Takeaway Chinese, where you can take some Chinese away and experience progress day by day.
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你好,欢迎收听随行汉语。 Welcome to Takeaway Chinese.
I'm Niu Honglin with Steve Hatherly in the studio.
Hello, Steve.
Can I complain?
About what?
From the very start of the show.
Well, hello.
I ordered something recently and there was some confusion.
When I placed the order, it marked as being delivered.
But then when it got delivered finally, which was like four or five days later, deliverer said oh, it was the wrong address.
And then wait, oh, that product actually doesn't exist.
I didn't deliver that.
Have to talk to the seller.
Then I talked to customer service.
And I don't know where the product is.
And I've still paid for it.
And it's over a week later.
And I just want to know about my rights as a customer.
You are asking the exact right question today.
And I have to say, in some occasions, when we do take away Chinese, we would ask questions that we're not genuinely asking.
But this really happened to me.
This really happened.
And we're figuring it out and think it's a mistranslation related issue.
I'm pretty sure it will get sorted eventually because it happens in daily life a lot.
Because we have to admit now here in China, there must be millions of packages on the road.
Every day, every single day.
And we do our online shopping a lot.
And there's the issue of whether or not you know the product is really for you only by looking at the pictures on the internet, especially when it's clothing.
Or whether or not you like the service you're receiving if you are signing a contract also online.
And also for the product itself.
If you don't like the taste of it, can you return it?
If you got it online, how to return it?
And if you got it online and all of a sudden you find the packaging or the picture or the brand name a little bit fishy, what would you do?
And all these problems, you can solve them through different ways.
And there are multiple ways to solve them.
So consumer rights protection is something that is important, that is being addressed.
Looked at here in China.
And it's also the theme of today's Takeaway Chinese.
It is indeed.
Yeah.
And I think I know what the conclusion of my story will be, which is one really great thing about China.
If your consumer credit score is good enough, they will issue you a refund without really checking anything.
I don't think.
Because when I talked to customer service, they said, oh, would you like your money back?
And I had this thought well, what if I was like a scam artist and I actually received the product right?
If you're a scam artist and you're speaking in English and you got all this like personal profile and persona set up, you're a really good one.
Yeah, that's true.
But I thought oh, that's a really nice thing about customer service.
Here is like they will really kind of no questions asked if you request a refund.
If you've received the product, you just send it back.
And, as far as I know, a lot of the time it's really kind of no questions asked if they know you're a good customer.
Yes.
So stilt?
As a consumer, we still want to know that the quality, quantity and everything about the product that we're ordering is up to standard.
And in certain occasions we also question the Like.
It's hard for us to personally check the manufacturing factory of the product that we're ordering.
Of course.
But there are people doing that.
We'll come back to that point a little bit later.
Before that, because we're talking about consumer rights.
So let's learn how to say consumer in Chinese first.
Okay.
So consume is 消费.
消费.
Yes, 消 carries the meaning of make something disappear.
And 费 carries the meaning, at least in my understanding, money, certain amount of money, a fee.
So you're making the fee go away because you're spending the money, because you're getting something in return.
Okay, so 消费 is to consume.
Does that also mean consumer?
消费者 is consumer.
者 is someone who's doing the things that we've just described with the words in front of 者.
So 消费者 would be consumer.
生产者, because 生产 is to generate, to produce.
So 生产者 would be the producer.
So yeah, 者.
Yes, and there's also other kind of people, for example scholar, because you know, 学 is to study, to do research on things, and 学者 would be scholar.
So the 者 is really the Chinese ER.
Oh, okay, got it.
All right, so 消费 is to consume, got it.
Yes.
So 消费者 would be the consumer, and consumer rights in Chinese is it's not only rights, it's like right and the benefit, because is right and the e is benefit.
So right, your rights and your benefits.
Being a consumer, you can enjoy this and that.
Because i think, when it comes to rights yes, you have the right to return things, but you don't necessarily have the right to have a little package as something that you can test to see whether or not you like it, and then you can return the entirety of the product if you don't like it.
But that is a benefit.
Sometimes companies will do that, though.
I've seen that advertised with mattress companies.
Oh really yeah, like you order a mattress, you try it out for a month.
I think i saw one company said try it for a month.
If you don't like it, send it back for a money-back guarantee.
Yes yes, money-back guarantee.
That's a good expression to learn.
But what I'm saying here is because I have bought some snacks and with the huge package of snacks they also delivered a little tiny little tryout package.
And I can try that first, because with snacks only after tasting it would you know whether or not you like it.
So they send the small package first.
No, all together.
You can open the small package.
If you don't like it, you can return the big package.
That's a good idea.
So, in my opinion, rights is something that you're entitled to have, whereas benefit is something that you enjoy because of your position.
And here, as a consumer, in Chinese, we say 消费者权益 because it's the right and the benefit that they're protecting.
Yes.
So.
There are many different types of rights, for sure.
One very basic one would be 知情权.
By the way, this one means the right to be informed.
知 is from 知道, know something.
情 is 情况, situation.
As a consumer, you have the right to be informed about the real situation.
For example if this I don't know Coke is sold to all other people at the price of five yuan and they're selling you with the price of 10 yuan, just because you look like a rich guy.
That's not OK.
Oh, that's a huge issue nowadays, isn't it?
Different pricing on applications.
It's not that drastic, but it could happen.
Yeah.
Would that also apply to marketing, I wonder?
For example, not that long ago on Roundtable, we were talking about toothpaste.
And I think there was an American company. that had advertised their packaging as recyclable.
But the big issue was is that, even though technically technically technically, it was recyclable in most major areas of the United States, cities and counties and what have you the recycling plants were unable to recycle that particular material?
So the issue was, is that the consumers felt like they were being misled.
Oh, I want to know this word too, misled.
Because it said recycled.
That led them to believe they could throw it away with their regular recycling, if you see what I mean.
I do.
And I think so.
This also falls into the category of 知情权.
Consumers do have the right to know.
And it also falls into the category of 虚假宣传.
虚假 means fake or falseful.
宣传 is advertising or doing promotion.
Okay, so if you are 虚假宣传, then you must be misleading the consumers as well.
And mislead would be 误导.
误 is from 错误, so a mistake.
And 导 is 诱导, to lead, so literally mislead.
Yes, 误导消费者, you're misleading the consumers.
I think misleading is like I am saying only part of the truth and I'm letting you on a little.
I don't lie directly.
But Xu Jiaxuan tries definitely like you do not have this function, but you say you do.
And that's why I bought the book. product.
And with that reason I can totally refund everything and maybe even get a certain kind of compensation.
Yeah, it's not full on lying, but it's a form of lying somehow.
Yes.
So that's why we're teaching both misleading and that would be falseful advertising.
I feel that way when I see foods and the package says like zero fat.
And I know that's true, right?
But sometimes what that can also mean is there's a ton of sugar in here.
Do you know what I mean?
It's not misleading.
It's just somehow, right?
They're just telling you what they want to tell you without showing you the whole picture.
In that case, what you can do is to use or to resort to another right as a consumer.
That would be 监督批评权.
监督 means to supervise.
And the 批评 means to criticize, is from.
That is your right, so you do have a right to complain about it.
You can say yes, i know you're not lying, but if you're putting the zero fat sign or advertising word on your package with a huge font and very eye-catching color, then you should make sure you also put the a lot of sugar on it as well, so you're not misleading consumers.
Perfect, what about when you go to?
Well, this could happen online or offline, And you go to a restaurant and the picture that they show you maybe it's a, I don't know a dumpling.
And it's this gorgeous dumpling.
It looks very full and fluffy and delicious.
And then when you get it, it's this little tiny misshapen product.
You know what would be the scenario that I imagine that? fits perfectly to your description.
Instant noodles.
Why?
Because usually when I see advertisement of instant noodles, you see the very green fresh vegetable and you see huge chunk of meat.
But it's just that little.
The reason that it's hard to point fingers at that kind of advertisement or really use your 监督批评权 to supervise and criticize, is that now the merchants out there, the sellers out there, they would always, always say this is for your understanding of what's inside, not exactly what the product would look like.
They will have that disclaimer in the advertisement.
Not very obvious but definitely not like totally neglectable place, just to you know.
Make sure that you understand what is happening.
There was one place in China that got into a little bit of hot water.
I think it was down south and they had advertised kind of like this winter wonderland and the pictures they showed were like a lot of snow around and things like that.
And when the customers went, it turned out that it was fake snow.
And the place.
Yeah, it was false advertising, which is the next term that I want to know.
And people were very upset.
So that turned out to be a kind of false advertising as well.
Yes, yes, for sure.
To be honest, I think these ones are relatively not that serious ones, in the sense that if you compare them with the fact that certain product might be fake, certain food or snack or any kind of food related product that are produced in the place that is not up to standard with hygiene requirements,
Or the ingredients themselves are expired, they're not healthy, they're not safe.
These would be the major issue.
And the reason that we're not seeing.
Well, I don't think I can claim that such situation is no longer possible, common or no longer even exist here in China.
But definitely I do think the country is doing what it can to curb these kind of situation, especially in the food security area and also definitely in other aspects.
And one very interesting way of doing that you won't imagine is that we even have a gala that is called the March 15th Gala 315 Wanhui.
I've never heard of it.
It's not really a gala gala because it does not celebrate anything.
It's more like a TV program that has a lot of different little shows in a way, but each show, instead of making it entertaining, it's very informing.
They tell you a little story of how media professionals, a reporter or a TV program goes into.
It tells you how a reporter or a certain investigative journalist team goes into a factory or find out the truth about a certain manufacturing site.
Yeah, these like hidden camera things.
Yes, and they found out the truth of it and they 曝光.
曝光 would mean expose, expose the situation and make sure that the related parties, no matter if it's the factory itself, the company or even local government, if any local government is involved should take responsibility of those issues.
And usually you would find all those stories quite Stunning.
And the the show is a little bit the gala is like a true crime story.
Yeah.
We have these in in America and Canada, too.
Yeah.
I always they're fun to watch, actually.
Yeah.
The secret camera and then, you know, the business owner or whoever it is, they get caught.
And yeah, it's very dramatic, isn't it?
It's very dramatic, but the purpose of it is to reveal the real situation in even some relatively bigger companies, so that people would know which one they can trust.
And also during the process, something interesting happens.
I think something also very informing can happen is that they'll tell you how to tell the right ones from the fake ones, and maybe even how to choose a certain product and to know that it has not been wrongly or wrongfully processed so that it can the expire date can last longer, or something like that.
Yeah, like if you have a fake bottle of something and a real bottle of something and they look almost identical.
There are little giveaways to kind of give you a hint on what's real and what isn't.
I think those shows, yeah, they're great for consumers.
They're great for...
But they also serve as a deterrent, I think, to the companies or potential lawbreakers when they see these shows and they think, oh OK, we can't get away with that.
I guess.
And also for them if their competitors are not doing the same thing.
If the competitors are buying the cheap ingredient with bad quality, it's also not fair for them.
So definitely these kind of activities, these kind of investigation is good for the development of the entire market.
Yeah, 100%.
And I can say too that whenever there's any kind of complaint that i might have and if you consider all the packages that i've ordered, compared to the number of complaints, the complaints would be less than one percent, i think but still, whenever i have a complaint, customer service is immediate in their response.
That is because if you make the complaint not to the seller, not to the e-commerce platform, but to other supervising parties, to related departments, it can be quite severe.
So to start with, complain would be 投诉.
Complain can also be translated as 抱怨, but 抱怨 is more like I'm complaining this to my friend.
Whereas if you are filing a complaint, then it's more official and it's 投诉.
投 cares the meaning of put something in.
So you're filing it.
And the 诉 is even like a lawsuit or suing someone can use this character as well.
So 投诉 would be a much more official term.
So 投诉 is to complain.
Is that a verb or is that a noun?
A complaint?
Both.
Oh, okay.
It can be used.
And 投诉者 would be a person who complains a lot?
People You don't want to be a 投诉者 at the office.
It's not a term like 消费者, but if you say 投诉者, Chinese people would be able to know what you're talking about.
Okay.
And at the very beginning, because we mentioned the 315 or March the 15th gala, the gala happens at that day because March the 15th is 消费者权益日, so it is the Consumer Rights Protection Day.
National Complainers Day.
Yes.
No, it's not about that.
But I'm joking.
I'm joking.
Sure.
And I think for the first couple of years we focused more on 打假 to crack down on the counterfeits, like how to tell the real ones from the fake ones.
Like Steve mentioned, two bottles of products, those area.
But with the development of e-commerce platform, with the development of the shipping industry, the cold chain industry, there are more information about e-commerce, Certain product being not up to standard.
They claim they use real fruit, but somehow they use pickled fruit or fruit in jars.
Something like this is also justified as a show material for the gala.
Yeah.
So we mentioned there are entities, there are third parties that are supervising the situation of consumer rights protection.
And the first one would be the China Consumers Association.
And that is 中国消费者协会.
So 消费者 we know is consumer.
协会 is association.
消费者协会.
And then what do they do?
They are in charge of almost everything.
You as a consumer, as long as you want to file a complaint, you can file it to them.
So when you complain on your application say, if you order something from one of the bigger platforms and you talk to customer service, are you talking to the seller?
Are you talking to the delivery person?
Are you talking to the platform?
You can choose.
Oh.
You can choose.
You can choose to talk to either party if you know who you're complaining to.
But if you don't, because in certain occasions you don't know who's to blame. in that case you can also talk to all of them oh very easy and there's also a hotline one two three one five that's one two plus the consumer rights day number right right that is a platform that is the national consumer complaint hotline and online platform so you can either call them Or find the website to file your complaint.
Interesting.
I didn't know on the platform you could choose to whom you would like to complain about.
You could also use my strategy keep clicking buttons until somebody responds, and then complain to them.
Yes, that would work too.
And you don't know who you're complaining to.
But you can get your problem solved.
Just for those who live in China what advice would you give if you do have a parcel delivery problem?
Should you talk to the seller?
Should you talk to the platform?
What would you do first?
Usually, I would talk to the delivery guy.
Because sometimes it's just a package that they are having a little bit problem with.
And if the delivery guy is sure about there's no package existing or the seller didn't really ship out the package or something, we can then talk to the seller.
And if the seller ignores you, which is not that common, still, you can talk to the platform.
Understood.
So that's like the hierarchy of complaints.
In my world.
Right.
In my world.
That's a good message.
That's a good tip for life in China.
Yes.
So that's.
I think it has something to do with the consumer empowerment that has been happening for all these years.
We talked about people going into.
Oh, can I share with you one of my favorite stories of the 315 gala, 315 Wanhui.
It has nothing to do with the company.
The company is definitely violating consumer rights.
And I think they're embezzling in a certain way because the company is related to a certain service and you have to pay up front for the service, something like that.
But I do not remember exactly what did the company do.
What got my attention was the fact that reporter they got into the company because Like, they got a job there.
They got a job there.
And because they need the book, they need all the account information of the company to make sure that they're doing something wrong.
So this really talented person, this really talented reporter, spent two or three years in the company and got into management position and then earn more than a million yuan a year.
And finally, he got the proof he needs.
And he reported back to his supervisor back in the media.
He gave away the million yuan job.
And went back to a reporter's salary.
Yes, yes.
That's so cool.
And I think at the very beginning stage, at least the first one year, one and a half year, he must have done a lot of things that Contributed to the thing that he was uncovering.
No, I was not trying to say that.
I was trying to say that he must work really hard in the company so that he can get promoted.
Sure, yeah.
I mean, that's almost unbelievable.
It's an awesome story.
It really is.
I mean, I hope that that person was awarded or promoted somehow.
Me too, me too. how serious we look at the issue, especially as an investigative journalist.
And also the fact that this, no matter if it's the 315 晚会 or the 消费者权, either the date or the gala.
Now in the society, in the market, we have this 315 effect, which means that it triggers an immediate official response.
Authorities would often make sure that the related company would start investigating themselves and related department would investigate the company and compensations would go into place really fast.
And with that in place, the deterrent effect would definitely make the entirety of the development of the market, of the industries, better and better.
You cannot get away.
You don't know if your high-level manager is a reporter.
Yeah.
And it also shows that they take it very, very seriously.
Yes.
But we have to admit, in this day and age, because we have more and more different types of goods, different types of services, different platforms for doing business,
Definitely, there can be certain loopholes that we didn't yet notice.
There can be certain problems that only exist because new form of consuming is emerging.
And it takes a lot of courage, even wisdom to find these problems to solve these problems and to 保护消费者权益, protect the rights and benefits of the consumers.
We live in a place where there's a lot of consuming.
Yes, and as a consumer, you can also file a complaint or you can always 监督 and the 批评 and make sure that you know you're also helping the industry to develop.
Yeah, you're contributing to the betterment of society.
And that brings us to the end of today's Takeaway Chinese.
Thank you so much for listening.
Have you ever filed a complaint in any fun stories you've watched on the 315 Gala?
Please let us know in the comment area.
感谢收听,我们下次再见!
谢谢!
See you next time!
