Martin Li

    martin.mouse@163.com

    GERMAN Bernhard Haufe says being the vice head of a property owners’ committee in Nanshan District is not an easy job to assume.

    A quality director for a company in Dongguan, Haufe won 125 of the 128 valid votes, mostly by Chinese, in an election in the Mingxigu housing estate in Shekou in April last year. The victory earned Haufe local media attention because he is an expat.

    “The thing that impressed me most [since I was elected] is how much we have talked and written about changes, but how little we have actually achieved in (the past) year,” Haufe told Shenzhen Daily in a recent interview. “These are usually issues between the property management and us on the committee. I am talking here especially about maintenance, car parking, etc. I have to find some method to get more action and less talk,” he said.

    Haufe has been struggling to deal with a parking issue on the property, which he said is a very big problem. “We have fewer parking places than we have apartments. Improving this situation is a big challenge. We are working closely with the property management to get things done,” said Haufe.

    “Of course, we cannot take space away from our children. I believe they have a much higher priority than cars, even if some people think differently. In this case, I have to deal with the Chinese culture. At the moment, we talk and talk about this problem, but no solution is in sight because we have to please everyone. It is difficult,” he said.

    Haufe was invited to the plenary session of the legislature in Nanshan District earlier this year.

    “I was the only expat there, and it was very impressive to see local politics from the inside. It looked like the big congress in Beijing, just not that many people,” he said.

    Haufe said in an interview with Shenzhen Daily after he was elected last year, “If you don’t like the rules, don’t ignore them. Change them … I want to help my community by bringing a different culture into it.”

    In the interview, he said that is his policy and he stands by it, but it is very German.

    “My Chinese friends don’t always agree with me; they keep telling me the Chinese do not work like that. What it requires is rule enforcement, and nobody likes that. We as a committee cannot do it because we have to represent the property owners; the property management cannot do it because they do not want to offend people,” he said.

    “This will be a very slow process and can only be made little bit by little bit. I still have two years to serve on the committee, so there is still hope for me to achieve something. The most important thing is that people agree and are happy,” he said.

    Mingxigu is home to more than 30 foreign households, with residents from Germany, Russia, India and the United States, according to the community committee’s head, surnamed Chen.

    Haufe suggested that Shenzhen should improve communication with expats by having more officials speak English. “Also, more businesses should use international bank cards, like in Hong Kong and many other places in the world do,” he added.