In response to Cultural Stereotypes: The Evil Arrogant Foreigner (Chris Morgan)

i believe that the prejudice plays a major role in many chinese minds when they are "judging" foreigners. often they know little about most of the foreign countries as their education is fairly limited in that sense. social sciences aren't taught and dare i say aren't allowed to be taught on mainland. international schools have to "hide" the subject's name under a variety of names such as communication skills etc which brings me to our OP's quote below

communication styles (West: Speaker must make clear their message / East: Listener must discern the meaning of the message even if it is not stated)

that's where the trouble comes from. in china, i've been charged by a few locals that I AM TOO DIRECT and so i am rude. my observation is that chinese mostly send and do everything they can to send only positive messages when communicating. virtually any negativity is considered for arrogant and/or disrespectful. then, constructive criticizm is not acceptable at work most of the time and especially with superiors just about anywhere in china. imagine how many of us are "guilty" of the above mentioned.

the question really raises out of this; should we change when working in china? my answer would be NO for the ones that teach english and especially social sciences or as my company's head office calls it "communication skills" to just confuse the hell out of the local educational officals that little idea what i am really teaching. the reason being is that if the locals want to learn another language such as english, then they should follow the culture of the language as well. in other words, they should accept the way we "communicate". however, if we come to help them build their nuclear power plants, or open foreign branches of shops etc, then my answer to the above question would be YES for our behavioural adjustment with regards to communcations.

cheers and beers to the chinese that've been forced to store 1000s of english words in their heads without being told what to do with them as well as cheers and beers to their chinglish teachers that keep on teaching how EVIL and ARROGANT FOREIGNERS are