Today we turn to another great interpreter of China, anthropologist Fei Xiaotong. In his Classic From the Soil (乡土中国 Xiāngtǔ Zhōngguó), first published in Chinese in 1947, he writes of the “differential mode of association” in the Chinese cultural mindset. He contrasts this explicitly with a more Western, universalist mode, and ends up sketching the [...]

First things first: please read this piece by David Dayton. It’s a great read and extremely informative, plus it brings to life a number of themes addressed in this blog. 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 [...]

Yesterday and the day before we took a look at Chinese and American responses to scenarios about a fallen tree and a hypothetical rich person. Besides the lessons about the differences between abstract American moralism versus concrete Chinese practicality, there is, once again, also a lesson for us about oversimplifying.

One thing we need to watch carefully as we move through Hofstede’s research: cultural dimensions aretendencies and only tendencies. Hofstede himself is emphatic about this. Any individual in any culture could show up anywhere on any dimension. Think of the dimensions as statistical generalizations: road maps with enough detail to get you where you need [...]