Only Jehovah’s plan can be established
Interview with Kang Jieli, Financial Director of Castilian Trading
Interview/Zheng Qiongyu
Like most young people, Kang Jieli and Shen Piqiang said goodbye to their student careers and naturally entered the workplace. Jie Li majored in accounting, and Pi Qiang majored in biology. They did not expect that one day they would start their own business, and they have worked together to overcome the peaks and troughs of their careers for more than thirty years.
In the 1970s, when Taiwan's economy was taking off, the couple established an export trading company in Taiwan in 1977 with their youthful enthusiasm and ambition. After 1988, he expanded his business to the United States and purchased Castilian Trading in Mississippi to engage in import business. In 1990, the company was moved to Houston, Texas, with Pi Qiang serving as the executive director and Jie Li using her accounting expertise to serve as the financial director.
When Jie Li was in college, she believed in the Lord and was baptized together with Pi Qiang, who was a teaching assistant at the time. She expressed gratitude that fortunately both husband and wife were Christians and had God’s words to guide them every day, so they would not get lost in the complicated shopping mall.
▲Shen Piqiang and Kang Jieli are successful in running a business and are willing to participate in service. The picture shows that in August 2007, he accompanied Pastor Ye Gaofang, President of the True Love Family Association, and his wife to serve at the Chinese Church in Barcelona, Spain.
Integrating faith into the profession
During the years when Jie Li and Pi Qiang opened a company in Taiwan, they did not have any Christian friends around to support each other in starting their own businesses. After arriving in the United States, there were many brothers and sisters in the church with similar experiences and backgrounds, so a "corporate fellowship" was established. Currently, the fellowship meets every two weeks to sing, study the Bible, pray, and share experiences of success and failure in the business and life.
Although members of the corporate fellowship are successful “bosses” in the eyes of the world, they know that they are just stewards and that God is the real boss. Joining the fellowship has given Jie Li and Pi Qiang a spiritual partner on the road to business. In the fellowship, they can frankly raise the problems they encounter at work. The sharing, suggestions and prayers of brothers and sisters can always bring them God. The teachings are implemented in the confidence and strength of business operations.
Recalling that when she was doing business in Taiwan, Jie Li would often be very worried and impatient if a large sum of money was not recorded on time. She said that if there had been a similar fellowship to support her, she might have had a calmer and more stable attitude and wisdom when facing business pressure.
In addition to personal growth, the couple also seized the opportunity to spread the gospel to their colleagues. Jie Li and Pi Qiang do not want their employees to feel pressured to refuse invitations from their bosses to attend church activities, so they often entrust several managers in the company who are also Christians to come forward. Over the years, several colleagues have accepted Jesus as the Savior of their lives and have taken on heavy-duty service in the church. In addition, Jie Li and Pi Qiang are also happy to share their job opportunities with members of the church. Many employees in the company are brothers and sisters who the couple gathers with on Sundays.
A few years ago, Jie Li and Pi Qiang twice invited Gao Lili, the founder of Kingdom Resources for Christ, to teach a three-day management training course at the company, sharing management principles and communication methods that are in line with God’s will, and integrating faith into the profession. . In addition to employees within the company, friends from the business community and overseas Chinese were also invited to participate, and the response was extremely enthusiastic. In the practical and exciting courses, gospel seeds were sown into the hearts of the participants.
In addition, during holidays, employee weddings and funerals, or when everyone is working particularly hard, Jie Li and Pi Qiang often hold dinner parties and other fun activities in the company. When everyone puts down their work and chats in a relaxed atmosphere, topics related to faith will naturally be touched upon.
▲The brothers and sisters in the "Enterprise Fellowship" are spiritual partners of Shen Piqiang and Kang Jieli, supporting and encouraging each other on the road to business. The picture shows the fellowship celebrating the pastor’s birthday.
Dealing with cultural differences
When the business was at its peak, there were more than forty staff members, and now there are about fourteen. In addition, in recent years, the company has set up an office in China and hired seven or eight local staff. Over the years, Jie Li has gained a deep appreciation for working with employees of different ethnic backgrounds.
Jie Li mentioned that getting along with local employees in the United States is relatively simple. They can usually discuss matters with each other, have the courage to express their thoughts, and will not jump to conclusions easily. Even if there is a conflict at work, it will not affect the friendship. Chinese employees are relatively reluctant to let go and tend to have knots. After some Chinese employees resigned, they took a detour when they saw her and Pi Qiang in the church, which made people deeply moved. However, after most local employees leave their jobs, they usually still exchange warm greetings when they meet again.
The company moved a while ago, and a Chinese employee was responsible for packing the phones and transporting them to the new location. After he left after get off work, others couldn't find the phone. They called the employee and asked him to check whether the carton containing the phone was left in the car. Unexpectedly, this seemingly innocent incident made the staff member extremely unhappy, thinking that everyone suspected him of stealing the company phone. Misunderstandings like this make Jie Li feel helpless.
Jie Li believes that Chinese people, especially those who are middle-aged and above, may have a more serious attitude in dealing with colleagues because of their more serious backgrounds. If you are willing to try to adjust your mentality and learn from the open-mindedness and self-deprecating sense of humor of employees of other ethnic groups, I believe you will be able to enjoy your work and relationships with colleagues more.
In addition, Jie Li also observed a phenomenon when dealing with occasional conflicts in the company: if she offended employees of other ethnic groups, as long as she sincerely apologized, the other parties would soon get over it and no longer care. On the contrary, Chinese employees often say it doesn't matter, but the anger in their hearts cannot be dissipated for a long time.
She found that the relationship between bosses and employees was different in the United States and Asia. In Asian societies, bosses are aloof and employees follow orders. In the United States, bosses and employees are just colleagues with different responsibilities. The boss's responsibility is to lead the company in the right direction, while employees need to do their best to do their jobs well.
Jie Li serves as the financial director. Occasionally, the company suffers losses due to poor supervision. She will shoulder the responsibility and will not pass the blame to her subordinates. Similarly, if department employees make mistakes, she also reminds everyone to take responsibility in order to gain the respect of their work partners.
In addition, in the United States, everyone is accustomed to arranging everything in advance. For example, when a meeting will be held on what day, and where to fly to and who to meet on that day, most of them have been decided a few weeks ago and written down on the calendar. But in mainland China, people have flexible schedules and go wherever they smell business opportunities. Often I decide to go somewhere in the morning, immediately call to book a flight, and board the plane within a few hours.
One time when Jie Li and Pi Qiang went to work in mainland China, a client called and wanted to make an appointment to meet on the same day, but they had already arranged their schedule and had to politely refuse. Unexpectedly, after a while, the other party called again and said that a driver had been sent to pick them up. The two had no choice but to follow the local customs, put aside their original plans and go to the appointment.
Jie Li and Pi Qiang often participate in activities of local mainstream business associations. They always make it clear to their club friends that they are Christians and need to gather on Sundays. Therefore, when everyone invites them to participate in activities, they will definitely avoid Sundays.
They also often encourage friends who don’t know God yet to take their children to church Sunday school to help their children get the right guidance as they grow up, and to make helpful friends who put their parents at ease. Several friends first entered the church because of their children, and later they were attracted by God and became Christians.
As immigrants, although their English expression skills are not comparable to those of local Americans, Jie Li and Pi Qiang are not deterred by this and are still actively making friends. When she encounters a situation where she cannot speak freely, she will tell the other party in a calm and humble manner that English is her second language and please forgive me if she doesn't speak well. Over the past 20 years, they have made many friends with different ethnic backgrounds, which has broadened their horizons.
Many Chinese immigrants who have come to work and live in the United States have encountered unpleasant looks that appear to be discrimination. Based on her experience, Jie Li said that sometimes discrimination may just be a feeling, and it all depends on how you interpret it. If the other party is unfriendly, it may just be because they are too tired or too busy, and it is not necessarily racial discrimination. Therefore, immigrants must have confidence and not fall into self-pity.
▲Shen Piqiang and Kang Jieli participated in the Kingdom of God Cultural Practice Camp to enrich and equip themselves. The picture shows a group photo with Pastor Su Wen’an (middle), the lecturer of the Chinese language training course.
Challenges and choices
In the process of doing business, you will encounter different challenges every day, and every decision is a choice.
When a customer calls to ask when the goods can be shipped, in order not to offend the customer, should you temporarily appease the customer, or should you tell the truth?
The company recently sold its warehouse, and Jie Li has been considering whether to hand over all the remote door switches to the buyer. After all, there are still some things in the warehouse that have not been emptied. If you leave a remote control switch, it will be more convenient for your company; if you give all the remote control switches to the other party and the other party is unwilling to lend them, wouldn't you be asking for trouble? Pi Qiang still decided to hand over all the remote control switches to the other party when the deal was finalized, and the other party agreed to let them use them temporarily.
Another example is when measuring the size of a warehouse, only to discover that space in another warehouse had been used unknowingly for several years. So, should we pretend we don’t know about it, or should we tell the other party? Some people advised them to pretend to be confused, but Piqiang and Jieli knew that God loves honesty, and insisted on telling the truth to the owner of the rear warehouse. The other party was very grateful for their sincerity and did not care about this unintentional mistake.
▲Gao Lili (second from left), founder of Divine Resources, was invited to teach management courses at Castilian Trading, sharing management principles and communication methods that are in line with God’s will, and integrating faith into the profession. Kang Jieli (first from left), son Howard (first from right), and daughter-in-law Elizabeth (second from right) took a group photo with Li Li.
Incidents like this are faced almost every day. If you don’t know God and act in accordance with the world’s values, your business life will probably be filled with “white lies”, big and small.
In addition, when colleagues work together day and night, disagreements are inevitable. In the past, Jie Li was used to hiding her displeasure in her heart and having a cold war with the other person. Later, she thought that God said not to let the sun go down on your anger, so she tried to deal with her anger in a way that would not harm the relationship. In the past few years, if her relationship with her colleagues became a little tense, she would leave temporarily, drive around, and pray quietly. The annoyance in her heart soon disappeared, and she was able to objectively think about the pros and cons of different opinions. One time she bought ice cream and went back to the company to entertain everyone. The tense atmosphere was soon replaced by the sweet and cold relaxation.
Jie Li likes Proverbs 20:15 very much:“There is gold and many pearls, but the mouth of knowledge is a precious treasure.”She needs to speak a lot with customers and employees every day, and deeply feels the importance and preciousness of appropriate words. Only by constantly storing God’s words in your heart and communicating with others can you have the wisdom from God, make appropriate responses, and be able to make timely assumptions for the other person and create a win-win result.
The economic downturn in recent years has greatly affected the company's operations and reduced its scale by about two-thirds. At first, Jie Li was worried, but with the sharing and prayers of the brothers and sisters in the fellowship and the guidance of God’s words, she gradually let go of her worries.
Proverbs 19:20-21:"Listen to counsel and receive instruction, so that you may always be wise. Many people have plans in their hearts; but the plan of the Lord will stand."These two verses helped Jie Li face the changes in the company calmly. She said that no matter how prosperous a company is, it is just a job on earth and everything will pass. No matter how hard people try to plan, it is impossible to reverse the changes in the general environment.
Anyway, the big boss behind the company is God. She only needs to do a good job as a housekeeper, and Jehovah will take care of the rest.
Journalist profile
Zheng Qiongyu, originally from Taiwan, now lives in Northern California. She loves writing, reading, and traveling by train.