What’s to be done is simply to recognize the thoughts for what they are: automatic, survival-driven, abidingly human creations that serve a purpose in one area of human endeavor — staying alive — but not in the higher human pursuits. A respected colleague of mine once said: “Have compassion for the mechanism.” By “mechanism,” she meant the mental machinery that generates these thoughts. If we can generate compassion for that part of ourselves, and see the mechanism for what it is, then it doesn’t have to run the show anymore. Which is the punchline to this discussion: Only once you’ve become aware of the nature of your mind’s automatic mechanism, and shaken hands with it, will you be maximally free to choose what to think.

There may be times in your China dealings when you’re best served by thinking of the Chinese as utterly different from you. You may, for instance, be reminding yourself of the necessity of questioning your familiar, Western perspective on things, in order to adapt appropriately to China. There may also be times when you’re best served by thinking of the Chinese as absolutely identical to you: imagining the woman across the table from you as a wife and mother, just like you, could be the key to understanding her perspective — even if you don’t share it — thus opening the door to moving an agreement forward.

The trick to the whole thing — usually not easy, but easier with practice — is to continually ground yourself in your own freedom to choose what to think, and therefore how to act. Westerners are up against a lot of automated reactions in our encounters with China, so the task is formidable. But the work is well worth doing. I suspect you’ll find that its rewards will not stay confined to the China realm, but will spill over into other areas of your life.

True as that is, we still often miss out on how much is to be gained by laying bare our “naked truths” in all their ugliness. Robert Louis Stevenson once said that everyone has “thoughts that would shame hell.” Some are more tuned in to these thoughts than are others, but they are there nonetheless. What I find most unnerving about this is what it means for what human beings do, since our thoughts, conscious and unconscious, guide our actions. I believe a great deal about the current state of the world is attributable to our automatic, sometimes hell-inspired thought mechanisms ruling the roost and running amok, steering us along destructive paths of action, all unbeknownst to us.

It also follows logically that one of the ways intercultural consultants can best serve our clients is by creating ways for them to safely access, express, and reflect on their underlying thinking in all its beauty and ugliness. For yourself, right now: What are some of your stereotypes of China and of Chinese people? Take a few minutes to write them down. Give yourself freedom to get as ugly as you need to get to be true to your thinking.

Try to avoid the temptation of thinking that you’re a horrible person: your ugly thoughts are nothing more than an expression of your deepest humanity. In that ugliness we are truly united across all cultures.

Now, what to do with all that thinking? I’ll take that up in future posts.

I am caricaturing a bit here. Still, the point is central to everything having to do with intercultural understanding: if we don’t understand our own, deep-seated, culturally-conditioned automatic reactions to difference, we cut off all chance of meaningful connection with those whom we perceive as different from us.

One of the few absolute certainties I have found in life is that people will react strongly to difference. Everyone. It’s in the deepest core of our animal being. And thank goodness we do: it’s the ability to make snap judgments that, as we evolved, allowed us to survive a host of dangers in a nasty, competitive world. Now we find ourselves in an ever-more interdependent world, and those reactions, while always present, may not always serve us in our pursuits. The question is: How will you handle it when you react?

The key to the whole thing is seeing that you’re reacting, so that you know what you’re dealing with. Only then are you able to choose how much to listen to your reaction, and how much to listen to the inner voices that reflect your higher nature.

How will you react to your Chinese partners’ and counterparts’ behavior? How strong will your reactions be? What about those of your team? Will you have the fleetness of mind to shift on the fly, so that you can get back to business and make something amazing happen with your Chinese colleagues?

This is a fundamental human struggle. Doing business in China will have you on the front lines every day. A challenge worth relishing.