefore in itself also contribute to language barriers
within MNCs.
The third approach, that of encouraging the use of the host country
language in MNC subsidiaries, has received little scholarly attention to
date. Studies have rarely examined the possibility of adding one or more
of the MNC subsidiaries’ host country languages to the main corporate
lingua franca. This appears rather surprising, as the majority of MNC
employees in foreign subsidiaries speak the host country language as their
mother tongue, and local business operations are largely conducted in
this language in destinations such as China (Barner-Rasmussen and
Aarnio 2011).
4 1 Introduction

It is this gap in the research that we intend to address in this book. In

doing so, we aim to extend our understanding of multilingualism in
MNCs, focusing in particular on the necessity, probability and challenges
of incorporating the host country language as one of the official lan-
guages in the MNC subsidiary. Expatriates working in China are mostly
employed by MNCs; within subsidiaries, expatriates are the only group
of employees who do not speak the host country language as their native
language. Whether they can speak the host country language, that is,
Chinese, therefore becomes the key to whether it is feasible for MNC
subsidiaries in China to use Chinese in daily business operations.
The need to understand the reasons for potentially including Chinese
as one of the formal corporate languages for MNCs with a heavy presence
in China is also driven by two empirical and contextual factors. First, as
the language spoken by the largest population, and as a result of the eco-
nomic development of China, Chinese has become an increasingly
important language globally. In Europe in 2012, as many as 14% of the
Eurobarometer Survey respondents considered Chinese to be useful for
the future of their children (Eurobarometer 2012). To put this percentage
into context, in the same year, those languages traditionally considered
important for Europeans, such as German and French, were rated by
20% of the respondents to be useful for their children’s future develop-
ment. In the same survey conducted in 2005, only 2% of the European
respondents considered Chinese to be important. The percentage of
European citizens who recognise the importance of Chinese has therefore
risen significantly in the last decade.
Second, like inhabitants of any large country with a single dominant
language, such as the USA, Chinese people assume that they will be able
to speak their mother tongue when working in their own country. With
the rapid growth of the economy, Chinese citizens have also become
increasingly proud of their country and believe that they can develop the
country without the aid of foreigners. Manifestations of local resistance
towards foreigners have taken many forms and have proved disquieting.
Events such as the pro-China demonstrations in 2008 during the Olympic
torch relay have raised concerns about the nature of Chinese nationalism
and Chinese attitudes towards foreign employees (Sinkkonen 2013).
When such anti-foreign sentiment is reflected in Westernised workplaces
 1.3 Language, Cross-Cultural Adjustment, Acceptance and Social... 5

such as MNC subsidiaries in China, the resistance can take on subtler

forms. Thus, instead of physically protesting against foreign employees,
there is an increasing linguistic nationalism (Von Busekist 2006), that is,
nationalism based on the host country language, with local employees
showing various degrees of resistance to speaking English with foreign
expatriates (Zhang and Harzing 2016). Local employees exclude foreign
workers by passively resisting the use of English at meetings where expa-
triates without knowledge of the Chinese language are present. With an
increasing number of conversations and client meetings taking place in
Chinese, local employees are thus demonstrating implicitly that expatri-
ates are not welcome in China.

1.3 L anguage, Cross-Cultural Adjustment,

Acceptance and Social Identity
Four key concepts are explored in this book: language, cross-cultural
adjustment, interpersonal acceptance and ethnic similarity. These con-
cepts emerged from our empirical work in China over the last decade
studying different types of expatriates with varying ethnic backgrounds.
Language is an essential element which impacts on expatriates’ cross-­
cultural adjustment, on acceptance by their local colleagues, and also
affects their social identity in the host country. These phenomena are all
influenced by interactions that occur through language. Here, language
refers to the different languages that MNC employees may use as a means
of communication, but speak with varying degrees of fluency. In this
book, we focus in particular on expatriates’ host country language skills,
that is, their ability to speak, understand, read and write in the host coun-
try language.
Existing research has found that language influences many aspects of
the functioning of MNCs; this includes interaction between expatriates
and local employees. On the one hand, language proficiency can have a
positive influence on expatriates’ adjustment in interacting with locals
(Shaffer et al. 1999). In English-speaking host countries, for example,
the English proficiency of expatriates can facilitate their adjustment at
the new workplace (Takeuchi et al. 2002). However, as one of the most
6 1 Introduction

c­haracteristic markers of social identity, language also influences how

expatriates are (not) accepted by local employees; it is often through
their language competences that expatriates are ascribed different social
identities and placed in different social categories by themselves, their
local and international colleagues and by the host country environment.
Language similarities and differences between expatriates and local
employees provide the basis for either informal networking or distanc-
ing, which lead to either inclusion or exclusion (Lauring 2008). The fact
that expatriates and local employees speak different languages or the
same language with different accents and fluency tends to trigger in-
group and out-group categorisation at MNC subsidiaries. This can cause
expatriates discomfort when trying to adjust working in the host
country.
The level of expatriates’ psychological comfort with different aspects of
their working and living environment in the host country is referred to as
cross-cultural adjustment (Shaffer et al. 1999). In Chap. 4 of this book,
we examine the impact of host country language skills on cross-cultural
adjustment in two different contexts: work-related adjustment and non-­
work-­related adjustment (Haslberger et al. 2013; Lazarova et al. 2010).
Acceptance is defined as expatriates’ evaluation of the level of care they
receive from others or the extent to which they are valued by others
(Brock et al. 1998). In studies on expatriates, perceived acceptance by
host country employees has been considered as a subcomponent of
adjustment, an individual factor (Hippler et al. 2014). However, in Chap.
5, we extend research on acceptance into the interpersonal domain. Here,
we examine not only expatriates’ perception of their acceptance by local
employees but also the view of local employees in their acceptance of
expatriates (Mohan and Fan 2016). By doing this, we are then able to
compare and contrast the views of both expatriates and local employees.
Adjustment and acceptance both cover the subjective perceptions of
expatriates or local employees; ethnic similarity brings in an element of
objectivity. Social identity indicates people’s social group membership.
Ascribed social group memberships, such as gender, race or ethnicity,
have biological markers, and investigation of the impact of expatriates’
demographic factors has been an important research stream (Olsen and
Martins 2009; Tung 2008). Researchers have, for instance, examined
 1.4 Expatriate Diversity: Employment Type and Ethnic Origins 7

how expatriates’ gender and social identity affect the way they are catego-
rised by local employees (Carr et al. 2001; Varma et al. 2006). Chapter 6
follows this research tradition by exploring how the demographic
­characteristics of expatriates can affect their relationships with host coun-
try employees. But we also go further: we demonstrate the potential
inconsistency between expatriates’ ascribed ethnic identity membership
and their own feelings about their identity. Further, we investigate the
potential divergence between expatriates’ views towards their own ethnic
identity and how local employees view it. We reveal that in social interac-
tions, surface-level ethnic similarity can generate complicated interper-
sonal dynamics and affect expatriate-local employee interactions.

1.4  xpatriate Diversity: Employment Type

E
and Ethnic Origins
In the management literature, expatriates have traditionally been defined
as employees sent from headquarters to take up foreign assignments at
overseas subsidiaries for a certain period of time. More recently, globali-
sation and the internationalisation of business have resulted in interna-
tional assignments becoming a more and more frequent occurrence. As
a result, international assignments themselves are becoming increasingly
differentiated (Mayerhofer et al. 2004). Scholars have therefore sug-
gested including other types of international workers in research, such
as self-­initiated expatriates who seek international assignments them-
selves rather than being expatriated by their employer. Inkson et al.
(1997) were among the first to identify self-initiated foreign work expe-
rience as an alternative to organisationally initiated work experience;
this was followed by a burgeoning stream of work on self-initiated expa-
triation (e.g. Shaffer et al. 2012; Suutari and Brewster 2000).
Management scholars have acknowledged that sojourners, students,
retirees and skilled migrants could also possibly fall into the genre of
“expatriate” (e.g. Al Ariss et al. 2012; Pedersen et al. 2011). Some of
these recent studies have implied that business employment is not nec-
essarily a criterion for determining who is and who is not an expatriate
(McNulty and Brewster 2017).
8 1 Introduction

Regardless of the specific term used to describe expatriates, however, it

has become commonly accepted that expatriates are a heterogeneous
group of employees. In this book, we follow this line of thinking and take
a broad view on the concept of expatriation, including both expatriates in
the traditional sense and self-initiated expatriates who have found work
in China by themselves. Furthermore, we take a dynamic view towards
conceptualising expatriates, given that their employment situation may
change. Expatriates could decide to stay in the host country and become
self-initiated expatriates, either in the same organisation or in a new one.
They could also choose to become expatriate entrepreneurs in the host
country.
In this book, we focus on three very different types of expatriates in
terms of their ethnic origins: Caucasian Western expatriates, Indian expa-
triates and overseas Chinese expatriates. We start with Western expatri-
ates, who have been the most common research subject in the expatriate
literature to date. Such individuals are very different from local Chinese
employees in terms of the languages they speak, their visible Whiteness1
and the “Western” and headquarters culture that is ascribed to them.
Thus, it is expected that when working at MNC subsidiaries in China,
such expatriates will face numerous challenges in the interaction with
their colleagues and with host country nationals in general. Here, we
focus mainly on the challenges related to language and identity and in
particular the need for and pressure on these expatriates to use the host
country language in order to improve both their adjustment and their
interaction with local employees. We also look at the acceptance chal-
lenges these expatriates experience, given that they are socially categorised
as out-group members by locals, both at work and outside work.
In investigating the experiences of Western expatriates, we have chosen
to focus specifically on Nordic expatriates—with a special emphasis on
Finnish, Swedish and Danish expatriates—for two reasons. First, Nordic
nationals are more likely than nationals from many other countries to
work abroad and to speak languages other than their own. Even as early
as the 1990s, a total of 1.2 million Finnish citizens were living and work-
ing outside Finland (Koivukangas 2002), compared to a working popula-
tion in Finland of around 3.5 million. As their native languages are not
spoken widely outside their home countries, many Nordic nationals are
customarily able to speak one or more foreign languages. In a recent
 1.4 Expatriate Diversity: Employment Type and Ethnic Origins 9

study, more than 90% of the Swedes and three-quarters of the Finns
interviewed indicated being able to speak at least one language in ­addition
to their mother tongue (Eurobarometer 2012). “Using a new language at
work” was frequently mentioned as a key reason for learning the language
in question. Nordic expatriates are therefore an ideal choice when study-
ing the language challenges for expatriates, as we do in Chaps. 3 and 4 of
this book. Second, the majority of Nordic nationals are Caucasian, thus
belonging to a social group which is visibly different from Chinese. All
the Nordic interviewees in our book were Caucasian; this enables us to
compare their experiences as Caucasians with those of the ethnic Indian
and ethnic overseas Chinese expatriates in terms of their acceptance chal-
lenges and identity struggles in the host country.
We then consider Indian expatriates, who are a sub-group of the expa-
triate population working in China. Many existing research findings in
the expatriate literature based on Western expatriates can be applied to
Indian expatriates also. However, the specific characteristics of this group
have yet to be thoroughly investigated. Indeed, expatriates from emerg-
ing economies, such as India and China, have not received sufficient
scholarly attention. This is in spite of the fact that, as a result of the rapid
economic development in these countries, there is a rapidly increasing
number of expatriates from such economies now working in all parts of
the world. Literature on expatriates from emerging economies working
in another such economy, such as Indian expatriates working in China, is
even scarcer. Both India and China are Asian countries and are geograph-
ically close. They have a long history of interaction and of cultural
exchanges. At the same time, however, these two countries are political
and economic rivals in Asia. Therefore, it may be that Indian expatriates
face a more complicated situation than Western expatriates when work-
ing in China, as they often have to deal with both similarity and differ-
ence simultaneously. In this book, we therefore investigate how acceptance
is viewed both by expatriates and by host country employees and reveal
the characteristics of different levels of acceptance.
Finally, we examine the situation of overseas ethnic Chinese expatri-
ates. To date, this type of expatriate has been a niche group in expatriate
research. Such individuals have been favoured by MNCs because of their
familiarity with the host country culture and language. They are expected
to be able to integrate easily into the host country culture. Indeed, in
10 1 Introduction

contrast to the other two groups examined in this book, Caucasian

­expatriates and Indian expatriates, overseas Chinese expatriates enjoy an
ethnic similarity with local employees. They also potentially have a higher
level of understanding of the Chinese culture and are more likely to have
at least a working knowledge of the host country language. Their advan-
tages when working in China are thus apparent. However, these special
characteristics of overseas Chinese expatriates can be seen as a double-­
edged sword: they not only generate advantages but also create challenges.
In this book, we identify the particular challenges caused by ethnic
Chinese expatriates’ ethnic similarity to local employees. We demonstrate
that the impact of ethnic similarity can be exceedingly and surprisingly
complicated in expatriate-local employee interactions.
Based on the surface-level similarity with local employees in terms of
language and culture, the three groups of expatriates we have chosen to
examine can be placed on a continuum. At one end, there are Western
expatriates who may be considered extremely different from Chinese
local employees. Conversely, overseas Chinese expatriates, who are very
similar to local employees, are at the other end of this continuum, with
Indian expatriates roughly taking up a middle position, because of the
ascribed immediate familiarity of coming from a neighbouring Asian
country. Our research shows that, when investigating expatriate-local
employee interactions, issues such as language, ethnicity, identity and
culture become complicated and multifaceted; our empirical research has
thus revealed counterintuitive and complex findings. By focusing on the
central thread of expatriate-local employee interactions from a variety of
perspectives in Chaps. 3, 4, 5 and 6, we identify novel subtleties and
provide new interpretations and implications for many of the concepts
previously researched in the expatriate literature, such as language skills,
adjustment, acceptance and identity.

1.5 Local Employees

Relatively little research in the expatriate literature investigates local
employees specifically (for an exception see Caprar 2011). Expatriate
research has thus been criticised for taking a predominantly expatriate-­
 1.5 Local Employees 11

centric perspective in contrast to a more balanced multi-stakeholder

­perspective, which includes that of local employees (e.g. Takeuchi 2010).
Nevertheless, more recently, researchers have started to focus on local
employees. Yet the majority of this research examines local employees in
their relationships with expatriates rather than concentrating specifically
on local employees’ experiences. For example, researchers have explored
local employees’ reaction to expatriate pay policies (Toh and DeNisi
2003), their role as expatriates’ mentors (Toh and DeNisi 2005), their
supporting role towards expatriates (Leonardelli and Toh 2011; Mahajan
and Toh 2014; Varma et al. 2009, 2016), their categorisation of expatri-
ates (Fan et al. in press; Varma et al. 2006) or their attitudes towards
expatriates (Arman and Aycan 2013; Selmer et al. 2003). Local employ-
ees thus far always seem to have been viewed in a supporting role.
However, we believe that local employees should be given their own posi-
tion in the international management literature. Listening to the voices
of local employees is not only beneficial to expatriates but also crucial for
MNCs. In many overseas units, local employees comprise the majority of
the workforce. MNCs, therefore, need to rely on local employees for the
subsidiaries’ daily work activities and for the implementation of their
strategic plans.
In our study, thus, special attention has been paid to the critical role
that local employees play in MNCs. As set out in Chaps. 3 and 4, we
discovered the importance and potentially strategic role of the host coun-
try language for MNCs by conducting in-depth interviews with local
employees in their mother tongue. The fieldwork was conducted over a
long period by Chinese-speaking researchers with the aim of creating a
bond and trust between the local employees and researchers. As a result,
we heard voices talking about the problems of using English as the stan-
dardised corporate language for MNCs that told a story which was com-
pletely different from that depicted in the current, expatriate-centric
literature. By encouraging local employees to share their true feelings and
opinions towards expatriates in terms of their inability to speak the locals’
mother tongue while working in China, we demonstrate how sensitive
local employees are towards the use of the host country language. When
the contrasting views from local employees and expatriates were analysed,
it became evident that expatriates were pressured and expected to learn
12 1 Introduction

the host country language. Such an important message for MNCs

­operating in China could have never been discovered without focusing
on local employees.
In Chap. 5, we reveal the results of interviews with both expatriates
and local employees in our attempt to unpack the black box of “accep-
tance”. Listening to the voices of local employees allows us to reveal both
the convergent and divergent views of these two parties, the misunder-
standings of expatriates in terms of acceptance and the blind spots that
are outside expatriates’ immediate awareness. Explicitly incorporating the
perspectives of local employees into our study has therefore helped us
gain valuable insights into the important concept of acceptance. In Chap.
6, discovering the views of local employees has also contributed to our
understanding of the implications of ethnic similarity. Again, research
that emphasises the advantages of ethnic similarity tends only to focus on
expatriates. However, by taking local employees’ views into consider-
ation, we are able to identify the potential challenges that are specific to
ethnic similarity. Therefore, local employees’ perceptions again help
advance our knowledge of the experience of overseas Chinese
expatriates.
Although in this book we still follow the tradition of investigating
local employees in relation to expatriates, we shift the narrative from an
expatriate-centred perspective to an expatriate-local employee interaction
perspective. In this new perspective, expatriates and local employees are
positioned equally. This allows us greater opportunity to listen to local
employees’ views, voices and perceptions.

1.6 China as the Host Country

As our focus in this book is on expatriates working and living in China,
in this section we present an overview of China in the context of domes-
tic and international migration as well as emigration, both current and
historical. This provides us with the essential background to understand
the general responsiveness of the host country towards foreign popula-
tions, including business expatriates.
 1.6 China as the Host Country 13

MNCs have started setting up subsidiaries and sending expatriates to

work in China ever since the country opened its door to foreign
­investment in 1978. According to Brookfield annual relocation reports
(Brookfield 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016), in recent years
China has been one of the top destinations for MNCs to send expatriates
on assignments.
Indeed, China has successfully attracted migrants from all over the
world, from the neighbouring countries of Vietnam, Korea, Japan and
India, as well as from African countries, the USA and Europe.
International immigrants have therefore come to comprise an important
section of China’s population (Shen 2011). More recently, a new trend of
immigration to China is emerging, mostly as a result of the country’s
economic growth and increased demand for labour due to the country’s
aging population (Skeldon 2011). For example, approximately 2.85 mil-
lion foreigners entering China in 2007 were seeking employment, with
more than half a million of them working in joint ventures or in wholly
owned subsidiaries of multinational companies. The majority of these
workers—usually called expatriates—are skilled migrants from the devel-
oped world, including overseas ethnic Chinese from Europe, North
America and Australia. Apart from these foreign-born workers, China is
also experiencing an increasing number of migrants entering the country
for studying purposes. There were an estimated 238,184 foreign students
in China in 2009, a greater number than in Australia and Canada. While
60% of the international students were not enrolled in a degree pro-
gramme, approximately 75,000 foreign students were studying at under-
graduate level and roughly 20,000 were studying at postgraduate level
(Skeldon 2011).
Unlike settler societies with a history of multiculturalism, such as
Canada and New Zealand (Sibley and Ward 2013), China is still in the
process of developing its policy regarding the way in which international
immigrants should be treated. The Chinese government has been very
gradually adapting the rules regarding the rights of foreigners; for exam-
ple, until 2003, foreigners with a so-called temporary residence permit
were obliged to stay only in designated hotels and “foreign apartments”.
From 2003 onwards, foreigners could purchase properties for their own
14 1 Introduction

residence purposes, but only under certain and quite extensive conditions
(ViewNews 2007). Multiculturalism has not yet become a political dis-
course in China at a societal level. The general public in China tends to
associate the idea of foreignness strongly with appearance, such as skin
colour, and to exclude foreigners socially is sometimes considered to be
patriotic (Barme 1995). Several phrases in Chinese that are used to refer
to foreigners have negative connotations, such as “laowai” meaning “old
foreign” literally and “guilao” meaning “ghost old” literally. Despite the
general admiration for foreigners in Asia, including China (Froese 2010),
Chinese nationalism has garnered much attention in recent years (Gries
2004; Zheng 1999).
Two additional societal factors have contributed to how Chinese peo-
ple view “outsiders”, that is, individuals who are considered not to belong
to the same social group. Such outsiders can be domestic migrant workers
coming from a different region or those with a different ethnicity. First,
China is experiencing one of the largest internal migration movements in
the world, with around 230 million migrants moving from rural areas to
cities (Bao 2012). By 2006, 40% of the total urban labour force was
comprised of migrant workers (IILS 2006). A sharp occupational segre-
gation exists between migrants and the urban-born populations: for
example, in 2005 only 12% of migrant workers were employed in the
public sector, compared with 68% of the urban-born workforce (Tuñón
2006). Second, the ethnic diversity of China has also contributed to the
country’s challenges in managing the various population groups. The
dominant group is Han, comprising approximately 92% of the entire
population (OECD 2005). However, China is a multiethnic country
with 55 minority groups, representing around 110 million people
(StateCouncil 2000), while almost half of China is occupied geographi-
cally by minority nationalities (Dessaint 1980). In terms of language,
Mandarin Chinese has been promoted as the national language since
1956 (Rohsenow 2004; Zhou 1999). In minority regions, Mandarin is
also taught from primary school (Hu and Seifman 1987; Zhou 2004),
although most minority groups have their own language. The Chinese
government adopts a “Ronghe” policy, meaning fusion or amalgamation,
referring to the historical process of mutual cultural exchange between
Han and the minority nationalities, which has resulted in the gradual
 1.7 Fieldwork and Authors’ Reflexive Notes 15

disappearance of minority languages and culture (Mackerras 1994).

“Ronghe” is not a policy which promotes multiculturalism (Wang and
Phillion 2009), although the Chinese government states officially that
minority groups have the right to use their languages and to practise their
religions (Zuo 2007).
In sum, it is important to recognise that individual-level challenges for
expatriates in terms of language, identity and acceptance are not indepen-
dent of the society in which they live. Factors such as the historical con-
text, socioeconomic development and political policy challenges for
China in terms of migration and immigration therefore provide impor-
tant contextual knowledge for understanding the empirical findings of
the study explored in this book.

1.7 Fieldwork and Authors’ Reflexive Notes

Our book is based on fieldwork from four independent research projects
that vary widely in terms of their methods, level of analysis and scope.
Chapter 2 draws on a large-scale survey-based study of over 800 subsid-
iaries, conducted between 2008 and 2010. It used key informants—
Human Resources (HR) managers—from MNC subsidiaries in nine
different host countries and regions, including China, to gather informa-
tion on a broad range of topics concerning the relationship between
headquarters and subsidiaries. The comparative nature of the data col-
lected provides us with an ideal opportunity to compare expatriation,
language and culture between China and other host countries; it also
allows us to contrast MNCs originating from the Nordic countries with
MNCs originating from Anglophone, large Continental European and
East Asian countries. The high-level overview provided through this sur-
vey also perfectly complements the detailed qualitative and quantitative
studies of expatriates presented in later chapters.
Our unit of analysis in this survey was the headquarter-subsidiary rela-
tionship, and our data were collected at subsidiary level, that is, in the
foreign subsidiaries of MNCs located in various host countries. The host
countries in our sample were embedded in very different language con-
texts in two areas: their English-language competence and the worldwide
16 1 Introduction

importance of their local language. Two host countries/regions (UK,

Australia/New Zealand) with native language skills in the worldwide lin-
gua franca, English, were included. We also incorporated four Nordic
countries (Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland) in our sample. As
noted earlier, the Nordic countries are characterised by excellent English-­
language skills, but the use of their local languages is extremely limited
outside the home region. Data were collected in three other Continental
European countries: Germany, France and Spain. In these countries,
English-language skills are generally reasonably good, and the local lan-
guages—German, French and Spanish, respectively—have all at one time
played an important role on a world scale. Finally, our sample included
three Asian countries: China, Japan and Korea. These three countries all
share a relatively low level of English-language competencies.
We only investigated majority-owned subsidiaries with more than 100
employees in a preselected set of industries, thus choosing to exclude
small and minority-owned subsidiaries. Questionnaires were mailed to
the Head of Human Resources; this was done for a variety of reasons.
First, HR managers were expected to be the most knowledgeable about
the topics in our study. Second, as managing directors are the usual tar-
gets of surveys to MNC subsidiaries, we tried to avoid survey fatigue by
directing our survey to a functional manager. Finally, HR is one of the
most localised functions: our results showed that 95% of the HR manag-
ers were host country nationals, a higher percentage than any of the other
functional areas. This is an important advantage for a study investigating
language differences, as it limits the potential bias of having a mix of host
country and expatriate respondents. Our HR managers acted as key
informants by answering on behalf of their company, rather than reflect-
ing on their own experience. Although there are obvious limitations to
this approach, it appeared to us as the most feasible method of data col-
lection across a large number of companies. This method is also com-
monly used in studies of HQ-subsidiary relationships and company-level
international business research.
In Chaps. 3 and 4, we draw on 78 in-depth interviews with expatriates
and local employees in 18 different organisations, conducted in two
phases at Nordic MNC subsidiaries in China in 2006–2007 and
2012–2013. The first phase of data collection in 2006–2007 was part of
 1.7 Fieldwork and Authors’ Reflexive Notes 17

a larger research project on cross-border competence management of two

Finland-based MNCs operating in China. The main methodology
adopted for this project was a case study, defined by Yin (2003, p. 13) as
the “empirical inquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon
within its real-life context, especially when the boundaries between phe-
nomenon and context are not clearly evident”. Issues such as dynamic
capabilities, language skills and competencies, cultural differences and
the transfer of HR practices from headquarters to subsidiaries were exam-
ined in this project. Interviews selected from this project for inclusion in
this book had a clear focus on the host country language challenges faced
by expatriates and their host country national colleagues in the MNC
subsidiaries. The questions asked included the following:

Could you tell me about the role that language plays in your daily work, in
this subsidiary and also between the headquarters and this unit? Can you
describe the language skills that people have in this unit? In what ways do
language and language skills influence your work and the operations in
general in this unit? Do you feel there are any language barriers? Do you
speak Chinese? How does that then influence your work and your relation-
ship with the local staff? In what ways do language and language skills
affect an employee’s position or status in the company?

The second phase of data was collected in 2012–2013 and was part of
a larger research project on issues of language, cross-cultural adjustment
and acculturation as experienced by Nordic expatriates in China. The
main methodology was grounded theory. This can be understood as a set
of systematic yet flexible principles and guidelines for collecting and ana-
lysing qualitative data so as to construct theories “grounded” in the data
(Charmaz 2010) and also as a practical method for conducting research
focusing on the interpretive process by analysing the meaning production
of social actors in real settings (Suddaby 2006). From the more general
inquiry into the work life of Nordic Caucasian expatriates in contempo-
rary China, themes such as host country language and the power strug-
gles between expatriates and locals emerged as dominant during the
research process. Interview questions asked towards the middle phase of
the field work included: “Do you think it is necessary to learn Chinese?
18 1 Introduction

Do you feel that you are expected to use Chinese at work? Do you feel
that speaking Chinese helps you integrate into the new workplace in
China? How long have you been learning Chinese? Do you think it’s
worth the effort?”.
Chapter 5 draws on another set of data collected in 2015 in China.
This came from an independent interview-based research project, where
the interviews were conducted by an Indian researcher. A snowballing
strategy was applied to identify Indian expatriates working in China and
also invited Indian expatriates’ Chinese colleagues to participate in the
research project. Expatriates were asked to give examples of occasions
when they had felt accepted or not accepted, while Chinese employees
were prompted to give examples of situations in which they believed that
they had showed acceptance towards Indian expatriates. Whenever pos-
sible, information was collected about the same incident from both
Indian expatriates and their Chinese colleagues. Expatriates were asked
questions such as:

Could you describe what happened when you first felt that you were
accepted by Chinese colleagues? Could you please give an example of when
you felt a Chinese colleague had not accepted you? Could you give an
example of when you have done something that you believe has helped you
gain acceptance from Chinese colleagues? Do you think that you have been
fully accepted by your Chinese colleagues? When did you have this feeling?
What happened at that time?

Interview questions for Chinese colleagues included: “Do you think

you accept this expatriate as a colleague/a friend? Can you give an exam-
ple of this? When did you realise that you had not fully accepted ­him/
her? What were you thinking at that time?” By collecting data on accep-
tance from both Indian expatriates and Chinese local employees, we were
able to compare and contrast the data and from this, to identify key
information regarding acceptance.
Data used in Chap. 6 includes three independent empirical studies
that tested the impact of ethnic identity confirmation, defined as the level
of agreement between how one person views the importance of his/her
ethnic identity and how this same identity is viewed by others, in the
 1.7 Fieldwork and Authors’ Reflexive Notes 19

context of overseas Chinese expatriate-local employee interactions (Fan

and Harzing 2017). These studies include one experiment and one survey
conducted in 2012, as well as one experiment conducted in 2016. In
total, over 700 expatriates and local employees working for MNCs sub-
sidiaries participated in these three studies. The use of multi-studies
strengthens the internal and external validity of our results. In the survey,
we used a snowballing strategy to recruit expatriates, both ethnic Chinese
expatriates and non-ethnic Chinese expatriates, in Beijing. We also
recruited one Chinese colleague of each expatriate to complete the sur-
vey. We distributed hard copy survey packages to expatriates and Chinese
employees separately and asked them to return the survey to the researcher
independently to help ensure confidentiality. We then matched the expa-
triates’ responses to those of their Chinese colleagues. Only matched-­
paired data were included in the analysis given that we needed information
from both sides to compute the key concept, that of ethnic identity
confirmation.
Data for the first experiment was collected from Chinese employees
working in MNCs’ subsidiaries in Beijing in 2012. Two pilot tests were
conducted with the same population before the final experiment was car-
ried out. We first identified Chinese employee contacts working for sev-
eral MNC subsidiaries and then asked these contacts to invite their
colleagues to complete the experimental materials. The materials were
randomly assigned to each organisation. We emphasised to the partici-
pants that they should not discuss the contents of the materials with their
colleagues before completing them. The data were collected from subsid-
iaries which were fully or jointly owned by MNCs from Australia,
Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Thailand, Spain, Switzerland
and the USA. These companies were operating in industries which
included advertising, consulting, electronics, energy, finance, hospitality,
IT, law, logistics, manufacturing and trade.
The second experiment was conducted in 2016. We used a web-based
platform to recruit Chinese employees working for MNCs in China. To
ensure the participants were MNC employees, we used multiple screen-
ing strategies. Thus, the invitations to participate were only sent to sub-
scribers who self-identify as MNC employees. We also explicitly asked
participants to provide information about the type of organisation they
20 1 Introduction

work for in the survey, and those people who did not select MNCs were
excluded. At the end of the questionnaire, we asked participants again if
they worked for MNCs. Data provided by those people who gave a nega-
tive response were excluded.
The overall approach for analysing the data from these qualitative
research projects mentioned above for the purpose of this book can be
summarised as inductive, which refers to the search and derivation of pat-
terns and theories based on observations (Glaser and Strauss 1967; Locke
2001). Transcripts from the interviews held with expatriate and local
employees were read and analysed to help develop a holistic understand-
ing of the phenomenon under investigation. The interview data were then
categorised under key concepts and labels using an “open-coding” tech-
nique, which refers to the process of creating tentative labels for data based
on the meanings emerging from the data instead of existing theories. We
constantly compared what interviewees had said, searching for similarities
and differences between their stories as we coded the transcripts. For
example, when an expatriate and his local colleague gave various examples
from their interaction experience with each other, we compared the exam-
ples and identified different reasons illustrating why expatriates felt pres-
sured to learn Chinese. All the examples were grouped together and coded
together. This analytical approach allows us to shift the focus from the
previous, relatively simplistic research findings on the proficiency of expa-
triate host country language to multifaceted frameworks and dimensions
uncovering the stories behind the proficiency levels.
Furthermore, we have considered carefully how researchers’ back-
ground might have influenced the interviews when analysing the inter-
view data. In the qualitative research projects referred to above for Chaps.
3, 4 and 5, an ethnic Chinese researcher conducted the majority of inter-
views, while an Indian student conducted all the interviews for Chap. 5
in the context of her Master’s degree research project (Mohan 2015).
Interviewing is a method associated with a powerful capability to develop
theory through primary data collection with the interviewees, taking
contextual factors such as the gender, position, ethnicity of the interview-
ers and interviewees into consideration (Daniels and Cannice 2004;
Marschan-Piekkari et al. 2004). Data collection from interviews is based
on direct conversations held between researchers and respondents,
 1.7 Fieldwork and Authors’ Reflexive Notes 21

whether in person, by telephone or over the Internet. Thus, at the same

time as exposing certain things about the interviewee-respondent, such
intensive and direct interface also puts researchers’ own identity markers,
such as language, ethnicity and nationality, centre stage.
Given the above-mentioned factors, it is therefore necessary, when
analysing and interpreting research findings based on interviews, to take
into consideration researchers’ backgrounds also. Both interviewer and
interviewee are interacting with each other; each is influencing the other
party and learning about each other. This is especially the case during the
process of an in-depth interview. Interviewers of different genders, ages,
stages of their career, ethnicity, nationality and accent can easily be
labelled by others as belonging to different categories (Jenkins 1997;
Maton 2003) and hence might elicit different responses from the inter-
viewee. Particularly important is the cultural background of the research-
ers (Zhang and Guttormsen 2016). The relationship between the
researcher and the interviewee is further affected by the language used in
the interviews, as well as the level of competence of both parties in this
language. How an interviewee answers the questions may also be influ-
enced by whether the interview language is the interviewee’s mother
tongue. Accent also plays an important role as it can easily signify cate-
gorisation to different social groups (Marx 2002).
Below, we provide certain examples of encounters during our inter-
views that illustrate how the researcher’s background might have influ-
enced their interaction with interviewees.

Encounter I:

Interviewee: *in English* … How much do you remember about China?

… *switched to Chinese2* … You are Chinese, so you would understand it
if I say this…

In the middle of the research interviews, the local Chinese employee

cited above asked questions about the ethnic Chinese researcher. This
would seem to indicate that throughout this encounter, the ethnic and
cultural background of the ethnic Chinese researcher was constantly
being evaluated by the interviewee.
22 1 Introduction

Encounter II:

Interviewee: *in Chinese3* Some expatriates like sticking to their own

ideas. Maybe they are a bit conservative … oh … I don’t know; how long
have you lived in Finland?

In this encounter, the local Chinese employee interviewee was trying

to collect information to help him decide whether the researcher, an eth-
nic Chinese, could be treated as one of their own people, that is, an in-­
group member, or whether she categorised herself as an acculturated
Finn. Later in the interview, the interviewee tried to bond further with
the interviewer and to seek her sympathy and agreement when he
expressed discontent towards Western expatriates. This may be seen as
illustrative of a common social process of categorisation in which simi-
larities are accentuated by creating a more distant and common opposite
group as the “enemy” (Hansen 2006).

1.8 Overview of the Book

Having provided some detail about the background, underlying philoso-
phy, and key concepts used in this book, we now briefly give an overview
of the key content of our book. Following this introductory chapter, the
remainder of this book is composed of five core empirical chapters and a
final concluding chapter. Chapter 2 sets the scene of MNCs operating in
China. While there is a large amount of information about MNCs oper-
ating in China, there are very few large-scale organisation-level studies
which focus on expatriation. Our large-scale survey study allows us to
present aggregate-level quantitative data on the role played by expatria-
tion, language and cultural differences in China. By contrasting this with
the same information for eight other host countries or regions, we are
thus able to illustrate China’s unique position. We provide an overview of
the current state of expatriation in China; this is followed by an analysis
of the dominant functions of expatriation in China and the extent to
which expatriates are integrated into the subsidiary culture. In exploring
the intertwined role of language and culture, we then investigate the
extent to which language and cultural differences can form a barrier
 1.8 Overview of the Book 23

between headquarters and subsidiaries, and also the extent to which such
differences can be the source of conflict and misunderstanding. Finally,
we discuss how the particular combination of expatriation, language and
culture in China can create problems in HR management.
In Chap. 3, we question the accepted status quo of English as the only
corporate language for MNCs operating in China. The following quote
from a local employee reflects this:

Chinese tend to speak Chinese with each other, although we can all speak
English. We just feel like speaking Chinese and don’t feel like speaking English
[…] We just find it weird to speak English. English is only spoken by foreigners.
Why do Chinese people need to speak English?

The words here are an illustration of the strong preference locals evince
for speaking their mother tongue in their own country. Given this, we
argue that MNC subsidiaries in China need to consider including the
host country language as an additional official corporate language. We
then compare and contrast the perspectives of expatriates and local
employees on whether expatriates actually need to learn the host country
language. We conclude that it is naïve for Western MNCs to assume that
their employees—whether expatriates or locals—can function equally
well in an unfamiliar corporate language as in their mother tongue.
Following this, we further investigate in Chap. 4 the role of expatriates’
host country language skills in relation to the expatriate-local relation-
ship. By exploring the intricate situation as to why local Chinese employ-
ees are unlikely to consider a foreigner as a potentially close colleague or
friend, we discovered the extent to which local colleagues may dislike
those Western expatriates who make no attempt to learn Chinese. This is
illustrated in the following comments made by local employees:

He (expatriate) has never studied it (Chinese), although there are free classes
provided by the company […].
He [expatriate] asks us to translate for him. Most of us find it difficult to
accept because it is extra work. It is not within our job descriptions.
He [expatriate] cannot turn to us for everything. Some laowai [foreigners],
not him, including one of our direct bosses, have difficulty taking care of things
such as fixing coffee machines.
24 1 Introduction

Our findings, based on in-depth interviews with expatriates’ local col-

leagues, suggest that insights from research on expatriates in China can
be dangerously one-sided, that is, based only on the accounts of Western
expatriates rather than allowing the voices of local employees to be heard.
Chapter 5 then aims to make a further important contribution to expa-
triate research in China in presenting research conducted not only with
Western expatriates but also with expatriates from emerging economies.
India is one such country; compared with Western countries, India is gen-
erally seen as culturally closer to China. As one Chinese participant notes:

Chinese and Indians drink the same water, we feel the same things. … Indians
are not like that, they are like us, we really feel happy when we meet Indians.

As a result of this perceived similarity, Indian expatriates are expected to

gain acceptance from Chinese people more easily. However, even though
the cultural distance might seem to be smaller, it is nonetheless large enough
to create difficulties. Chapter 5 sets out the misunderstandings, challenges
and surprises that Indian expatriates experience when interacting with
Chinese local employees. We also explore the notion of acceptance and
propose a three-level acceptance model, outer-level, intermediate-­level and
inner-level, which demonstrates that acceptance is not a simple process.
Outer level is seen as the most superficial level of acceptance, with inner
level being the deepest level. Chapter 5 explores how this model can be
applied in the context of expatriates working in MNCs.
Following on from this, we explore in Chap. 6 the special challenges
faced by overseas Chinese when working in subsidiaries of foreign MNCs
in China. Such individuals are often seen to be an ideal choice as their
shared ethnicity, together with their understanding of the local culture
and language, is expected to make adjustment and collaboration with
locals much easier. The reasoning behind this can be seen echoed in
­dialogue from the movie Shanghai Calling (or 纽约客@上海), a story
about an American Chinese expatriate’s experiences in Shanghai. The key
character is told:

The reasons why we asked you here, Sam? We’ve got some exciting news for you.
We are sending you to China … You are the obvious choice … You are single,
you are a goal-getter, and you are even Chinese.
 Bibliography 25

The underlying assumption is that Sam’s being “even Chinese” will be

an advantage to him. However, as we will discuss in Chap. 6, shared eth-
nicity between expatriates and locals might in fact be a double-edged
sword if the individuals involved do not share the same view about the
importance of their shared ethnicity.
In Chap. 7, we conclude the book by highlighting our main research
findings in terms of the language dilemmas and identity ambiguity expe-
rienced by expatriates working in China.
Based on our research findings, we then provide concrete recommen-
dations for MNCs as well as for MNC employees including expatriates
and local workers regarding how to cope with the language and identity
challenges.

Notes
1. Here we associate Westernness with Whiteness because all the Western
expatriates interviewed in our research projects are Caucasians. We do not
want to imply that Western can automatically be equated with White.
Neither do we mean to suggest that all Western expatriates are White. We
have chosen to use this term for the reason that all the Nordic expatriates
in our research in this book were White Caucasians.
2. The original transcript in Chinese: ……你是中国人, 所以你会懂我说
的……
3. The original transcript in Chinese: 有些老外很死板。甚至保守......哦,
不知道你在芬兰呆了多久?

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taking advantage of their flight, the scout also disappeared, making
the woods ring with hideous moans and laughter.
This story he knew would be circulated far and wide and believed by
all but the Burning Cloud, and the valley avoided, especially after
nightfall, so he prepared a number of rude torches, and having
lighted one, he removed a stone, as the Medicine had done, and
crawled into the prison-house of the nearly dead physician.
"Great God!" he exclaimed, as the sounds of suffering came to his
ears, and he started back with the intention of retreating, for though
he had enjoyed the fright of others he was not proof against the
power of ghosts himself.
The sounds continued. Low moaning came distinctly, and straining
his eyes he could discover nothing but a pile of stones, that so much
resembled a grave as to make him shudder. Yes, it must be a ghost
that was luring him to destruction, and the fate of the physician hung
upon the most slender of threads.
"For the love of heaven," was breathed in a faint and trembling voice,
"come and put an end to my wretched life, and I will even forgive all
that you have done and pray for you."
"Great thunder and lightning!" exclaimed the scout, even more
astonished than he had been before, "who be yer?"
"Oh! Wash—thank God—I am the doctor."
"Ther doctor!"
He could scarcely believe what he had heard. The physician alone
and in such a place, and more than all in a tomb of stones! The
scout hesitated not a moment, but, kindling a fire sufficient to
illuminate the cavern, he then set to work with a will to remove the
stones, muttering deep and bitter curses upon the hand that had
placed them there. Then followed the loosening of the bonds, and
tears came into his eyes as he saw to what a state the physician had
been reduced, and holding him tenderly in his arms he heard his
story.
"May ther devil burn and tear him with red-hot pinchers ferever and
ever," growled the scout, from between his set teeth. "But, how much
you must have suffered!"
"More than tongue can tell. But what of Olive? Is she alive? Is she
well?"
"Yes—I believe so. But now, doctor, I must be off. I won't be gone
very long and will bring yer somethin' to eat."
"Do not stay away any longer than is necessary."
"Yer kin bet all ther beaver-skins between heah and ther Mississip, I
shan't be gone any longer than I kin posserbly help. I don't fancy ther
neighborhood jest now any more than yer do."
"Now," muttered the scout, as he crawled forth into the open air
again, "ter find ther Cloud."
It had grown very dark and he found his way along with difficulty, but
knowing the direction of the village he steadily kept it until he could
distinguish the light of the fires and even hear voices. He made his
way to the trysting-place in the Indian graveyard and there awaited.
He had not long to wait, however, for Burning Cloud soon stole out
from the wigwams, and when she reached the blazed trees that
marked the spot devoted to the dwellings of the dead, she softly
called the name of her lover.
He leaped lightly forward, and drawing her to him they sat down and
conversed long and earnestly, for each had very much to tell.
Then he accompanied her as near the village as he dared—lingered
and caressed her—and at last would have torn himself away and
retreated to a more secure place. But, even as he turned around he
was confronted by half a dozen warriors who had crept like serpents
around, and was instantly pinioned.
But it was joy to him to know that the squaw had escaped, and still
more so that she had been mistaken for a man. This their excited
conversation among themselves revealed, and when questioned he
boldly gave the name of Muck-a-kee!
Dragged into the center of the wigwams he was bound to the post of
torture, and great rejoicing at his capture followed. And the very thing
he had at first feared came to pass. He was known, and the air rung
with the name of "Beaver Tail!"

CHAPTER XIV.
PLOTTING.
"Naudoway—see!" had been the exclamation of the brother of the
Burning Cloud when he dashed almost breathless into her wigwam
and flung himself panting upon the floor.
She did not question further at the time. The word 'enemy' convinced
her, as she had before believed, that the renegade Parsons had
proved as treacherous to her nation as he had been to his own, and
with the remarkable patience of her race she waited for further
revelation, brought water and bathed the feet of the nearly
exhausted runner, gave him food and stimulating drinks, and then
filled, lighted and handed him a pipe.
"The trail of my brother has been long and swift. He has known
neither rest or sleep. Will he tell his sister what he has seen?"
He related the story, taking a long time for what could have been
condensed into a few words. He had followed the white man—had
seen him camp with a number of his own race—armed men—with
plenty of wagons and horses—had told them a false story about his
wife having been captured by the red-men and that she was
destined to die of torture. And, believing this, they had promised to
come and help kill the entire tribe and rescue her. But he was to
come first—they follow more slowly and wait in ambush until he gave
the signal. Then they were to rush forward, pour in their murderous
rifle-shots and slaughter indiscriminately men, women and children.
"Is that all?" questioned the girl, trembling with suppressed passion.
"Yes?"
"Does any one know of this?"
"No one but you and the Manitou."
"Then keep it hidden within your heart. Keep it until the Burning
Cloud tells you to speak, and the dearest wish of your heart shall be
gratified."
"Does she know?" he began asking, in confusion.
"She knows that you love the Little Raven, and she shall certainly be
yours."
"But the pale-face?"
"The Raven hates him," and then, under her breath, "even as I love
another."
"My sister will keep her promise?"
"Before the moon of the falling leaf, she shall be singing sweet songs
of love in your wigwam, and for your ear alone."
"It is enough. No torture shall cause my lips to be opened to any but
you."
He passed out, and as soon as he had disappeared, the squaw took
from her neck the richest string of wampum she possessed. She had
destined it to be the brightest ornament at her own bridal. It was one
she had woven for that express purpose. Muffling it in her blanket,
she walked slowly to the home of the Little Raven, and there being
no one else in the wigwam, she laid it in the lap of her friend, and
said, in a mysterious whisper: "This from the Young Bear!"
The eyes of the Raven flashed with as much delight as surprise.
Among all the braves she would have chosen the brother of the
Burning Cloud for a lover. She turned the trinket over and over, and
the visitor fancied at first it would be rejected; but when she saw it
pressed warmly to her lips, and placed next to her heart, she was
satisfied, and boldly proclaimed the secret object of her mission.
"The false-hearted pale-faced lover of the Raven is coming back to
croak into her ears his lying words. She must meet him, pretend still
to love him, lure him on, see that he does not turn aside from the
trail, and let the Burning Cloud know all he says and does. Then she
will see that no other eyes than hers look into the heart of the Young
Bear, and that he sings into no other ears than hers. He will yet be a
great chief, and his name be sung in the councils of the nation."
Wild with delight at the prospect, the young and passion-swayed
squaw was ready to promise any thing, and, after listening to the
instructions of her wiser and sharper sister, she at once took the trail,
and was seen no more in the village until she came back bursting
with the news of the death of Muck-a-kee, and the capture of the
white girl by the renegade lover.
The Burning Cloud inquired very minutely into all the particulars, and
her face glowed with gratitude and smiles as she learned how fate
had favored her.
"But, will the pale-face sleep until the Raven returns again?" she
asked.
"He drank deeply of the leaves that take away all feeling," was the
reply, "and the sun will be above the tree-tops before his eyes are
open again."
"And the squaw with the skin like the snow?"
"She is worn to a shadow, and so tired, her moccasins would grow
faint, be the trail ever so short."
"It is well. Let the Raven go sleep."
Left alone, the Burning Cloud pondered long and deeply upon her
course. The skein was twisted, and she saw no way of unraveling it.
The motives that swayed her were various, and each was strong.
Love was the master passion, and if driven to extremity, she would
sacrifice every thing to that. But revenge upon the renegade was
burning strongly within her soul, and longed to be satisfied with
blood. As for the beautiful Olive, gratitude to the physician would do
very much for him, but yet she had no very strongly marked interest
in her fate, save that she would keep her from torture.
The web was indeed strangely interwoven with bright and dark
threads, and she knew not which way to turn to clear the meshes to
her satisfaction. Had she known of the fate of the scout—as she did
subsequently—all would have been plain. Now she was groping in
the dark. But she had to decide quickly, and after all the time that
could be possibly given to thought she took to the forest, trusting to
chance.
Midnight had long since faded into the small hours, and knowing that
it would require all of her exertions to reach the spot—to which she
had been directed by the Little Raven—before the dawn, she ran as
rapidly as her strength would permit. Her keen eyes, trained to the
darkness, enabled her to find the way when another would have
been at fault, and she was rapidly putting the miles behind her when
she came to a little spring that bubbled forth in the center of a dense
thicket, and paused to quench her thirst and obtain a little rest. But
even as she did so she became aware that something was crashing
along behind her and—it might be man or beast—she drew back,
hoping to escape unnoticed.
Vain hope! A black figure almost instantly stopped by her side, and
an angry voice hissed into her ears—a voice that she knew but too
well:
"So you have come to meet your pale-face lover?"
"The trail is open and my foot is free," she replied. "Who dare stop
me?"
"I dare."
"By what right?"
"Though you have refused to be my wife yet the honor of the tribe is
mine, and you shall not disgrace it."
"Honor?" and she started as if serpent-stung.
"Ay, honor," he replied, knowing full well that the word would reach
her heart more painfully than a knife would have done. "The words of
the pale-face are ever false. They whisper lies into the ears of the
red-men—they trail them on to shame, and when they are asked for
the father of their children they can only bow their heads into the
dust."
"Burning Cloud is the daughter of a great chief," she answered,
drawing herself up proudly. "He who couples her name with disgrace
must beware!" and she half-drew her knife.
He knew as well as she did her pride of birth, and was determined to
sting her upon the most tender point.
"The daughter of a chief when she stoops to love an enemy is worse
than any other."
"Who says I have done so?"
"The whole tribe."
"Then some serpent has hissed the venom in their but too willing
ears."
"It is the scout, Beaver Tail, though he stole the name like a thieving
dog, that she loves."
"Well?"
"He has a wife in every tribe."
"It is false as the heart of the Wahkan Shecha."
"The Evil Spirit has poisoned her ears so that she can not tell the
straight trail from the crooked one."
"Who says he has a wife in every tribe?" she questioned, fiercely.
"And when sleep has fallen upon the eyes of the red-man she steals
out to meet him," he continued, without giving the slightest heed to
her question.
"May the Manitou curse and palsy the lips that dare to utter such
lies!" and her eyes rayed out dangerous flashings.
"But the warriors will find his trail and then he will die."
"He does not fear to do so."
"Does the Burning Cloud believe the words he whispers in her ears
as she lies in his arms and gives her lips to his kisses?"
Every fiber in her frame quivered with passion, and the mastery by
which she restrained herself was wonderful. He had heaped upon
her the deepest insults she had ever received, but she was
determined to bide the time when she could safely repay them with
compound interest. Now she had other ends in view—from policy
restrained her impetuous temper and he went on:
"The name of the nation is blackened by Burning Cloud."
"Her trail has ever been open."
"It is hidden like that of the mole."
"What would he have her do?"
"Tell the red warriors where the dog of a pale-face is hidden, and
give him up to torture."
"Well?"
"Then let her choose a husband of her own people."
"Which means you!"
He saw that she had craftily read his purpose even before he had
spoken of it, and went on even more bitterly than before.
"When the children cry for the father they shall never see and beg for
bread—"
She spat in his face before he could finish the sentence, so intense
was her passion. Her entire soul was up in arms and she hissed
back:
"Oh, that I were a man but for a moment that I might cram the foul
words down your throat and tear out your lying tongue!"
He laughed tauntingly and she proceeded:
"But, woman as I am, if you dare repeat your words or say aught
against my honor I will do my best to brain you on the spot and let
out your black blood for the cubs of the wolf to lap and grow fat on."
"She should have been a brave," he sneered.
"I am brave. Stand aside and let me pass."
"Listen to me," and he would have placed his hand upon her arm
had she not drawn back. "You shall never be the wife of the pale-
face—never see him again. I have long sought for this hour and now
you shall swear by the great Manitou to be mine or—"
"When you can make the mountains bow down to the valleys, then I
will be your wife, but until then, never."
"Because you love the pale-face?"
"Because I hate you!"
"And you shall have reason. Not far from here is the home of the
rattlesnakes. Burning Cloud knows it well. If she will not be my wife I
will throw her into their midst and none will ever know of her fate.
Thousands of forked tongues will be darted at her—thousands of
poisoned fangs be buried in her flesh—thousands of slimy bodies
crawl over and around her while still living!"
"I would rather die even thus than become your wife," she cried as
she sprung upon him, as suddenly and fiercely as does the
mountain-cat upon the one who would rob her of her young.
Taken entirely by surprise the Indian received a severe wound in his
shoulder before he could defend himself, and then, his anger at
white heat, he grappled with the squaw and endeavored to master
her. It was some time however before he could disarm her, gain
possession of her hands and hold them. Then they stood face to
face, she completely powerless to either injure or escape.
"Now," he asked, triumphantly, "will she promise to become his
wife?"
"Never!"
"Then by the Manitou he will give her to the serpents!"
She shuddered at such a terrible fate and made the most desperate
efforts to escape. And he found it most difficult to drag her along. But
he succeeded in doing so, inch by inch and foot by foot until at last
they stood above the terrible den.
"For the last time," he asked, "will you be my wife?"
What should she answer? She could distinctly hear the clashing of
countless rattles—could smell the foul odors—could see the flashing
of myriads of lidless eyes—the vibrating of the forked tongues that
played like lambent lightning. For all the darkness around she could
see the scaly folds of the numberless savage reptiles, that, disturbed
by their footsteps, wormed in a living mass like boiling waves
breaking upon some rocky beach. Horrible—the like of which earth
holds not, and what could she do to avert such a fate?
Renounce the scout—perjure her very soul and become the wife of
the one she not only detested but who would even thus dastardly
seek to make her his own? The bare thought nerved her to even
greater strength, and the battle became fierce indeed.
Then, when the Indian had succeeded in dragging her to the very
verge of the rocky den, a strange light burst suddenly upon their
eyes, and he drew her to him, and grasping her throat, almost
strangled her in his efforts to keep her silent. A light flashed upon
them—the report of a rifle was heard, and, with a mighty groan the
treacherous Indian sunk backward to the ground.
A rush through the bushes was heard—a little party of white hunters
who were out 'shining deer,' appeared upon the scene, and one
exclaimed triumphantly:
"Buck or doe, my boys, it was my shot."
"Great Heaven!" replied the one who carried the torch; "you have
killed an Indian!"
"An Indian? You must be mad."
"Look for yourself."
"God forgive me, it is true. I would have sworn it was the eyes of a
deer I shot at."
"You are not the first man who has been deceived in the same way.
But, what shall we do with the poor devil? It won't answer to have
this known. Hark! What sound is that? A rattlesnake den as I am a
sinner! Here is the opening. In with him, men."
It was soon done. Though he was already dead, his body found the
same resting place he would have given her living one, and that
portion of the party who had promised to assist the renegade
Parsons (and were waiting for him) hastily decamped.
Of the Burning Cloud they knew nothing. The instant the iron hand
unclasped from her throat she had skulked into the bushes and
darted swiftly away.

CHAPTER XV.
HIDDEN WORKINGS.
It was just after daylight when Olive awoke from her slumbers, but so
busy had her brain been with dreams that it was some little time
before she could realize her situation. Then she looked around for
the squaw that had promised to be kind to her—saw that she was
sitting at a little distance with her blanket drawn over her head, and
whispered:
"Little Raven?" after thinking for some time upon the name she had
but once heard.
"It is not Little Raven," was answered in a strange voice. "She is in
the wigwams of the Sioux. What would the squaw of the pale-
faces?"
"Alas! she promised to be my friend."
"And why should I not be?"
"Because all of your people appear to hate me."
"There are good and bad in every nation. One of your own race has
been your worst enemy."
"It is too true. Where is he now?"
"Sleeping as the Raven left him."
"Then if you are a friend you will fly with me."
"There is no danger. The snake is scotched. He may turn his fangs
upon himself but can bite no one else."
"Who are you?"
"A squaw!"
The word was accented with the most extreme bitterness, and for a
moment her eyes flashed with outraged feelings, but seeing that the
white girl shrunk from her in fear she smoothed her face, threw back
her blanket and drawing nearer to Olive continued:
"The Burning Cloud."
"What is that?"
"My name, in the tongue of the pale-face. She is the friend of Little
Raven, and will be yours. But first let me tell what you are longing to
hear."
"Of whom?"
"Whose name does her heart whisper the most?"
The girl blushed until her face would have shamed the gorgeous
crimson-pink of the prairie, and leaned forward anxiously; but she
made no reply, and the young squaw continued:
"It is the Medicine of the pale-face, and he is safe."
"Heaven be praised!"
"She can thank the Manitou and the scout. But he has passed
through terrible trials."
"Alas! that he also has had to suffer."
"When the black ravens of death were croaking into his ears, and in
another hour he would have been wandering on the shores of the
dark river that rolls between this and the country of souls, he waded
through dangers as through a mighty flood and saved him."
"Tell me, that I may know how to thank him."
"He is himself upon the trail of death!" she replied, very slowly and
sorrowfully, and with her eyes overflowing with tears. "But the
Burning Cloud will save him or die!"
"You?" asked Olive, in astonishment.
"Can not one with skin like the chestnut, love as well as her who is
like the lily?"
"Certainly. Hearts are the same. And you love—"
"I came not to talk of him. The Medicine is his friend, and for his sake
Burning Cloud would save you. Let her get up and come with me."
"Where?"
"If she doubts, she may follow her own trail. If she trusts, she may
come."
Too weak to contend, even if she had been disposed to do so, Olive
arose and accompanied her to the spot where the renegade,
Parsons, was lying, bound hand and foot, and loudly cursing the one
that had made him so.
"Little Raven," he said, as soon as the squaw came in sight, "what
does this mean?"
"Let him look again," she replied, calmly, stepping forward, so as to
give him a clear view of her face.
"You—I do not know you."
"But I do you," she hissed, rather than spoke.
"No, no. You are mistaken. I have never met you before."
"The pale thief has a bad memory or lies."
"I am certain I am right."
"Listen."
She briefly recounted what had transpired at their first meeting, and
he trembled as a coward, as she proceeded:
"More than that, he has lied to the Little Raven, and this poor white
squaw. But the dark-mouthed wolves of death are upon his trail."
"You are wrong," he stammered.
"Wrong? Does he know her?" and she dragged the unwilling Olive
forward, and turning to her, said, as she held out her knife: "Take this
and revenge yourself until your heart is satisfied. Cut away his skin,
little by little, until his body looks as if spotted with the small-pox. Do
any thing you wish so that you do not take his life. When death
comes, it must be at the hands of the red-man."
"I can not—can not!" shrieked the white girl, as she turned away in
horror, even at the thought.
"It is well for him," continued the savage-minded squaw, "that our
places are not changed. Then, indeed, he might have reason to
tremble, for I would have led him such a dance of death as would
have made him crawl like a serpent in the dust, and beg for death.
But will you take no revenge upon him?"
"None—none!" still gasped Olive.
"At but a little distance is a wet spot, where the reeds grow tall and
the grass rank. There the musketoes and buffalo-gnats and the great
green-headed flies breed and swarm. Will she help the Burning
Cloud to drag him thither, so that they may sting him like thousands
of needles, poison his flesh, and suck his blood, and yet he can not
brush them off?"
"No; no!"
"The heart of the pale-face is too soft. The child of the red-man could
sit by his side and laugh to see his struggles, and sing when he
groaned."
"For the love of heaven," pleaded the affrighted Olive, "let us leave
him and get to a place of safety."
"Leave him!" answered the squaw, in a voice that thrilled with
emotion. "Leave him? You know not what you ask. A life worth as
many thousands of his as there are sands on the sea-shore may be
hanging upon it. But we will not stay here. There is yet a long trail to
be traveled. Get up, dog!"
She kicked the prostrate form and made him struggle to his feet—a
difficult task for one so cunningly fettered. But at last it was
accomplished, and she loosened the bandages so as to enable him
to walk. Then she took a stout thong of buck-skin from her girdle,
looped it around his neck so that it would cut into the flesh and
strangle him in case of resistance, and dragged him forward, as
miserable, guilty, terrified a wretch as could have been found upon
the entire face of the earth.
"For God's sake," he gasped, "have a little mercy."
"Did you have any on this poor girl?" she asked.
"If I must die, at least leave me in peace until then."
"If I could have my way," was the fierce response, "I would tie you to
the tail of an unbroken colt, turn him loose, and let him drag you until
every particle of flesh was torn off from your body inch by inch. But
let him be dumb, or this!" and she pressed the sharp point of her
knife against his side until it penetrated through the clothing and
pierced the flesh.
Avoiding the beaten trail, the squaw—followed by the white girl—led
her wretched captive—often sneering at him for being the prisoner of
a woman—toward the village of the Sioux. Whatever was her
purpose she kept it hidden within her own brain—would answer no
questions—paused only when Olive was compelled to rest, and even
denied the renegade a single drop of water, and drove him forward
with her knife when his pace became too slow to suit her.
But, as the day drew on and they were nearing the village of her
people—were passing through a deep, dark valley so narrow that the
branches of the trees on either side bent over and interlocked, she
suddenly paused—motioned Olive, and forcibly dragged her captive
to the ground, drew the cord still more tightly around his throat, and
holding the point of her knife in one hand, directly above his heart,
lifted a great stone in the other, and whispered in his shrinking ear:
"Make the slightest noise—dare but to speak—breathe louder than
common, and I swear by the Manitou that I will drive the knife
through you before any one can come to your assistance."
Her face, terrible in its vindictiveness, told that she would not scruple
to carry out her threat, and he shivered for fear accident might
accomplish it even if design did not.
He knew better than she did that they were near the spot where his
new friends had encamped—that a scouting party were upon the hill
directly above them—that a single call would bring them to his side—
would bring him freedom. Yet he dare make no sound—was forced
to motionless silence. The line that sustained his life was as brittle as
a spider's web. The fierce eyes of the Indian girl were upon him—the
hand that held the knife as firm as a rock. In fact a single loud breath
would have ended in a parting groan, and desperate as was his
situation in other respects, a sigh of relief escaped him as the little
party of white men passed along and Burning Cloud laid aside the
heavy stone and withdrew her terrible weapon.
"Get up," she whispered, "and go on silently. By the Manitou of the
pale-man as well as the red, I will strangle you and bury my weapon
in your breast if you utter a single sound or make an effort to let any
know you are here."
He could do nothing but obey, and journeyed wearily on until she
bade him pause. Then she gave the low, plaintive cry of the
whippowil, thrice repeated, and in an instant after her brother was by
her side—her brother and the Little Raven.
"You will guard him more carefully than your life or honor,"
commanded Burning Cloud. "Keep him here until you hear from me
again. Come," she continued to Olive, who was wondering what the
end of this strange journey would be, and taking her by the hand she
avoided the wigwams.
"Oh! tell me," asked Olive, who, from what she had seen, was afraid
of her companion, "oh! tell me where you are going to take me."
"To safety and to—Hist!"
She drew her to the ground, and covered her with her blanket—bade
her lie still as death, and left her side—left her alone for what
seemed months. Then she returned, and her voice was sad and step
heavy.
"Him I love," she said, no longer attempting to conceal her passion,
"is a prisoner, and tied to the post of torture."
"Great heaven! The scout?"
"Even him. But don't talk. Come quickly."
"You have not yet told me where?"
Burning Cloud made no answer. She hurried the girl along
regardless of all obstacles, and soon stopped in front of the walled-
up cavern and removed one of the stones.
"What is your lover's name?" she asked, and then, as she hesitated,
continued, "Call him."
Olive did so—was answered, and a moment after they were fast
locked in each other's arms, and lip was responding to lip.
"Back with the stone into its place," hoarsely commanded the squaw.
"Don't stir from here on peril of your lives. Now to save him or die in
the attempt!"

CHAPTER XVI.
TERRIBLE TORTURE.
After a time the scout was removed from the post to which he had
been bound, led into a wigwam, and having been fettered securely,
was left to himself until the dawning of another day should afford the
opportunity for torture.
So noted a hunter and scout as Beaver Tail could not be hurried out
of the world. Great éclat must be given to the event—every one of
the warriors must be notified—the torture must be of the superlative
degree.
But, great was their astonishment when the sun rose again and the
wigwam was found to be empty!
Numbers would have sworn that they had been constantly on the
watch, and he had not gone forth—that, save the braves and the
squaws, no one had been seen—that he must have vanished, even
as the mist of morning before the hot sun.
Yet, even while they were discussing what could possibly have
become of him, the scout was laughing in the forest, with the Indian
girl, at the tumult his flight had caused.
"It was most mighty cute of you, Cloud," he said, "ter think of such a
thing, and none but a smart woman like you could have posserbly
carried it out, without bein' found out."
"I feared," she replied, looking up lovingly into his face, "that even
after I had thrown the blankets and dresses into the wigwam, as
Little Raven and I were walking along, that you would not be able to
get your hands loose, and then all would have been useless."
"It was hard, that am er fact. But I l'arned somethin' of ther doctor,
and as yer war smart enuff ter throw in er knife too, I managed ter git
ther blade between my teeth and use it like er saw until ther
confounded thongs parted. But sich er time as I had gittin' ther things
on! And though I didn't see my way clear by a long shot, I couldn't
help laffin' ter think how like ther Old Scratch I would look in yer
woman's toggery. But I had ter wait er long time berfore I dared
venture out."
"The heart of Burning Cloud beat more swiftly than it had ever done
before, and she trembled like the leaves of the poplar in the winds of
winter."
"Yet somebody helped me, or I would have stuck fast, and more'n
likely bin a-roastin' by this time. Did yer have er hand in that ar'
fracas?"
"I told Little Raven and my brother," she answered, with a smile, "to
go to the other side of the village and manage some way to draw the
warriors there while I gathered a crowd of young squaws for you to
mingle with and pass out of sight."
"And they did it most effectually! I never heard sich a screamin' and
yellin' and dorg-fightin' in all my born days, so I jest peeped out ter
see what ther row was, and findin' ther coast cl'ar, ventered."
"And soon was in a place of safety?"
"Yes, and more'n that, did er leetle matter of business arter you had
gone."
"What was that?" she questioned, curiously.
"Ther old Medercine will find out when he goes wanderin' inter his
devil's den ergin."
"Have you been to the secret cave of the Medicine?" she asked,
trembling with fear as she heard his answer, and looking upon him
with intense admiration as the bravest of the brave.
"I was thar. But I don't think I shall ever have any occasion ter go
ergin."
"What did you see?"
"I'll tell yer some time when we ain't got quite so much on hand—
some time when every thin' is peace and plenty around us and we've
got nothing to do but to talk and make love," and he gave her a
sample in advance.
"And now?" she questioned, as she released herself with some
difficulty from his over-warm embrace, even though pleased with it.
"Wal, ther plan we have talked about seems ter be ther best, and I
reckon we had better cling ter it."
"Then the Burning Cloud will go."
"It am about time."
Released, after another shower of kisses, the Indian girl stole back
again into the village and mingled with the crowd that surrounded the
Medicine. He was very much engaged in attempting to explain what
he knew nothing about, and was boldly asserting that the Evil Spirit
had carried off the scout bodily—that he had vanished like smoke
and would never be seen again, when a muffled form forced its way
to where he was standing, and, throwing aside the blanket that
enfolded him, the missing prisoner stood revealed, and said with a
half-smile:
"I don't think ther Old Scratch has got hold on me yet, whatever he
may do some of these days."
The appearance of the Evil One, with hoofs, horns, claws and
brimstone-breath, could scarcely have produced a more decided
impression. The warriors started back in terror, the squaws fled
shrieking—the Medicine stood aghast, and had the scout been so
minded he could have gone whichever way he willed without any
one daring to molest him. But such was not his purpose. The part he
was to play had been well thought of, and, after giving them time to
become somewhat convinced that he was not a ghost escaped from
the graveyard, he continued:
"Warriors of ther Sioux, thar's er good many of yer who have known
me fer years and yer have always found my trail er honest and er
open one. We have bin friends and I mean that we shall be so ergin.
Ef I had been er mind I could have got whar yer never could have
found me and it would have been mighty dangerous fer yer ter
come."
"Beaver Tail is cunning upon the trail and brave on the war-path,"
replied the chief, obliged to say something.
"Wal, I don't make no boast of fightin'—it hain't my trade. But I won
my name fairly in trappin' beaver, and yer know they are a cunnin'
varmint."
"The skins he has taken are countless as the stars."
"Not quite so many as that. But I didn't come back to brag. Yer see, I
trusted ye, and knew we would be friends ergin, when yer got ther
black scales from before yer eyes, an' stood in ther sunshine, an'
could see things as they am. So I came back with naked hands.
S'arch me, ef yer have er mind ter, an' yer won't find a weepon of
any kind, not even so much as ther leetlest knife, erbout me."
"Whatever trail his moccasins may have traveled, his tongue is
journeying that of truth."
"Yer kin bet every buffler-robe yer 've got on that, and win."