Beautiful Smile, Miss Attorney. Show Me The Steel Teeth.

Beautiful people everywhere are more successful, and that applies in a corrupt Chinese law firm like Zhong Lun, too. However, the difference is that in China, beauty only gets you into the gate, and to really make a lot of money you need beauty and connections.

ZHANG XUEBING: UGLY BUT POWERFUL

Nobody would accuse my law firm’s managing partner of winning his business because of his beauty. Zhang Xuebing is a politician, short and ugly, and with a deep voice and confidence of a winner.

HU RONGUI: KNOCKOUT LOOKS AND MEAN

But, the list that follows him on the website include people who look better than he does, and the most beautiful of all is Hu Rongui. Check out her photo above– she’s a knockout, eh fellows? She even looks better face to face, I want you to know.

Lawyer Hu has what it takes to succeed in China: a great smile, dimples, good skin, and she’s just plain sexy. And, frankly, that and the fact that her husband works for a government ministry where he has the power to approve, or disapprove, Japanese foreign investment makes her a powerful lady.

Indeed, I’ve learned that in a Chinese law firm, beauty only gets you so far. There are plenty of beautiful women here, I’m delighted to say. I mean, I’m single, love to practice speaking Chinese, and need something to do in the evenings. But the difference is that the beauties scattered around the firm in small desks are paid peanuts, usually about US$300 per month, and have no prospect of rising.

By contrast, beautiful lawyer Hu has already earned the mother load. She’s rich, and her sugar daddy husband holds the stamp of life if your Japanese company wants to put down some real estate roots in a suburb of Beijing.

I’ve learned this bit of inside information by teaching English to the firm’s young interns every day. Some work for her, and they complain: this lady is not only wicked, but ignorant wicked, the worst type of wicked. She’s yell at you for problems that didn’t exist, and then later realize that there was no reason to yell.

I didn’t really pick up on her scent until one day last week the firm’s management assigned her to be my watchdog. Specifically, they wanted to make sure that they have the contact information for each and every foreign client I serve. But, to be able to get that information, they needed to assign someone to me who is reliable and reasonably well-organized, and beautiful lawyer Hu is neither.

The first day we met, she looked up at my on a visit to my office, and said,

“You know, you are not a Chinese lawyer, so you need to make sure you bring Chinese lawyers to each of your client meetings.”
My instinctive reply was to add that, in fact, the Chinese lawyers at Zhong Lun that I’d worked with in the previous 18 months were less competent that a high school student back in Washington, DC, where I’m from. Instead, I said,

“Yes, lawyer Hu. That’s exactly what I’ll do.”

So, that’s the starting point for my interaction with Lawyer Hu. She arrives at my desk, throws pointless orders at me, and I agree and then ignore her. God forbid she ever raise her voice to me, or yell at me. Worse yet, she might one day realize the only reason to speak with her is because she’s pleasant to look out, but intolerable to hear.