juanisaac
- 2010-12-10
Very well said about your appraisal of the Chinese business (non)ethic. In China, the signing of a contract does not mean the end of negotiations, but merely the start. I once met a business man from the U.S. who has built a few factories in Jiangsu. He started doing business here since the early 80's. He goes by Ronald Reagan's advice "trust by verify." He comes to China every few months to make sure the Chinese aren't changing things on him.
I tell my students in China that whatever opinions or negative thoughts they have about foreigners to keep those things to themselves. Chinese are wary about keeping face with eachother, but foreigners are fair game whether in Mandarin or the English language. The problem with China is that they just left Mao's 30 year experiment of Communism with an ethic's vacuum. They are now returning to who they were in the past minus the Confucian ethical standards that they no longer know.
I tell people in the U.S. that China will be a world power, but not a super-power to the same extent as the U.S., the former Soviet Union, or even pre-World War France. The reason this country is important is because there are so many of them, everything is en-masse. The culture is too corrupt, the education system has serious flaws, not to mention how more countries are going against buying Chinese made products. People who have not been in country point to the number of science degrees being given out or the massive factories still being built here. But once I have been here, you see that people do give China more credit than it deserves. China is going now through its own Gilded Age. I don't trust 80% of the people I meet in China.
Sanguine
- 2010-11-22
I see this also, this "might makes right" attitude, in this case numbers equals might. Chinese have a lot of odd notions. For example, many believe Chinese is the next great international language, and will replace English accordingly. They don't stop to look deeper at how very different their language is, and that it shares little in common with almost any other language, hence it being the next international language is unlikely. They also believe their country will be the next economic super power in a very short period of time. I'm not sure if the way their government is set up will make this a real possibility. Too much incompetence, too much corruption, too poor an education system.
Chinese may think their might lies in their numbers, but in truth that is very old world thinking. The world has changed in the last century or two, not it is innovation, imagination, and the technological break throughs that come with these things that make a country mighty. Numbers don't really matter so much any more. If they did, China with it's huge population would already be on top, as they were centuries ago.
In truth such beliefs as well as the Chinese sense of entitlement, where they believe it is OK for them to go and live anywhere else, but don't you dare think about settling in their country, comes from extreme ignorance, and arrogance. They could do to learn a thing or two from western countries, but their arrogance, and ignorance, brought about by years of blind nationalism and being cut off from the rest of the world, just won't allow that to happen. Immigrate to America, Immigrate to Canada, but don't you dare as a westerner think about doing the same, you've got it too good to be allowed to do that. Only we poor Chinese are allowed to do that. What a crock of s@@@.