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/2009/07/31/in-chinese-terms/ http://www.jasonpatent.com/2009/07/31/in-chinese-terms/#comments Fri, 31 Jul 2009 09:19:29 +0000 Jason Patent http://jasonpatent.wordpress.com/?p=41 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 unsteady ground here: if we can’t even say that cup and bēizi mean “the same thing,” how can we begin to unravel the complexities of human rights and what a Chinese “equivalent” might be?

Just as with cup, with human rights we forget the separation between form and meaning. We forget thathuman rights is not some abstract, freely floating concept that applies identically the world over. Human rights, rather, is a pairing of form and meaning that is specific to the English language. The form is the sound string (represented in IPA as /hjuːmən ɹai̯ts/) and the meaning is the full set of concepts and images associated with the sound string.

The term human rights exists in the English language. And just as there is a rich set of meanings associated with the English sound string, there is also a rich set of meanings associated with its “nearest” Chinese “equivalent,” rénquán (人权). What we have to keep reminding ourselves of is that human rights and rénquánare not “the same thing.” English has human rights; Chinese has rénquán. The two sets of concepts are related, but not identical.

Some have asked me: Does that mean that the Chinese don’t have the concept of human rights? My answer is: Yes, only to the extent that Americans don’t have the concept of rénquán.

So: Language is not just form (sound), and not just meaning (concepts), but the pairing of form and meaning. Because our native language is so natural to us we forget that the concepts in our native language are not universal. So we naturally assume that other languages encode the same concepts as our native language. And since culture consists of shared concepts, it follows that by default we expect that other cultures will be the same as ours.

What does this mean for you, for us? It means that, as Westerners engaged with China, we need as thorough an understanding as we can get of key Chinese concepts in the Chinese language. In English we have the word contract; in Chinese we have hétong (合同). You can throw out a lot of what you understand a contract to be, because the Chinese don’t know from contracts; they know from hétong. If you want to succeed in China, you’d best know what the Chinese are thinking of when they use the word hétong, because that’s what they’re operating from in their negotiations with you.

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.”

Language is about the relationship between form and meaning. By “form” I mean something perceptible, tangible. In the case of spoken language, “form” means a stream of sound, which the language-comprehending mind breaks up into smaller pieces called phonemes.

There is a way of representing the sounds of any spoken language, independent of the world’s writing systems. It’s called the International Phonetic Alphabet, or IPA. The English word cup, for instance, is written /kʌp/, with the “wedge” symbol, /ʌ/, representing the short “u” sound. Each IPA symbol represents a phoneme.

As children grow into native English speakers, they learn to associate the form, or sound string, /kʌp/, with a set of meanings having to do with drinking beverages, and with other things. Consider:

• coffee cup
• cup your hands
• brassiere cup
• half a cup of sugar
• the putt missed the cup

This gets at just a small sampling of the rich set of meanings and images associated with the English sound string /kʌp/.

Now the trouble: When we use the word word, are we referring to the form or to the meaning? Depending on the context, it could be either or both. An example of word referring to just the form would be: “The English word cup consists of three phonemes.” Here there is no reference to meaning; just to sound.

Word can also refer to form-plus-meaning, as in: “No language has yet been found that doesn’t have a word for cup.” Here word refers to the combination of form and meaning.

The trouble starts when we treat words as if they were meanings and only meanings, with no form. Consider this sentence:

The Chinese word for cup is bēizi.

In this sentence “cup” could only refer to the meaning or meanings associated with the English-language form /kʌp/. Why? Because we all know, or can at least guess, that whatever the Chinese word is for “cup,” it isn’t pronounced /kʌp/. So “cup” must be referring to meaning alone, not form. We might paraphrase the sentence as, “The Chinese form that is paired with the same meaning as the English form ‘cup’ is bēizi.”

Now we’re in trouble, because bēizi and cup are in fact not paired with “the same meaning.” First, bēizicovers a broader range, including what English refers to using the word glass. Second, images of Chinesebēizi will differ from images of English cup: “teacups” look different, you might not see a “coffee cup” in some parts of China, and there are some types of bēizi you wouldn’t see in the U.S., like the special kind ofbēizi used for toasting with hard liquor.

At this point you might object that cup and bēizi are “close enough” that we shouldn’t be bothered by all this. Fair enough. If intercultural communication were limited to such simple categories, it might not be worth all the trouble.

But what do we do questions like this:

Are there human rights in China?

We’ll take that up next time.

Suppose a citizen is walking down the street one day when the police arrest him. They don’t tell him why; they simply arrest him and keep him locked up for three days before letting him go. He has done nothing illegal. What will this person think? What will this person do?

Take a minute or so to think about it. Then, consider this:

The government passes a law doubling the income tax without consulting the citizens. Is the government right to do this? What would citizens say? What would they do? What should they do?

Do your reactions to the two scenarios differ? If so, how?

Americans tend to react to both scenarios with anger. They see the scenarios as analogous: in both cases a wrong has been perpetrated by the government against a citizen or citizens, and injustice demands an angry response.

Chinese respondents see the two scenarios (Chinese versions here) as fundamentally different kinds of incidents. The surprise arrest gets people angry, as it does with the Americans. But the tax hike is greeted with blasé resignation: there’s not much we can do about it, so why get all worked up?

Americans see in binary terms: black and white, good and evil, right and wrong. Universal principles hold over particular situations. Chinese are more likely to consider the specifics of a situation and make decisions based on those.

Woe to the American who tries to do business in China from up on a moral high horse. Get the dirty details, understand them, and adapt to them. If you don’t, the most you’ll have to show for your efforts is maybe a smirk of self-righteousness — but I doubt that’s what you came to China for.

Consider, if you will, this scenario:

The Smiths are a three-person family living in the United States:  Mom, Dad, and their 17-year-old son Bill.  Mom and Dad both work full-time jobs for similar salaries.  Mom wants to buy a new car and give the old one to Bill; Dad thinks their current car will last several more years, and doesn’t think they should waste money on a new car. What will they all say to one another? What will happen in the end?  Who is right?

How do you answer? Chances are that if you’re American you will answer differently than if you’re Chinese. (If you want to see the Chinese version of this scenario, please click here. What makes the Chinese and English versions of this scenario “equivalents” of each other is a conversation unto itself…)

When I came up with this scenario I expected American and Chinese to answer differently, but not in the ways they ended up answering. I assumed the differences would show up in the “results”: I thought that since China is “patriarchal,” Dad would win; in the “democratic” and “consumerist” U.S., Dad would lose.

Therein lies the peril of taking useful generalizations a bit too far. Rather than in the results, the differences showed up in the process. The Americans emphasized discussion; the Chinese introduced me to a term I had never before heard: “shuo le suan” (说了算). The idea is that one member of a couple — it could be the husband or the wife — over time develops a certain authority in family matters. Few ventured to guess whose wishes would be followed, but there was a lot of certainty that whosever opinion carried the day, it would be because of this authority, and the matter would be settled quickly.

By the way, up above I wrote “…Dad would win…” and “…Dad would lose…” I am showing my American stripes in my choice of framing. American interview participants overwhelmingly use win and lose in their discussions; the Chinese equivalents, ying (赢) and shu (输) don’t make a single appearance.

Views on the family tend to show up everywhere, including the board room. What makes for “winning” and “losing” impacts how we see our partners and counterparts. If your organization is doing business in China, you’ll want to know all the ins and outs.