Tom is about to graduate from high school. He decides he doesn’t want to go to college, despite his parents’ wishes. Instead, he wants to join a rock band. What will the family members all say to one another? What will happen in the end? Who is right?

To overgeneralize: if you are an educated American, you probably have some sympathy for Tom, and you may even think he should go for it and forget his parents’ advice, even though you also think he will probably fail. You may think that he should pursue his dream; you may even think that he must pursue his dream, if he has truly been given a rare talent. You may believe that no matter what his parents say or do, they will not and cannot change Tom: he needs to learn lessons on his own, even if they are hard lessons, even if he suffers. His life is his to make, and the most valuable lessons are the ones learned through direct experience.

When I was a graduate student in linguistics doing research for my dissertation, I asked this question to several pairs of U.S.-born, native-English-speaking people. I also translated the question into Chinese and posed it to pairs of China-born, native-Chinese-speaking people. (The native dialects of the Chinese interviewees varied, but, being educated, all spoke Mandarin with great ease.) The summary I just offered of possible American views reflects a standard set of “cultural models” which my American interviewees turned to consistently in discussing this scenario.

Brief terminological aside: “cultural model” is a quasi-technical term used by scholars at the margins of linguistics, anthropology and psychology. Essentially it refers to an idealized notion of how the world works or should work. If I go to a restaurant and my server asks me to fill out a deposit slip or endorse a check, I will be surprised because the question violates my mental “model” of how restaurants should work. These models are called “cultural” because they are shared: I can reasonably expect my restaurant companions to be equally surprised about the server’s actions.

The cultural models that make up the “standard” Chinese view of the rock band question diverge sharply from the American cultural models. Before describing the “standard” Chinese view, though, I need to stop for a moment and address a concern that I hear every time I present my research. The concern is usually expressed as a statement like, “But that’s not how I think,” or “That’s not how it would go in my family.” My response is not to quote statistics, because I have none to offer. Instead, I say: Absolutely. No one person is going to follow the “standard” line entirely. I certainly don’t. The “standard” view I’m referring to is an approximation or aggregation, based on responses from interviewees, and, in the years since the research, on countless conversations with Americans and Chinese on the topic. The analysis will not stand up to rigorous scientific scrutiny; no social science research ever can, no matter how many statistics are quoted. It is by nature inexact, because the subjects, human beings, are by nature inexact.

The “standard” Chinese view (I’ll now stop “scare-quoting” the term) differs radically from the standard American view. Tom — or, more properly, his Chinese alter ego Wang Er — has an opportunity to receive an education. Fewer things are more valuable than this opportunity, because in an overpopulated world, competition is intense, resources are scarce, and you need every edge you can get. Wang Er’s parents are absolutely right to insist that he go to college. Nothing is stopping Wang Er from pursuing music as a hobby. But his focus should be on studying hard and getting a solid, reputable job upon graduating. Not only will this set up Wang Er and his family with a strong economic foundation to guard against future calamity, but everyone will look good too and gain the respect of those around them.

Fei, whom we heard from once before, spent academic year 1943-44 in the United States, during the closing phase of World War II. He observed that America is a “land without ghosts,” which became the title of a collection of essays by Chinese visitors to the U.S. (Land Without Ghosts: Chinese Impressions of America from the Mid-Nineteenth Century to the Present, ed. R. David Arkush and Leo O. Lee, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1989). His own childhood, filled with ghosts, stood in stark contrast to ghostless America. He wrote:

How could a ghost gain a foothold in American cities? People move about like the tide, unable to form permanent ties with places, to say nothing of other people.…

Outside the family there is certainly much social intercourse, but dealings with people are always in terms of appointments. On my office desk is an appointment calendar marked in fifteen-minute intervals with a space for a person’s name beside each. Apart from business there are various kinds of gatherings, but if you go to one you will find it is no more than social pleasantries: a few words with this person, a few words with that one — it is hard even to remember their names. I cannot say all Americans pass their lives like this. But I once asked a fairly close acquaintance how many friends he had whom he could drop in on at any time without a previous engagement. Counting on his fingers, he did not fill one hand.…

…[Americans'] movements are so easy and they have contacts with so many people, that there seldom comes about the kind of relationship I had with my grandmother, living interdependently for a long time, repeating the same scenes, so that these scenes came to seem an inalterable natural order. Always being on the move dilutes the ties between people and dissolves the ghosts.…

In a world without ghosts, life is free and easy. American eyes can gaze straight ahead. But still I think they lack something and I do not envy their lives. (pp. 179-181)

If we combine this with the notion, from last Friday’s post, that culture goes extremely deep within us, we get a picture of Americans as thoroughly conditioned to form a certain kind of fleeting relationship with a great many individuals over a lifetime. We will naturally import these habits into our dealings with China, and this gets us into trouble.

In 1971, anthropologist Francis Hsu published the intimidatingly titled “Psychosocial Homeostasis and Jen: Conceptual Tools for Advancing Psychological Anthropology” (American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 73, No. 1, pp. 23-44). In the essay he sketches out a model for understanding differences between the psychologies of Chinese and Westerners.

He uses this image (p. 25) to make his point:

Hsu places special emphasis on Layer 3:

The need for Layer 3 is literally as important as his requirement for food, water and air. This is what basically gives the individual his sense of well being. Sudden loss of inhabitants in Layer 3 may be so traumatic as to lead to aimlessness and to suicide. (p. 29)

Hsu goes on to claim that through the development of intimate family ties, the Chinese have an abundance of Layer 3 companions, leading to “psychosocial homeostasis” — a state of relative stability and contentment.

He contrasts this with Westerners, whom he sees as having few people in their Layer 3. Instead, most Westerners have a relatively rich Layer 1 and Layer 2, and they will recruit people into their Layer 3. The problem is that these relationships are naturally unstable; as a result, Westerners have difficulty populating their Layer 3, leading to a general lack of psychosocial homeostasis. Hsu claims many effects of this, including the Western need to conquer.

While the claims may be a bit grandiose, I’ve found this a useful framework. What I like most about Hsu’s model is that it gives us something more concrete and explanatory than a broad cover term like “collectivism.” It’s not just that “Chinese are group-minded.” It’s more nuanced than that, and Hsu shows us how. The model also seems to explain a number of Chinese behaviors that I found confusing when I first arrived in China. I could never understand why, for instance, nobody seemed to do anything alone. Didn’t they value their personal time? And why wouldn’t they leave me alone when I was shooting baskets late in the evening? I deduced that for the Chinese, “alone” meant “lonely.”

In the intervening years I’ve gained much more appreciation for the Chinese love of company. When in China I’m still pulled at times by my automatic American hermiting instincts. But when I can push through those, the rewards of the human connection are great and enduring. This is a lesson for all of us from the West who have business in China.

]]> http://www.jasonpatent.com/2009/09/17/ph-balance/feed/ 6 http://www.jasonpatent.com/2009/09/16/now-thats-what-i-call-individualism/ http://www.jasonpatent.com/2009/09/16/now-thats-what-i-call-individualism/#comments Thu, 17 Sep 2009 01:25:10 +0000 Jason Patent http://www.jasonpatent.com/?p=799 On an email list I subscribe to, we’ve been discussing stereotypes, and how Americans often conflate “generalization” with “stereotype,” leading to a reluctance to talk about groups at all, for fear of dishonoring individuality. Back when I was designing a research project several years ago, I wanted to look into differing ways Chinese and Americans had of thinking and talking about racial categories. Given my experience in China of people freely sharing their opinions about the traits of China’s ethnic groups, I felt free to ask whatever I wanted. So I created a question in Chinese. Back-translated into English, it goes:

China is a multi-ethnic country, consisting of Han, Mongolian, Hui, Tibetan, and many other ethnic minorities. Do you believe that the abilities and natures of all ethnic groups are the same?

中国是一个多民族国家,象汉,蒙,回,藏,以及各个少数民族。你觉得每个民族的能力和天性都一样吗?

As I expected, these (highly educated) natives of China dove right into China’s different ethnic groups and all the stereotypes that are commonly held about the groups.

With the Americans I felt the need for kid gloves. It’s just not okay to be explicit about racial stereotypes in the U.S., or even to admit their existence — especially on a college campus. So instead of translating the Chinese question into English, I came up with a new, very different question in English:

There are stereotypes about certain ethnic groups in the United States. Some claim, for instance, that because few African Americans play volleyball, that this says something about abilities possessed by certain ethnic groups. Is there any truth to such stereotypes?

It’s almost painful to read. It feels like I’m literally walking on eggshells, carrying a tray of the finest crystal champagne glasses filled to the rim with Dom Pérignon. And sure enough, even with this ginger wording, the Americans were halting and hesitant in their discussions. For example:

A: Each person has talents that they can contribute to a body.

B: Right. More of an individualist…instead of having a broad label of being a part of a certain ethnic group, it’s more that each person brings a certain set of skills or interests to the table.

A: Yeah, and that each one is unique, not that we have to include everyone in every particular aspect of life, because that’s not where each individual person fits.

B: The way to look at it would be, you know, to basically, to break away this whole concept of the ethnic group. You’d have to look at people as having their own separate sense of values, or each individual as having a sense of special value, or interests. Everyone’s different in that sense, yeah.

I’ve written plenty about individualism, and I’ve called into question the sacred cow that Americans are “individualist” and Chinese are “collectivist.” Here, though, I think there’s a lot of validity to the claim that Americans are “individualist.” It’s meant in a very specific sense: the American belief — faith, really — that each human being has something unique to contribute to the world, and that this uniqueness must be honored (see also earlier posts on dreams). This sense of individualism is so strong that, as we can see from the excerpt, even the notion of group membership can be deemed offensive.

Now, there are all sorts of issues that come up as far as the eggshells go, and the equating of “stereotype” with “generalization.” That’s worth addressing another time.

]]> http://www.jasonpatent.com/2009/09/16/now-thats-what-i-call-individualism/feed/ 0 http://www.jasonpatent.com/2009/09/09/the-blind-pursuit-of-happiness/ http://www.jasonpatent.com/2009/09/09/the-blind-pursuit-of-happiness/#comments Wed, 09 Sep 2009 20:40:58 +0000 Jason Patent http://www.jasonpatent.com/?p=722 When doing business in China, sometimes the most “obvious” things can trip us up the worst. In his classic book Beijing Jeep, Jim Mann tells the long tale of American Motors Corporation’s Jeep-building joint venture in Beijing, including many an anecdote with cultural lessons. One such lesson involved Ed Schulze, head of production and maintenance at Beijing Jeep.

Two years into his tenure, Schulze recommended reducing the work week for Chinese workers from six days to five. In an internal memo, he reasoned: “The employees will gain more time for their housework and still have time for rest and social activities.” (p. 257)

From an American perspective it’s easy to see the appeal: reduced costs from one more idle day per week, plus rested and rejuvenated workers. Why wouldn’t workers want more time away from the factory, to do “housework,” pariticipate in “social activities,” and such?

It turns out there were plenty of reasons Schulze’s proposal didn’t fly, and was never implemented. Here we’ll take a look at one major cultural factor.

Deep in our American bones is a belief that, when we’re not consumed with life’s usually unpleasant necessities like work, we should be off doing fun, fulfilling things — in short, pursuing happiness, just like the Declaration of Independence says is our unalienable right.

People the world over want happiness; there’s nothing particularly American about that. What sets Americans apart is our quasi-religious belief in our right to pursue happiness, and our often absolute prioritization of the pursuit of happiness over other things.

In China other concerns often take precedence. I’ve already looked at this in earlier posts on following dreams. Pursuing happiness is closely related to this; the stakes are just lower than they are with dreams, because we aren’t talking about the entire purpose of someone’s life.

In the case of Beijing Jeep, Jim Mann’s own words best capture the cultural miscalculation. Schulze’s proposal “recommended for China the American ideal of regularly alternating hard work and leisure.” (p. 258) To an American it’s natural to assume this ideal; to the Chinese workers and management, there were countless practical obstacles, including the factory being thrown off kilter with other Chinese factories (all of which were at that time on a six-day work week), and calling, in Mann’s words, “for fundamental changes in the entire rhythm of Chinese life.” (p. 258)

Beyond some frustration on the part of Ed Schulze, the repercussions for Beijing Jeep were minimal. It’s not hard to imagine other scenarios, though, where a cultural miscalculation like this could cost real time, money and goodwill. It’s crucial that we remain mindful of our own cultural assumptions and their impact on our success.

Money doesn’t get wasted either. Many have talked about how the Chinese consumer is the great hope for pulling the world out of recession, yet savings rates remain around 50%. In local markets, buyers and sellers haggle over every last fēn.

I could give other examples. The point I’m driving at is that one fundamental difference in default modes of Chinese and American thinking is scarcity versus abundance. I like this frame because it seems to explain quite a few otherwise mysterious differences between Chinese and American culture.

For instance, in earlier posts I addressed what seemed to be an extreme form of individualism in China, compared to a more collectivist bent in the U.S. — exactly the opposite of what we’re usually told. If instead we view those differences through the lens of scarcity and abundance, the mystery disappears: in an unpredictable, harsh, and crowded world, it’s best to keep your head down and hold on to your stuff. And to make use of every opportunity to generate resources for yourself. In contrast, an open frontier of limitless possibility means people can afford to be a little looser in how they disburse their treasure.

The scarcity-versus-abundance frame also explains a lot about guānxi, with the resource in question being goodwill. Americans tend to see goodwill in almost infinite terms: “what goes around comes around.” The default Chinese mindset is a zero-sum affair: I do something for you, you owe me — and vice versa.

I remember well my first lesson in this. It was my first year in China — academic year 1991-92, in the industrial Northeastern city of Qiqihar. I was teaching English at what was then Qiqihar Light Industry Institute. One of my classes consisted of all the Institute’s English teachers. Sitting in my apartment one day, I heard a knock: Cecilia, one of the English teachers. She had told me she wanted to be published in the U.S.; I had mentioned to her that my mother was an author.

When I answered the door the first thing I noticed was that she was holding a fancy box. She led me down the hallway and into an empty room. Out of the box she gingerly lifted a pure white nightie. She said it was for my mother. I could see the writing on the wall: accept the nightie and be duty-bound to get her published.

I said I couldn’t accept it. She replied bluntly: “That means you won’t help me.” Which launched me into a meta-discussion about cultural difference which, while I didn’t think of it this way or put it this way at the time, was all about the abundance of goodwill in American culture. I would definitely help her, I explained, and didn’t need anything in return. A bit stunned, and skeptical, she seemed to be willing to accept this possibility. (I now think back on that conversation as my first as an intercultural consultant.)

As with any useful-seeming “explanation,” we need to be careful about assigning the scarcity–abundance frame too much importance. At the same time, it’s a good one to add to our toolkit in puzzling through what makes Chinese and American culture what they are.

In case you’re thinking, “I’m not religious,” or “I’m not spiritual,” you’re still not off the hook. Sociologist Robert Bellah famously studied what he termed American Civil Religion: a set of religiously-based beliefs shared by Americans of all religious and non-religious stripes. These beliefs — about many things, including our duties toward our fellow humans, as well as the uniqueness of human life and the need to “express ourselves” and develop our talents — provide the energy behind much of the language used by the Americans in my research.

In America you don’t mess with someone’s dreams. Dreams may be impractical, far-fetched, pie-in-the-sky. But dismiss them and you’re in trouble.

“Dreams,” in the default case in Chinese culture, don’t carry the same charge — as evidenced in the Chinese discussion of the rock band question, discussed in yesterday’s post. One respondent referred to Wáng Èr’s music as a “hobby” (兴趣爱好) that he could pursue after college; another participant said — and stick with me here if you don’t read Chinese — 我觉得每一个人还是要follow自己的heart.” Do you see the English in there? I translate the sentence as: “I think every person should follow their own heart.” After being admonished by her partner for using English, she “translates” back into Chinese: “还是应该坚持自己的想法吧”: “[They] should maintain their opinions.” The flavor of dreams is completely missing without the English.

Now, I’m not claiming that the language of dreams in English “can’t be translated into Chinese.” There are much closer translations in Chinese for the language of dreams than the language chosen by this one participant. And I’m certainly not claiming that thinking in terms of dreams isn’t done in Chinese: if it weren’t, why would the respondent have said what she said, namely that every person should follow their heart?

What I find interesting about her approach, though, is that she felt pulled to use English, and that the first “translation” into Chinese that she thought of was that one, about maintaining opinions, which is so devoid of the spirit of following one’s heart.

Dreams are alive and well in China. I would argue that dreaming big dreams is as much a part of our humanity as anything. Still, default modes of thinking and reasoning about dreams in the U.S. and in China are strikingly different. And so we need, as always, to take care in what we assume our Chinese counterparts and partners are thinking.

One question asked of participants:

Tom is about to graduate from high school.  He decides he doesn’t want to go to college, despite his parents’ wishes.  Instead, he wants to join a rock band.  What will the family members all say to one another? What will happen in the end?  Who is right?

王二快要高中毕业了。虽然他的父母希望他上大学,但是他不想上大学,想组一个摇滚乐团。你觉得王二会怎么样和他的父母说?他的父母又会怎样反应? 最后他们会决定怎么做? 你会支持哪一边?

The Chinese and American responses differ sharply, with the Americans generally supportive of Tom despite his likely failure, and the Chinese in favor of the parents.

In their reasoning the Americans employ a cultural model I’ve called Follow Your Dreams: humans get one life; each human has unique talents; we are duty-bound to develop and express our talents; therefore Tom has a duty at least to try and be a rock star. One respondent offered up what became my favorite quote in the entire data set: “You have to do what you want to do.”

The Chinese focus more on the likely economic downsides of such an impractical venture. Wáng Èr (Tom’s Chinese alter-ego) can keep rock music as a hobby, but forget about it as a profession.

The question raises deep issues about what a human life is fundamentally about. Per usual, American assumptions that all humans inherently want, even need, to “follow their dreams” at the expense of everything else isn’t as universal or powerful as we might think. There is a lot of cross-cultural pull to following dreams; it just doesn’t rule the roost as decisively as Americans often assume it does.

More on this tomorrow.

Today, a bit more building on last week’s discussion of “individualism.” This time not my thoughts, but those of Lin Yutang, one of the most famous interpreters of China to the West.

His most famous book in the West is My Country and My People. He wrote it in 1935, before the full occupation of China by the Japanese, before the rest of World War II, before the Communist revolution and Mao Zedong and the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution and Deng Xiaoping and Tian’anmen and Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao. He wrote the book in English, after having lived in the U.S. for several years. Nobody before or since has written with such clarity and wit about fundamental aspects of Chinese society.

He kicks off Chapter Six, “Social and Political Life,” like this:

The Chinese are a nation of individualists. They are family-minded, not social-minded, and the family mind is only a form of magnified selfishness. It is curious that the word “society” does not exist as an idea in Chinese thought.…

“Public spirit” is a new term, so is “civic consciousness,” and so is “social service.” There are no such commodities in China. To be sure, there are “social affairs,” such as weddings, funerals, and birthday celebrations and Buddhistic processions and annual festivals. But the things which make up English and American social life, viz. sport, politics and religion, are conspicuously absent.…They play games, to be sure, but these games are characteristic of Chinese individualism.…Teamwork is unknown. In Chinese card games, each man plays for himself. (Lin Yutang, My Country and My People, Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 2000 [orig. 1935], p. 169)

To me this rings a lot of bells around Chinese responses to the “fallen tree” question: it’s not about “right” and “wrong”; it’s about getting my truck where it needs to go. And with the “rich person” question, recall for a moment the interviewees who commented that the question is too general, and that we can only ask what you would do with your money. Lin Yutang writes: “To a Chinese, social work always looks like ‘meddling with other people’s business.’” (p. 171)

Of course this is one man’s opinion. All grain-of-salt warnings remain in force. At the same time, this was a particularly insightful person.

And he’s not alone. Observers East and West, as well as a great many social scientists (chiefly psychologists, but also anthropologists and linguists), have provided further evidence for an enduring Chinese mindset roughly along the lines sketched out here by Lin, and echoed in my research.

For your own China explorations, thinking of China as “collectivist” and the West as “individualist” is helpful, as far as it goes. Maximizing your success in China requires that you go further. The more you’re able to nuance your view of the Chinese cultural mindset, and how it relates to the U.S. and the West, the better off you’ll be.

In their own words:

Universalist, or rule-based, behavior tends to be abstract. Try crossing the street when the light is red in a very rule-based society like Switzerland or Germany. Even if there is no traffic, you will still be frowned at.…There is a fear that once you start to make exceptions for illegal conduct the system will collapse.

Particularist judgments focus on the exceptional nature of present circumstances. The person is not “a citizen” but my friend, brother, husband, child or person of unique importance to me, with special claims on my love or my hatred. I must therefore sustain, protect or discount this person no matter what the rules say.

Business people from both societies will tend to think each other corrupt. A universalist will say of particularists, “they cannot be trusted because they will always help their friends” and a particularist, conversely, will say of universalist, “you cannot trust them; they would not even help a friend.” (taken from Fons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner, Riding the Waves of Culture, 2^nd Edition, 1998, pp. 31-32.

In a survey distributed to tens of thousands of managers worldwide, the following question was asked, in order to probe this distinction (from pp. 33-34):

You are riding in a car driven by a close friend. He hits a pedestrian. You know he was going at least 35 miles per hour in an area of the city where the maximum allowed speed is 20 miles per hour. There are no witnesses. His lawyer says that if you testify under oath that he was only driving 20 miles per hour it may save him from serious consequences.

What right has your friend to expect you to protect him?

1a            My friend has a definite right as a friend to expect me to testify to the lower figure.

1b            He has some right as a friend to expect me to testify to the lower figure.

1c            He has no right as a friend to expect me to testify to the lower figure.

What do you think you would do in view of the obligations of a sworn witness and the obligation to your friend?

1d            Testify that he was going 20 miles an hour.

1e            Not testify that he was going 20 miles an hour.

It’s a tough question. The title of this post is taken from the title of another book by Trompenaars. People from particularist cultures have asked if the pedestrian died, in order to help them think through their response — though it’s hard for a hardcore universalist to see why it would matter.

Responses to the scenario were aggregated from national cultures the world over, with 100 representing 100% of respondents from that culture choosing c or b + e. In other words, the higher the number, the more universalist. China comes in at 47, the U.S. at 93. Of the 31 cultures listed, only four are more particularist than China (Venezuela, Nepal, South Korea, Russia), and only one (Switzerland) is more universalist than the U.S.

With the usual caveats about too-broad brush strokes, this is a stark finding. It sets a rich and fraught stage for Chinese and Americans to do business together. It fits in well with many of my research findings, discussed in previous posts (look under the Cultural Models category), as well as with observations I’ve made earlier about contracts/hétong. It touches so many aspects of the differences between American and Chinese cultural mindsets that it’s hard to overstate its significance.

And it’s in an area where nerves can be raw: deeply-held beliefs about loyalty and principle. This is where our leadership will be most direly tested, and where we need to be most on guard for our automatic reactions winning the day. Definitely time to breathe deeply, detach, and refocus on why you’re in China in the first place.