Intercultural sensitivity is not natural. It is not part of our primate past, nor has it characterized most of human history. Cross-cultural contact usually has been accompanied by bloodshed, oppression, or genocide. (Milton Bennett, “Towards Ethnorelativism: A developmental model of intercultural sensitivity.” In M. Paige (Ed.) Education for the Intercultural Experience. Yarmouth, ME: Intercultural Press, 1993, p. 21)

Bennett’s agenda in saying this isn’t to have us throw in the intercultural towel and give up on getting along. His point is to help us understand the scope and scale of the obstacles we humans confront in the task of getting along, so that we can get better at it — in much the same way as a coach, in order to be effective, has to point to a player’s shortcomings.

The above quote leads off Bennett’s most famous article. The “developmental model” referred to in the title has since become one of the industry standards in intercultural communication. Here we’ll take look at the ethnocentric side of the model.

Bennett argues that, as human beings spend more time in intercultural environments, they trace out a roughly predictable developmental path. He divides the path into six stages, the first three of which are “ethnocentric” and the latter three of which are “ethnorelative.” Here is how the stages are represented:

The ethnocentric side of the diagram is defined as “assuming that the worldview of one’s own culture is central to all reality.” (30) Stage 1, Denial, is the most basic form of ethnocentrism: no other groups even exist that are worthy of attention. In a world as interconnected as our is in the 21st century, it’s hard to maintain this illusion. The only way to do it, really, is through “denial” in the psychological sense: pretending that something doesn’t exist, even when it should be obvious that it does exist. One example is the ways in which expatriate communities isolate themselves from their surroundings, trying to create, for example, a “little America” on the outskirts of Beijing.

Defense/reversal is stage 2. In pure Denial, the non-existence of the “other” means there is no threat. In Defense, there is open acknowledgment of difference, and along with it a sense of threat. We defend ourselves against the threat by insisting that “our way” is better. Denigration is the hallmark of the Defense stage.

Reversal, the mirror image of Defense, occurs when we denigrate our own culture, having become immersed in another culture which we have decided is superior. This happens frequently with Peace Corps volunteers, according to Bennett.

Minimization, stage 3, is further along the developmental path, because not only is cultural difference recognized, but it is no longer denigrated. What unites all humanity is put at the forefront; cultural differences are presumed to be less important that what we all share.

You may ask: Why is this still considered ethnocentric? Bennett points out that a kind of universalism underpins this viewpoint, and that universalism might not be shared by all cultures. Bennett puts it this way: “…in general, people who have experienced cultural oppression are wary of the ‘liberal’ assumption of common humanity. Too often, the assumption has meant ‘be like me.’” (42). In other words, we might think we’re all one big, shiny, happy human family, but beneath the surface are some more sinister, ethnocentric tendencies in ourselves that we are pretending don’t exist, but without which we wouldn’t be claiming that “we’re all the same.” The sentiment that “we’re all the same” sounds much better if “they” are the same as “we,” but not vice versa.

When using Bennett’s ideas in my consulting work, I usually focus on Defense, because I see it as the default state of humanity. Most of us spend enough time exposed to those with obviously different beliefs from us that we can’t be in Denial, and Minimization won’t hold up to scrutiny on most days. So on bad days, or in bad weeks or months, we end up in Defense…a lot.

Have you spent much time around Western expatriates living in developing countries? I’ve been one for a good part of my life, and I can tell you firsthand that I’ve spent a lot of energy complaining about how “they” do things here, and that I’ve heard plenty of the same from other Westerners around me, most of whom I like and respect a lot as human beings. We’re not bad people for wishing “they” were more like “us”; we’re just standard-issue human beings stuck, for however long—hours, days, weeks—in a stunted stage of intercultural development.

Bennett is clear that he doesn’t intend his model to describe the static state of any single human being. Each of us at any given moment can find ourselves in any of the stages. What we want, and what we work for, is a steady, stubborn push toward the right side of the diagram.

I’ll take up ethnorelativism next time.

In guilt cultures, such as the United States, behavior is internally and individually regulated through fear of judgment by some form of deity. Punishment for transgressions could come in this life or after death.

One aspect of the psychology of members of guilt cultures is that there is no freedom from internal assessments of actions and possible actions. In a shame culture, as long as a person is reasonably sure of not being caught, there can be some measure of peace of mind. In a guilt culture, no such luck: God is always watching, assessing, judging, and ultimately, we fear, punishing.

This gives tremendous energy and power to our thoughts: if God knows even our thoughts, then “bad” thoughts alone can be grounds for punishment, as in Jimmy Carter’s famous quote in his 1976 interview with Playboy magazine:

The Bible says, “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” Christ said, I tell you that anyone who looks on a woman with lust has in his heart already committed adultery. I’ve looked on a lot of women with lust. I’ve committed adultery in my heart many times.…This is something that God recognizes, that I will do and have done, and God forgives me for it.

The former President believes he has been forgiven, but the fact that he has to say so only provides further evidence for the belief that unsavory thoughts alone can be punished.

The knowability of our thoughts by a perceived omniscient deity has a significant consequence when it comes to answering questions like the Rich Person question: it matters not only what we might and should do, but also what we might and should think about what we might and should do.

Two of the American interviewees address this at length:

E-9 A common answer to this question would be, you should give to charity, you know, but there’s the problem of, if someone goes to help somebody while if they help them, you know if someone goes to a soup kitchen or something like that to help out and serves them food, no matter what their motives are in doing so, the person gets to eat, right?

E-10 Right.

E-9 But you know then there is the idea that if you go there with the idea that you’re helping them only so that you can feel good, that’s not necessarily the best idea, versus if you go there with the intent of helping someone.

E-10 Sincerely help.

E-9 Right.  So I have a rich godfather who is highly rich and gives a lot of his money to charity, but he always tells me, he’s an absolute capitalist and he thinks I’m not exactly, I don’t know I’m not really a socialist, but we always have this discussion and he tells me that, I’m not bad, and, capitalists aren’t bad, see I give my money away.  And so, I don’t know.  I believe they should give it away, but the motives behind it…

E-10 Yeah, yeah.  I don’t know, it’s like they justify all their bad things by giving away part of something and not, I don’t know, there’s no sincerity in it.

E-9 I mean that’s not good, however…

E-10 It does help someone.

E-9 It helps someone yeah.

E-10 I don’t know.  Well like this question though, it’s not the motive for doing whatever, it’s what you should do with your money.

E-9 Yeah, but I mean, what I’m saying is, what you should do with your money is, in theory you should give it to charity…

E-10 But do it for a good reason.

E-9 But do it for a good reason, and if you don’t do it for a good reason, like I was just saying, should you do it or not? So, if the person’s motives are good, then they should definitely give them to charity.  If their motives are not good then I think maybe I don’t know, maybe you should give it to charity, maybe you should be selfish with it. I mean you’re being selfish anyways, I don’t know exactly what a person with bad intent should do with their money.

As an American I can understand and appreciate the logic here. Hypocrisy is awful. Intentions should match words, which in turn should match deeds. It makes complete sense.

On the other hand, I’m offended by the logic: at the end of the day, if someone has food in their belly, or a roof over their head, what does it matter what the intentions are of the person who provided the food or shelter?

The tension between these two logic systems is palpable in the discussion. We saw another version of this tension earlier, in the American fascination with the “should”s of giving away or not giving away money, or of moving or not moving the tree that is blocking the road. This last discussion is probably the most extreme example of how God, or whatever invisible entity we imagine to be judging us, is constantly in the background, influencing our choices, and our evaluations of our choices. This is an American obsession.

If a person is rich, what should he/she do with his/her money?

How would you respond to this question? If yours is typical of any of the American responses, then:

1. You probably have some fairly clear ideas about how this rich person should use his or her money.
2. These ideas have something to do with the public good: donating to good causes, setting up foundations, investing in technologies to better the world.
3. Despite the clarity of your preferences, you feel uneasy stating them too strongly, for fear that, were you the rich person, you’re not sure you’d do what that real you is saying the hypothetical rich you should do. Nobody likes a hypocrite.

The following, rather long, excerpt contains a number of gems:

E-13 Okay, this is “should” and not “would,” so…I think the person should give a large chunk of his money to some kind of charity. Not just one charity, but different charities, ’cause I think there’s a lot of people who are living in poverty, not just in the U.S. There’s a lot of people in third-world countries who don’t get anything, you know.  And, I think, just out of philanthropy, you know?

E-14 Yeah.  I don’t necessarily agree with this, but a lot of rich people believe that once they’ve made their money it’s theirs and they have no obligation to give it to anybody.

E-13 But this is should…

E-14 Should.

E-13 Not would.

E-14 Yes.

E-13 If we were talking would, people would not do that.

E-14 But do you think that?  Do you think that if they’ve earned their money, they shouldn’t…

E-13 No no, I’m not saying they should give all their money away.  I think what you earn is, yeah, you earned it, right?  But then you should give back to the society.  And you should give to people who don’t have much because they’re not as fortunate as you.  They don’t have those capabilities.  They’re not in the same situation as you.  So I think people should give back to the society.

E-14 I agree.

E-13 Like do something, like make a foundation, or a charity.

E-14 Just put it where it’s needed.

E-13 Yeah.  A lot of people do say, yeah, I earned the money, so I should keep it, but really what are you gonna do with all that money?  You’re just gonna spend it on yourself. That’s so selfish.  But then again if I were in that position I don’t know what I’d do.

E-14 Yeah.

E-13 It’d be…it’s easy to say…

E-14 Yeah, see, everybody says, this person should give it to charity, they should donate it, but that’s not what people do.

I don’t know if I ever had an actual conversation with another American that went like this, but I’m certain I had internal dialogs that went like this. In fact, every time I’ve enjoyed some windfall, however small, part of me is tortured by the contrast between what I know I “should” do and what I actually end up doing. Even when I can coax some generosity out of myself, it’s often not really generosity, coming as it does from a sense of scarcity, when what I “should” have is gratitude for the great abundance in my life, for God’s grace in even allowing me to live, and on top of that have shelter, food, water, and clothes.

American’s often talk of “giving back to society.” In order to give back, I must have been given something. What have I been given, and by whom? The “what” includes the standard list of things Americans are “supposed” to feel grateful for having. In addition to the basic material comforts, we have freedom of many kinds (to choose our leaders, to pursue our passions, to choose our spouses and where we live) and opportunity (to advance socially and economically, to travel the world, and so on). And probably a lot of other things, depending on whom you ask. None of these are things any of us has earned. And yet we have them.

Which leads us to the “who” question: Who exactly gave us all these things for which we are grateful? We often point to the Founding Fathers, and to all those who have given of themselves to protect what the Founding Fathers founded, including and especially all the veterans of America’s wars. How many times have we heard, “If you love your freedom, thank a vet”?

The story doesn’t end there, though. Another entity is at play here. Who? God. Which brings us back to a place we visited briefly when discussing our imaginary friend Tom’s decision whether or not to join the rock band: civil religion. Who, after all, inspired the Founding Fathers, and so many soldiers? And while many cringed when George W. Bush said it in 2003, just as the war in Iraq was getting underway, it can’t be denied that a deeply American belief system is behind his statement that “Freedom is not America’s gift to the world. It’s God’s gift to humanity.”

God is everywhere in the American mindset, running the show throughout American society and in the thought patterns of America’s people — even, I suspect, atheists. When I say that, I need to point out that I am making a purely ethnographic statement, not a theological one: whether you believe in God or not, you’ve got an uphill battle to fight if you want to claim that something or someone like God isn’t imagined to be operating behind the scenes when we talk about rock-band Tom being “given” his talents, or when we state our upset at not “giving back to society” enough. The “God’s-eye view” dominates the American mindset.

I got exactly what I had expected from the Americans: anger in response to both the Surprise Arrest and Tax Hike questions. In the Chinese population, why was the response to Tax Hike so different from the response to Surprise Arrest?

The question shows my American bias. A simple Chinese answer to the question might be: These two questions are completely different. Why would you even expect that there would be similar responses to the two questions?

Here’s why: because in both questions a wrong is perpetrated by someone in power over someone out of power. And because right is right and wrong is wrong, I would be equally angry about both scenarios. And because I would be equally angry, everybody else should be too.

This string of statements has logical and factual flaws and weaknesses that I didn’t see at the time I was beginning my research. What I didn’t think of at the time:

1. What is considered a “wrong” varies a great deal by culture.
2. What is meant by “someone in power” and “someone out of power” can be construed in many different ways.
3. “Right is right and wrong is wrong” is a highly contestable statement.
4. My own angry feelings would be a poor predictor of how other people would feel, even without culture to complicate matters.

#s 1, 2 and 3 turned out to explain the differences between the Chinese and American responses fairly completely. #4 is generally true, but in this case my intuition that “other people” would be angry was not completely false, given how angrily the Americans responded to both scenarios.

Regarding #s 1-3, I am not going to descend into a post-modern spiral of moral relativism here. That said, I do want to put “right” and “wrong” into a cross-cultural context.

In earlier posts I have at times written about universalism and particularism. Universalist cultures tend to believe in timeless truths holding of all situations; particularist cultures are more likely to take into account the specifics of individual situations. This difference can account for most of the puzzling similarities and differences in the Chinese and U.S. responses to the Surprise Arrest and Tax Hike scenarios.

Fundamentally what is at play here are two starkly divergent default ways of viewing the world. From a typical Chinese perspective, life presents itself as a series of problems to be solved. Ideals may exist, but they are secondary to whatever is the most immediate need. I think of it as a kind of triage: life throws so much at us that we can’t possibly address everything, so let’s figure out what’s really at stake, and put our energies where they are best used. This requires a mastery of detail: if I don’t understand exactly how situations differ, how can I possibly decide which of them are worthy of my time and effort?

In short, life is a series of particular events with particular actors whose actions cause particular consequences for particular people. I can’t be asked to evaluate a scenario unless I know the…particulars.

For Americans, the calculus is different. Americans tend to be more interested in abstractions, and are more willing to engage in abstract discussions, because Americans are fundamentally interested in what is universal, on what unites across difference. The reasons for this are often debated, and range from hard-core “materialist” approaches that view America’s physical environment, especially its abundant land and other resources, as the fundamental determinant, to more nuanced approaches that factor in what the American mindset inherited from European antecedents. (It turns out, for instance, that the Swiss are even more universalist than the Americans.)

Regardless, those who subscribe to the universalist world view will approach the scenarios in a radically different way from how the Chinese do. Instead of richly specific scenarios, Americans see roles, such as perpetrator and victim. Who actually instantiates the roles is of secondary importance; what matters more is that a wrong was committed, and when a wrong is committed, there must be some form of redress.

So let’s pan out and look at Surprise Arrest and Tax hike through these two different lenses. An American will likely see the scenarios as follows:

• Surprise Arrest describes a powerful perpetrator committing a wrong against a powerless victim. The power asymmetry combines with the actual harm to the victim to generate anger, along with calls for strong counter-action.
• Tax Hike describes a powerful perpetrator committing a wrong against a powerless victim. The power asymmetry combines with the actual harm to the victim to generate anger, along with calls for strong counter-action.

When seen through the role-based universalist lens, it’s no surprise that the two scenarios seem essentially identical.

From a Chinese perspective, the scenarios look like this:

• Surprise Arrest describes a specific individual (policeman) committing specific, immediate and tangible harm (physical restraint, deprivation of information) to someone (the arrestee) who has done nothing to deserve this treatment, and whose life is immediately affected in specific ways. Redress by the victim toward the policeman is a logical consequence.
• Tax Hike describes an amorphous and distant group of people (“the government”) taking a somewhat abstract action (passing a law) which will probably harm an amorphous and mostly distant group of people (“society”). The action might harm me or someone I know at some later stage, but it’s not at all clear how severe the harm will be. And besides, no immediate, or even long-term, actions present themselves for the taking: how can “society” punish “the government”?

It’s not that the government’s actions aren’t wrong. The Chinese participants made it clear that they thought it was wrong. Viewed, however, through the particularist lens and its triage approach, Surprise Arrest is bound to draw a lot more ire than Tax Hike. There is potentially much more bang for one’s precious problem-solving buck in redressing the Surprise Arrest scenario than in redressing the Tax Hike scenario.

So, the universalism/particularism split solves the biggest piece of the mystery. But it’s not the whole story.

That said, it’s worth looking at the cause of the annoyance. From a cultural standpoint, the quality in question is self-righteousness. It’s a fine line between self-righteousness and universalism, which I’ve discussed a lot on this blog. I think the link between the two stems from the conflation of two ideas: that there should be a standard worldwide, and that the standard should be our standard, where “we” are a particular cultural group: in this case the U.S. or the West.

When self-righteousness is present, it tends to take over. I become more concerned with how I’m better than you than I am with what you might actually be up to in your life. In fact, it becomes hard for me to hear about what you’re up to in your life, because in my eyes it doesn’t really matter, because you’re not really the kind of person whose actions and interests matter. After all, I’m better than you.

Whether or not this exercise in pop-psych is accurate, it characterizes what I see in much Western media coverage of China, and much of what China novices from the West are curious about when it comes to China. Few Western journalists and publications seem interested in the myriad, and quite concrete and difficult, actions taken by officials, businesspeople and other leaders all across China to improve the lives of the Chinese people. There is much to be learned and gained from a careful study of these efforts. And thankfully it’s not all deficit, as shown by this piece from Time. Here’s a teaser:

Could the world’s lone but weary superpower actually learn something from China? It’s a politically incorrect question, of course. China is an authoritarian nation; its ruling Communist Party deals ruthlessly with any challenge to its hegemony. It remains, relatively speaking, a poor, developing country with huge problems to confront, massive corruption and environmental degradation being Nos. 1 and 1a. Still, this is a moment of humility for the U.S., and China is doing some important things right. If the U.S. were to ask the Chinese what it could learn from their example, it might gain some insight into what it’s doing right and wrong.

Now if I wanted to I could complain about the shock the author seems to be expressing at the very possibility that the U.S. could learn from China, but I’ll refrain. Or not.

Now that I’ve written this thoroughly self-righteous post, feel free to let me have it.

Mr. Obama’s statement also pointedly noted the U.S. belief in the importance of universal human rights that should be enjoyed by “all peoples, and all ethnic and religious minorities,” and called for the Chinese government to resume dialogue with representatives of the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader whom Beijing considers a separatist.

Huh? I thought I was going to be reading about how Hu and Obama are working through their differences across a range of complex issues. Then, out of the blue, this. I expect this type of reporting from the New York Times, not the Wall Street Journal.

Don’t get me wrong. Of course human rights need to be respected. Nothing I write here should be taken to impugn the thinking or writing of anyone working to benefit human beings worldwide. The thing is, there’s no shortage of verbiage in Western newspapers about how China comes up short on human rights, and I expect something different from the WSJ.

I was reminded of a conference I co-hosted in Beijing in 2006. At the time I was directing Stanford University’s study abroad program at Peking University. We were welcoming Stanford students, staff and faculty from Stanford’s centers in Kyoto, Berlin and Washington to participate in a workshop on globalization. It seemed that every other question I got from our guests was something akin to: “What’s up with China and their failure to support freedom, democracy, and human rights?” Unfairly, I found myself annoyed by these questions. To me, there were so many other important topics our guests “should” be interested in. Why obsess about these old, tired questions?

I was prompted to put some thought into why I was bothered, and what this all said about key cultural differences between China and the West. I’ll take this up in the next post, and perhaps beyond.

Here’s what I mean: if I have a universalist orientation, that fact alone can make me insensitive to cultural difference. If I’m universalist, I will tend to believe there’s one set of principles to live by — everywhere in the world. That is a stance that undermines what intercultural sensitivity is all about.

This shows up all over the world when universalists are present. Think of imperialism and colonialism: it’s no accident that the main perpetrators have been nations with largely universalist orientations.

Universalists can be slow to see a need for intercultural consulting, coaching and training. What value could these services possibly add, if things are the same the world over? Or, in a weaker version: if everyone in the world wants the same things?

In his insightful book Business Leadership in China, Frank Gallo offers the following from Yi Min, Director of Global Leadership and Organization Development, Lenovo Group:

[For] foreigners to be successful here, they must understand Chinese culture and learn to incorporate the wisdom from this ancient culture into their business practices. Foreign leaders who just try to impose their Western practices here will be seen as arrogant and foolish and they will not succeed. Quoted in Frank Gallo, Business Leadership in China: How to Blend Best Western Practices with Chinese Wisdom, Singapore: Wiley, 2008, p. 24.

Unfortunately many Westerners do simply assume that there is just one way to manage, and it can be hard to convince them otherwise. Even the top management experts of the West are far from immune, according to Fons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner:

Management gurus like Frederick Taylor, Henri Fayol, Peter Drucker, Mike Hammer, James Champy and Tom Peters have one thing in common: they all gave the impression, consciously or unconsciously, that there was one best way to manage and to organize. (Fons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner, Riding the Waves of Culture: Understanding Diversity in Global Business, Second Edition, New York: McGraw Hill, 1998, pp. 13-14.)

Therefore, if there is one “dimension of culture” for Westerners to identify and work on first, it might be on loosening our default universalist standards in favor of a more particularist perspective, which will open up the possibility for genuine intercultural understanding.

Societies which conduct business have developed two major orientations towards nature. They either believe that they can and should control nature by imposing their will upon it, as in the ancient biblical injunction “multiply and subdue the earth”, or they believe that man is part of nature and must go along with its laws, directions and forces. The first of these orientations we shall describe as inner-directed.…The second [as] outer-directed.… (Fons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner, Riding the Waves of Culture: Understanding Diversity in Global Business, Second Edition, New York: McGraw Hill, 1998, p. 145. Emphasis in original.)

Differences between the U.S. and China show up starkly in responses to the following:

A. What happens to me is my own doing.

B. Sometimes I feel that I do not have enough control over the directions my life is taking.

The percentage of people answering A is 39 for China (second only to Venezuela, at 33) and 82 for the U.S. (fourth highest after Norway (86), Israel (88), and Uruguay (88)). That’s a pretty big difference, and it plays out all across the board when Americans are doing business in China. To take but one major example, see these earlier posts on contracts: it’s hopeless and counterproductive to think we can control the future, which is in essence what a contract seeks to do. This difference also shows up frequently in people’s explanations for why things do or don’t happen.

For instance, one of our children’s caregivers once didn’t show up at a certain place and time to meet our family. Frustrated, I called her to find out what had happened. Her explanation was that “Beijing has a lot of intersections.” How could she be expected to find the right one? Of course my “inner-directed” American brain went nuts, seeing this as merely an excuse, and a lousy one at that.

The problem for the American in China is that our inner-directedness is just one particular way of thinking of things. Be ready for explanations that seem odd, even maddening. Using words like “unaccountable” or “irresponsible” will get you nowhere. Showing anger will only set you back. Instead, work hard to see an outer-directed orientation as a legitimate way of viewing the world, on equal footing with yours.

There are no quick and easy prescriptions here. One thing is certain, though: your chances of success will be much greater if you’re ready for this than if you’re not.

One question asked of participants:

Tom is about to graduate from high school.  He decides he doesn’t want to go to college, despite his parents’ wishes.  Instead, he wants to join a rock band.  What will the family members all say to one another? What will happen in the end?  Who is right?

王二快要高中毕业了。虽然他的父母希望他上大学,但是他不想上大学,想组一个摇滚乐团。你觉得王二会怎么样和他的父母说?他的父母又会怎样反应? 最后他们会决定怎么做? 你会支持哪一边?

The Chinese and American responses differ sharply, with the Americans generally supportive of Tom despite his likely failure, and the Chinese in favor of the parents.

In their reasoning the Americans employ a cultural model I’ve called Follow Your Dreams: humans get one life; each human has unique talents; we are duty-bound to develop and express our talents; therefore Tom has a duty at least to try and be a rock star. One respondent offered up what became my favorite quote in the entire data set: “You have to do what you want to do.”

The Chinese focus more on the likely economic downsides of such an impractical venture. Wáng Èr (Tom’s Chinese alter-ego) can keep rock music as a hobby, but forget about it as a profession.

The question raises deep issues about what a human life is fundamentally about. Per usual, American assumptions that all humans inherently want, even need, to “follow their dreams” at the expense of everything else isn’t as universal or powerful as we might think. There is a lot of cross-cultural pull to following dreams; it just doesn’t rule the roost as decisively as Americans often assume it does.

More on this tomorrow.

A society with a differential mode of association is composed of webs woven out of countless personal relationships. To each knot in these webs is attached a specific ethical principle. For this reason, the traditional moral system was incapable of producing a comprehensive moral concept.…

The degree to which Chinese ethics and laws expand and contract depends on a particular context and how one fits into that context. I have heard quite a few friends denounce corruption, but when their own fathers stole from the public, they not only did not denounce them but even covered up the theft. Moreover, some went so far as to ask their fathers for some of the money made off the graft, even while denouncing corruption in others. When they themselves become corrupt, they can still find comfort in their “capabilities.” In a society characterized by a differential mode of association, this kind of thinking is not contradictory. In such a society, general standards have no utility. The first thing to do is to understand the specific context: Who is the important figure, and what kind of relationship is appropriate with that figure? Only then can one decide the ethical standards to be applied in that context. (From the Soil: The Foundations of Chinese Society: A translation of Fei Xiaotong’s Xiangtu Zhongguo, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992, pp. 78-9. Translated by Gary G. Hamilton and Wang Zheng.)

Westerners in China will fail if you adhere rigidly to your universalist moral standards. If you can’t complexify how you relate to ethics, China is not for you. This emphatically does not mean that you must “sell your soul” or do anything you find repugnant. But it is true that you must consciously and consistently be willing to question many of your most deeply held beliefs, and walk a very fine line between remaining 100% “true to yourself” and doing things you might regret. There are no easy answers. But a bone-deep commitment to success will go a long way toward revealing that fine line and helping you walk it.