"A classic must-read for everyone coming to work or live in China." - Shelley Warner and Tony Voutas, cross-cultural trainers and founders of Asia Pacific Access Ltd, China China is in the midst of unprecedented economic and cultural growth. In the last decade alone, China joined the World Trade Organization, hosted the 2008 Olympics and experienced a remarkable, record-high increase in its foreign currency reserves. As these changes unfold, frequency of contact between the Chinese and Westerners is dramatically increasing in the office, the classroom and the home. With thought-provoking glimpses into history and tradition, Encountering the Chinese provides fundamental information on Chinese cultural norms and values, giving clear context for contemporary social standards. Readers will learn the etiquette necessary to build successful personal and professional relationships with the Chinese both inside and outside the People's Republic of China. This revised edition of Encountering the Chinese also explains how Chinese values are changing rapidly-and why it is more important than ever to keep up. For instance, compliments, once declined out of modesty, are now widely accepted in coastal cities; and some terms of address that were proper to use only a decade ago have grown offensive. Encountering the Chinese provides invaluable insight into the diverse and changing Chinese culture.
In the West, Harvard philosopher Michael Sandel is a thinker of unusual prominence. In China, he’s a phenomenon, greeted by vast crowds. China Daily reports that he has acquired a popularity “usually reserved for Hollywood movie stars.” China Newsweek declared him the “most influential foreign figure” of the year. In Sandel the Chinese have found a guide through the ethical dilemmas created by the nation’s swift embrace of a market economy—a guide whose communitarian ideas resonate with aspects of China’s own rich and ancient philosophical traditions. Chinese citizens often describe a sense that, in sprinting ahead, they have bounded past whatever barriers once held back the forces of corruption and moral disregard. The market economy has lifted millions from poverty but done little to define ultimate goals for individuals or the nation. Is the market all there is? In this context, Sandel’s charismatic, interactive lecturing style, which roots moral philosophy in real-world scenarios, has found an audience struggling with questions of their responsibility to one another. Encountering China brings together leading experts in Confucian and Daoist thought to explore the connections and tensions revealed in this unlikely episode of Chinese engagement with the West. The result is a profound examination of diverse ideas about the self, justice, community, gender, and public good. With a foreword by Evan Osnos that considers Sandel’s fame and the state of moral dialogue in China, the book will itself be a major contribution to the debates that Sandel sparks in East and West alike.
The text studies how various Western, Japanese, and Chinese businesses struggled with the persistent dilemma in China of how to retain control over corporate hierachies while adapting to dramatic changes in Chinese society, politics and foreign affairs from 1880-1937.
As the economic and diplomatic climates in China have changed, Chinese and Americans are interacting with each other more and more. Encountering the Chinese: A Guide for Americans presents a straightforward, practical and sensitive cross-cultural analysis of a complex culture and people. Authors Hu Wenzhong and Cornelius Grove provide a comprehensive cross-cultural guide to Chinese cultural, along with insights on how best to communicate and interact with Chinese people in both business and social contexts.Encountering the Chinese provides fundamental information on basic Chinese values and cultural norms, identifying cross-cultural factors that often lead to failed business negotiations and misunderstandings. The advice and skills in this book enable Westerners and the Chinese to establish more effective and rewarding relationships, inside and outside of the People's Republic of China.Encountering the Chinese is an insightful book with the practical cross-cultural analysis of Chinese culture. The book's intention is to decrease anxiety and make things easier for Americans interacting with Chinese. It is neatly structured, and the language is kept as simple as possible with a friendly tone.-Hongmei Pang, visiting scholar, Department of Applied Linguistics and ESL at Georgia State UniversityEncountering the Chinese literally transformed my life. You see, when I first arrived in Taiyuan (Shanxi Province), China, I never expected to have a tremendous culture shock-I thought I was 'prepared' to live in China, but just the opposite happened. I was looking for any excuse to return home to my comfortable life in Mexico. Fortunately, an American friend lent me a book that helped her adapt to China, [Encountering the Chinese].The book became my companion, as I read it every day for about a month. It helped me understand the aspects of daily life that I was experiencing . . . [T]hanks to my gradual understanding of Chinese culture, I became interested in China and decided to make this country my home. [T]hank you for sharing your experiences in the book. I am sure that it has made a difference in many other expatriates' lives who are now living in China! It definitely changed mine.-Victor Garza, Dragon International Communication Consulting, Hangzhou, ChinaContentsAcknowledgmentsPrefaceIntroduction to the Second EditionIntroduction to the First Edition1 A Brief Background to the Chinese Way of LifePart I: Advice for Americans Interacting with the Chinese2 Chinese Titles and Forms of Address3 Greetings, Conversations, and Farewells4 Chinese-Style Dining5 Appointments, Visiting, and Time Use6 Chinese Modesty and Humility7 Making Friends with the Chinese8 Education and Training Among the Chinese9 Negotiating and Institutional Decision Making10 The Concept of Face in Chinese-American InteractionPart II: Advice for Americans Living and Working in the PRCAppendix A: Glossary of Chinese TermsAppendix B: Chinese Titles and Forms of AddressRecommended Readings
This unique book is the first to bring together a group of influential China experts to reflect on their cultural and social encounters while travelling and living in the People’s Republic. Filling an important gap, it allows scholars, journalists, and businesspeople to reflect on their personal memories of China. Private experiences—vivid and often entirely unanticipated—often teach more about how a society actually works than a planned course of study can. Such experiences can also expose the sometimes naïve misconceptions visitors often bring with them to China. China experts relate stories that are always interesting but also more: they tell not just anecdotes but telling anecdotes. Why are there no campus maps? (Because, if you don’t know where you’re going and why, you don’t need to be here.) What’s the allure of Mickey Mouse? (He could break all sorts of rules and get away with it.) What’s a sworn brother in China? (Somebody who fights for your honor even when you’re not looking.) Covering nearly a half-century from 1971 to the present, these stories open a vivid window on a rapidly evolving China and on the zigzag learning curve of the China trippers themselves.
Encountering China addresses the responses of early modern travelers to China who, awed by the wealth and sophistication of the society they encountered, attempted primarily to build bridges, to explore similarities, and to emulate the Chinese, though they were also critical of some local traditions and practices. Contributors engage critically with travelogues, treating them not just as occasional sources of historical information but as primary, literary texts deeply revelatory of the world they describe. Contributors reach back to the earliest European writings available on China in an effort to broaden and nuance our understanding of European contact with the Middle Kingdom in the early modern period. While the primary focus of these essays is the external gaze – European sources about China – contributors also tease out aspects of the Chinese world-view of the time, thus generating a conversation between Chinese literary and historical texts and European ones.
In 1989, Bill Porter, having spent much of his life studying and translating Chinese religious and philosophical texts, began to wonder if the Buddhist hermit tradition still existed in China. At the time, it was believed that the Cultural Revolution had dealt a lethal blow to all religions in China, destroying countless temples and shrines, and forcibly returning thousands of monks and nuns to a lay life. But when Porter travels to the Chungnan mountains — the historical refuge of ancient hermits — he discovers that the hermit tradition is very much alive, as dozens of monks and nuns continue to lead solitary lives in quiet contemplation of their faith deep in the mountains. Part travelogue, part history, part sociology, and part religious study, this record of extraordinary journeys to an unknown China sheds light on a phenomenon unparalleled in the West. Porter's discovery is more than a revelation, and uncovers the glimmer of hope for the future of religion in China.
Welsh Baptist missionary to China Timothy Richard (1845-1919) was once widely regarded as ""one of the greatest missionaries whom any branch of the Church, whether Roman Catholic, Russian Orthodox, or Protestant, has sent to China."" Today, few have heard of Richard and his remarkable lifetime of ministry in China. As the first critical examination of Richard's missionary identity, this groundbreaking historical study traces the narrative of Richard's early life in Wales and his formative first two decades of service in China. Richard's adaptations to the common evangelistic techniques of his day, his interest in learning from grassroots Chinese sectarian religions, his integration of evangelism and famine relief during the North China Famine (1876-79), his strategic decision to evangelize Chinese elites, and his complicated relationships with Hudson Taylor and other China missionaries are all explored through the writings and personal letters of Richard and his contemporaries. The resulting portrait represents a significant revision to existing interpretations of this influential China missionary, emphasizing his deep empathy for the people of China and his abiding evangelical identity. Readable and relevant, Encountering China provides a new generation with an introduction to this lost legend of China mission. ""Encountering China takes the forty-five year missionary career of Timothy Richard in the late nineteenth century as the focus for this book. It is a fascinating and readable study of a crucial period in Protestant, Evangelical China mission. . . This book is must reading for anyone contemplating work in China or elsewhere today. The roots of contemporary balanced ministry are clearly found in the work and life of Timothy Richard."" --Michael Pocock, Dallas Theological Seminary ""Kaiser's work is a major contribution to the study of Timothy Richard, a towering figure in modern mission history of China. It gives us a much more nuanced narrative and interpretation of Richard's famous missiological adjustment, and points to the complex dynamics of Protestant missionary movement in the nineteenth-century China. The future scholarship of China mission history would benefit from this outstanding work."" --Kevin Xiyi Yao, Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary ""Andrew Kaiser's Encountering China contributes to mission reflection today by walking the reader carefully through the development of Timothy Richard's thought."" --Thomas Harvey, Oxford Center for Mission Studies, St. Philips and St. James Church Andrew T. Kaiser is the author of The Rushing On of the Purposes of God: Christian Missions in Shanxi since 1876. He and his family have been living in Shanxi since 1997, serving the people of the province through professional work and public benefit projects.
How can North Americans improve their communication with the Chinese? A useful and efficient approach to understand prevalent cultural assumptions underlying everyday Chinese communicative activities, Communicating Effectively with the Chinese identifies and conceptualizes some of the distinctive communication practices in Chinese culture. Utilizing the self-OTHER perspective as a conceptual foundation, authors Ge Gao and Ting-Toomey portray and interpret the dynamics of Chinese communication. They examine how self-conception, role and hierarchy, relational dynamics, and face affect ways of conducting everyday talk in Chinese culture. They explain why miscommunication between Chinese and North Americans take place and suggest ways to improve Chines/North American communication. By incorporating instances of everyday talk, Gao and Ting-Toomey offer a realistic and clear illustration of the specific characteristics and functions of Chinese communication, as well as problematic areas of Chinese-North American encounters. Adding to the sparse literature on communicating with others of different cultural backgrounds, Communicating Effectively with the Chinese is an insightful resource that will be widely used by professionals and academics in communication, intercultural communication, interpersonal communication, Asian studies, and race and ethnic studies.
Since the Chinese have, historically, always looked up to and encouraged their hermits, Bill Porter wondered whether these people still existed in China today. Roaming the landscape of the Chungnan Mountains, he discovered that they do indeed still flourish, and have extraordinary stories to tell.
