The original Chinese Esquire series referenced in the Time piece is here (in Chinese only). It seems Chinese Esquire is using the power of dreams, along with fashion photography, to narrate a thoroughly modern Chinese man.

This kind of “modernity” highlights the shift, in certain young and “fashionable” circles in China, to a more future-based orientation. Dreams are by definition grounded in the future. The “pragmatic” aspects of Chinese culture in which we find resistance to dreams are, in contrast, based in the past: long and bitter experience has shown that the whims of the world can and do thwart the best of human intention and effort.

In an earlier post I wrote of Hoftede’s concept of “time orientation.” I mention it here because the drag of China’s deep past upon dreams can be formidable. And still we have the portraits in Chinese Esquire of China’s modern dreamers. No wonder so many Westerners return from China scratching their heads at the contradictions and the complexity. And while what I’m about to say is to some degree true of every place, and while I’m not nearly the first to say it, China defies all our efforts to put it into tidy boxes.

In essence time orientation has to do with patience: how quickly do we expect results? The higher the score, the longer-term the time orientation.

Here the difference between the U.S. and China is staggering. The U.S. comes in at 29. China is literally off the charts at 118. (The 100-point scale had been fixed before the Chinese data came in.)

Apocryphal or not, there’s a famous story that tells this tale perfectly. It goes like this: In 1972, when Nixon was visiting China, one day he was strolling the grounds of the Forbidden City with Premier Zhou Enlai. Kissinger had told Nixon that Zhou was an avid student of French history. Looking to make conversation, Nixon asked: “What has been the effect of the French Revolution on Western civilization?” Zhou’s answer: “It’s too early to tell.”

If you’ve never visited China, it’s hard to convey just how thoroughly this deeply long-term orientation permeates the culture. The sense it leaves is that “We’ve seen it all before. We’ve been here 5,000 years, and we’ll be here 5,000 more.” Contrast this with the get-it-now mentality in the U.S., and you’ll begin to see how vast this discrepancy truly is.

Neither way is better than the other. But the yawning gap demands our attention. So many woes of Americans doing business in China have stemmed from a failure to understand this one dimension.

Perish any thoughts of a “fast buck” in China. It’s just not going to happen. Gird yourself for the long haul. Discipline yourself to be patient. Only then do you stand a realistic chance of success in China.