Today we’re revisiting the topic of contracts versus hétong. There’s rich territory to explore here. I was recently revisiting Lin Yutang’s classic book, My Country and My People, and it spurred some more thinking on this issue. I’ve quoted from the book before: it was Lin Yutang who referred to China as “a nation of individualists” [...]

Speaking of contracts and hétong, how exactly are they different? The differences have been the source of endless trouble in relationships between Chinese and Western organizations, with Westerners leveling accusations of dishonesty at the Chinese, and the Chinese chiding Westerners for their inflexibility.

If you want the take-home message of this post, just read the last paragraph. If you want the dirty details, read on. The question at the end of the last post looks innocent enough: Are there human rights in China? Given everything we discussed about how language works, though, it seems we’re treading on very [...]

Shifting gears today from the psychological to the linguistic. It’s hard to talk about the importance of words without sounding trite — a testament to the privileged place of language in our human-ness. The problem is that we can get ourselves into trouble if we’re not clear about what we mean by “word.”