Hey everybody, some interesting points so far. It's fun to see some conversation going on about the various topics your encountering in your reading. I'm still missing some posts or comments from some of you, though, so try not to get too behind. Happy reading this week!
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ReplyDeletePragmatism, high uncertainty avoidance, and egalitarianism are last three influences of Confucianism. Pragmatism is human nature, and Confucianism maintains that it is basically good. But when we are placed in the wrong environment, we become evil, so we have to follow the rules from the Heaven-the emperor. And “people try to avoid directly confrontation with others, so most people avoid using ‘very good’ or ‘very bad’ in formal matters.” In China people also do worship, which is ancestor worship. People think that “younger should adore the family founder as the font of moral authority.” This worship is based on the secular rather than on the supernatural world.
ReplyDeleteI find some interesting things from the egalitarianism. The egalitarianism means equal results in China. So if people are rich, they should share their property to the poor. And in the past, businessmen ranked at the bottom of the society because they focus on their private profit rather than wealth for society in general. Therefore, Chinese was focus on agriculture which produced food to help the society.
If a businessman wants to be successful, he or she should be “enthusiastically sponsor various benevolent or philanthropic public projects and establish a person’s Confucianist moral credentials against allegations of individualistic profit seeking.” So understanding Chinese business culture and specific social behavioral patterns is important; therefore, avoiding a clash of cultures is a useful strategy.
So this chapter in my book was about how China is building a Technocracy. Mainly, the chapter focused on the semiconductor industry and how China is catching up in quality and quantity to the rest of the world. They also highlighted the dramatic rise in higher education in China for the science and engineering fields. Apparently even way back in 2002 China was awarding 6 times as many engineering degrees as the U.S.
ReplyDeleteAnd then of course the authors speculated some of the implications of these developments. Their biggest fear is that China will have ambitions of totally overthrowing the current balance of power in the world. They see the rapid growth of technology in China as evidence that a threat is growing. And they concluded that the best way to secure the status quo of today is to bring China fully into the crowd of today's main alliances by opening up all markets to them. Apparently this would counteract any ideas China has of rising above everyone else. And we all can remain secure by facilitating China being simply content to be equals with the rest of the hegemonic powers of today.
So there is your update on theories of the future of our world everybody...
@ Kevin
ReplyDeleteI wonder if today's rapid pace of economic growth is overthrowing the traditional value of egalitarianism? Or I wonder if people have found a way to adapt to this new chasing after wealth and spread it around amongst family a great deal? Do you have any insights from your personal experience Kevin?
This book is very hard to read and understand way harder than i thought it could be. but This week i read over a chapter in my book about Property Rights and Economic Growth. it talks about how Scholarly discussion has been limited to a large extent, to market economies.
ReplyDeleteWeek 3 Post :: Vanessa Lézeau ::
ReplyDeleteThis week’s reading was about communication – mainly language and translation. It was a brief chapter, but it was interesting. The book mentioned that the different Chinese dialects are like completely different languages, but they are the same in writing. So two people might not be able to understand each other in speech, but they can communicate perfectly in writing. I thought that was very interesting and cool! It would be so nice if we could all communicate through writing despite our inability to communicate orally.
The chapter also talked about the four basic tones used in the Chinese language. What interested me the most about that is that apparently, Chinese is the only language that requires both sides of the brain to be used. Their number system is also different. So the author suggested that you communicate large numbers in writing without using commas because that makes it easiest for them to understand what numbers you are speaking of. I believe all official contracts and proposals should be in writing, because that way they can always be referred to in the future in case of any misunderstandings that may occur (especially when there is a language barrier).
I liked learning about these simple, yet essential things that impact our communication with Chinese people. I liked that this chapter gave specific advice on how to best communicate with business people in China – including how to pick the best translator. The key to any relationship is good communication. It is very important that you have a good translator and understand the way Chinese communicate in order for your business deals to be successful in China.
Chapter 2
ReplyDeleteImmigrants and Emigrants-The Koreans
If you don't know the difference between an emigrant and an immigrant, well and emigrant is someone who leaves their land to go to another country. An immigrant is someone who lived somewhere else, but now lives in your country.
This chapter was pretty much about how there is a Korean minority group in China. Koreans earned they place in China by assisting in the fight against the Japanese invaders, and then again with their campaign against the Nationalists.
After all this the Koreans were recognized as a minority people, and were given an autonomous area to live in- Yanbian.
Stefan: I find it really interesting that China has so many people studying science and engineering! It's obvious that this has impacted the country in a positive way. It would be interesting to see what would happen to the country if more people graduated with degrees in other fields.
ReplyDelete@Stefan
ReplyDeleteThat is crazy and i could completely see that happening someday china is a powerhouse and is growing so fast.
I found it interesting that China has continued to grow economically even though the rate of health care in China has grown by 226 percent from 1996-2006 and the cost of school tuition has risen by 370 percent in that same time. The cost of housing has also risen steadily. While you would expect some inflation with a booming economy, it surprises me that that the people of China remain well off despite extreme increases in costs, espicaly the costs of education
ReplyDelete@jessica,
ReplyDeleteI didn't know there was a large group of koreans living in China and I also didn't know they helped China fight Japanese invaders so i found that interesting.
The next Chapter of my book dove deeper into the teachings of Confucius and Xunzi. It talked about the 5 virtues that I was informed about in last weeks comments (PS It was very interesting to see that what my book was saying is accurate thank you). Something this chapter brought where 2 labels frequently used for superior leaders, "sages" [ Sheng ren] and the "noble-minded" [junzi] the coolest part of this is the fact the book included the Chinese titles I wonder if we will hear these used on our trip...
ReplyDelete@ Stephan
ReplyDeleteThanks for the update Stephan it was most informative. Do you think China would be willing to open up to all the markets? As we learned in our extensive research on walmart in International Marketing China is sometimes opposed to outside influences (especially those from the west).
Great thoughts.
@Stefan
ReplyDeleteIt is true. we believe improving technology can improve the quality of our life. That is why China highlighted the dramatic rise in higher education for the science and engineering fields. Can you imagine in the limited land, the grain can feed 1.3billion people? because of the advancing technology and science.
@ Jared,
ReplyDeleteIt was definitely surprising to me too.
So this time in the book it was talking about the awkward state that China and America are in because their strategies are a little one sided. The way that China has managed to climb its way up the economic ladder has been through collecting raw materials and resources from all around the world and using them to produce items that they ship away. The problem with that is that they don't really have a situation where their population is really consuming on the same level. America on the other hand has the opposite problem, in that its people are more interested in consuming things than making them. This is why we are in trouble. We only care about status and the things that we buy to try and maintain it, even if we don't have the money. We need to learn to balance out our economic habits if we want to keep our country afloat.
ReplyDeleteThe third chapter of my book is about the economic development of China. One of the reason China has developed so fast was because of the two major events in 2000, admission to the World Trade Organization and a permanent normal trade relations. The chapter also mention that there are two steps that China has to take to be able to have a successful economic growth, improving human rights and reforming the legal system.
ReplyDeleteIt also states the effects the U.S. economy has over China’s economy, because Americans spend a lot of money in imports from China. The housing prices in the U.S. will affect negatively trade with China.
The chapter concluded with the statement that China’s economic strength will not be as an exporter but as a vast market, because China’s future will be driven by domestic demand rather than by exports. The trade have given China economic prosperity and also peace.
@ jared
ReplyDeleteThats crazy that tuition has risen by so much, no wonder a lot of them come here to go to school. I'm sure that 370% is probably much higher even than when that book was published.
Vanessa,
ReplyDeleteIs so cool that your chapter is similar to the one i read last week. I think that maybe all the books we are reading or the ones regarding business with Chinese people, emphasize in the importance of communication specially doing business with Chinese.
Using both side of the brain is really awesome. So I guess we should all learn Chinese so that we can increase our brain usage. :)
Shanshan Zhang
ReplyDeleteThis week I read chapter three from “Factory Girls”, the topic is “To Die Poor Is a Sin”. Wu Chunming said, “Friends, we were born into the world poor through no fault of our own. But to die poor is a sin.” Chunming is a girl who migrated twice, and went thru a lot difficult things that nobody knows. She had been tricked into a brothel, she begged for money on the street, and more stories.
I really love some words that Chunming said, for example, “Time is life”, “We can be ordinary but we must not be vulgar”, “right now I have nothing, my only capital is that I am still young.” Her words changed my thought to migrant workers. They work 12 hours a day, and only get 12 dollars a month, but they never give up.
Chunming was different like others, she wrote dairy every day. In each dairy, chunming kept encourage herself to keep working hard, and to remember that she could not be in that situation forever. Therefore, she tried to have a college diploma, to learn Cantonese, and to know everything because she wanted to carve out a world for herself in Guangdong. Moreover, when people were sleeping or having fun, she was spending her time doing things that help her future. She didn’t even go back home for New Year as others, because time was so important for her. Finally, one day, she got hired for clerk. Slowly, she learned Cantonese, and got paid from 300 to 1000 and more. Later, she changed her job to sell Wanmei products full-time, and she learned a lot from that job. Certainly, she rose from trainee to manager. Afterwards, she jumped again, to a chuanxiao company that charged new members one thousand yuan for a box of traditional Tibetan medicine.
It is easy to lose yourself in the places where there are hundreds of people, but you have to keep your goal in your mind, and telling yourself to work hard and not to give up.
@ Vanessa
ReplyDeleteI think language is the most popular way for us to communicate with others. Also, I think knowing other countries’ culture and traditions can help us to be successful in business too.
In chapter two, it talks a lot about culture shock. It saids "you automatically became entangled in the typical warm of human bodies that ceaselessly pushed through the streets of Shanghai on foot, or bike-often piled with more baggage than would fi in a car trunk." I borned in 80 centry, bikes were main tools for common people.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the book given an concept about Chinese salaries which average Chinese took home less thant 350 dollars a year at that time. However, the author and his staff paid monthly rent about 5000-8000 dollars per month. The rent was expensive neither in the past nor in today.
I can feel how hard was the life in the pass 80 centry or earlier.
The book that I am reading is talking awhile to get interesting. It is more of a story and nothing extremely exciting has happened yet. In my book the author is just following around a Chinese businessman, Bo. So far it is about what is like for Bo during a normal day. He is an investor in China and it talks about different businesses that he is investing or purchasing. One was where his company bought a Chinese company, AsiaInfo. One interesting quote that was in the book is from an American venture capitalist, Len Baker, " I have never seen a work ethic at any time in Silicon Valley like I see in China."
ReplyDeleteJared, wow that is interesting. The rates that tuition is growing along with healthcare is really high. I wonder if it will be able to continue to grow at such a rapid rate and if the economy can actually keep up with it in the long run. Maybe it will all eventually flatten off. Interesting to see what happens.
ReplyDeleteAs I mentioned before, "China Streetsmart" is divided into three sections: The Approach, The Application, and The Outlook. In the first three chapters, Chan dives right into "The Approach." He tells the reader that there are "six universally applicable common-sense action steps the most successful executives and companies practise to be effective in China." (For those who read this, I didn't misspell practice with an s; for some reason Chan places an "s" where we would place a "z" or "c." The cultural difference even shows through the writing!) Now, the six steps Chan outlines are:
ReplyDelete1. Maintain management consistency
2. Be flexible and adaptable
3. Be patient and thorough
4. Think win-win
5. Be detailed
6. Maintain a healthy attitude
He says that following these six simple, obvious steps—he will detail these steps in depth in following chapters—is the basis on which you can be successful and effective in the Chinese market.
In the next chapter, Chan sort of dispels the myth that the key to success is "guanxi" (pronounced gwan shee in Mandarin), which means relationships. He concedes by saying that although having those relationships is at the heart of each business transaction in cChina, "[t]he real factor that will determine whether you are able to run a profitable business remains in your company being able to develop the best products and service that best meets the local needs."
Overall, I can definitely tell that Chan has a lot of really good, keen insight into how to be effective not only in China, but on a global business scale.
Jessica, that is really interesting about the emigrant and immigrant. I had no idea there was even a such thing as emigrant, but it makes so much sense. I didn't see your first blog about your book, but the book sounds interesting! It is wild how one to two hundred years ago, we all had our own areas (America, Europe, Middle East, etc.) that we lived in. Now—with the acceleration of technology and transportation—you can find an incredibly diverse population almost anywhere. Including Southern!
ReplyDelete@Diana
ReplyDeleteThat is true. China is a large country, the domestic demand created by China can fill up the needs for itself.
Acutally, China holds a large amount of debt from America. Thus the economy between these two countries will effect each other.
Week 3 - Talks about competitivness of firms, and different strategy to be more competitive. Such as quality enhancement. China is known for having cheap goods, so some companys are starting to make their goods durable, and giving refunds if something breaks. Another big thing is customer satisfaction. The companys try to please their customers in as many ways as possible, and if there is a complaint then they fix it. Companys are also tyring product branding because Chinese people are very concious of their social status they love to show off their expensive products. Even though Chinese people are getting more knowledgeable that just because a product is expensive, doesn't mean it is a good product.
ReplyDeleteWinston - That is a bummer, I am sure it will get better soon. That is interesting that he is just watching a business man because sometimes the best way to learn is just to watch someone. That is a very interesting quote! I can't wait to hear what you have for next week!
ReplyDeleteToday as I was reading my book, The Chinese Tao of Business, i stumbled upon a interesting segment. The book was talking about how Chinese immigrants have the hardest times adjusting to Americans from the south, that's why we don't see many Asians down in the southern states. Then again southern people and their ways are kind of hard to figure out, so I don't blame them.
ReplyDeleteHey Winston, don't worry my book isn't interesting either. And yeah we americans should work harder like the asians! their worth ethic is much better
ReplyDeleteWeek 3 - I am still on chapter 1. It goes on to talk about how this certain county was very prosperous in the past and then foreign goods were introduced into the economy and it started to drain it. Then when WW2 came along, civil disobedience esclated. Then when the People's Army came in, the crime rate abated and the economy started to rebound
ReplyDelete@ Kevin Tang
ReplyDeleteI like this point of view the Chinese have. If we follow this to a degree, then the world would be a better place. We need to respect our father and mother. They would have wisdom which would help us in our life ahead because they have lived theirs. And we should look out for our fellow man, because if he does the same, then he would look out for us as well.
@Stefan
ReplyDeleteSome people might think that China building up its electronics field is a bad thing. This to me is not necessarily true. They might be producing more electronics but they might not all be of good quality. A lot of the times when someone hears of something being Made In China, they think of something being cheaply made. When something is mass produces on a huge scale, sometimes the quality goes out of it, and there is less time for quality control on the produced products.
Vanessa,
ReplyDeleteMy book too talked about language and how it can be a huge barrier to communication. I personally find it fascinating how even though the main language in China is mandarin there are different groups of people that speak different dialect; also the way mandarin is spoken can vary from person to person. China is thought of as being one big group but within that group there is so much diversity!
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ReplyDeleteThe section that I read for this posting mainly talked about China's evolving business environment. Because of all the foreign investors, China's GDP rose from 364.52 billion yaun in '78 to 24952.99 billion yuan in 2007. China obviously is economically developing. Another sign of that is the enrollment in higher education institutions have increased almost 50%. This is pertinent to management because even though they are doing good, they are relying to heavily on foreign investments and exports, things that can change dramatically due to political changes.
ReplyDelete@ stefan
ReplyDeleteI think its pretty interesting that China historically was the slowest one to become industrialized but know is "on top of the world"
Myth 2 "The Chinese market will grow forever" China has been growing every year. The reality is that there is a debate about how sustainable this amazing growth is. Scenario one: Continuing boom; scenario two: slowdown scenario; third scenario: meltdown.
ReplyDeleteFact about China: 70% of the water is not fit for human consumption. Seven of the world's ten most polluted cities are in China. Over 50% of the country's bank deposits are owned by the richest 5% of the population. The gap between the rich and the poor in China is now greater than ever. Agriculture employs half of China's population, yet produces only 14% per cent of its GDP according to World Bank estimates. China invest less in education, health and the environment than many of the world's developing nations.
The next chapter in my book discusses the impact of Confucianism on the Chinese culture. Confucius teachings' have been widely accepted among many other Asian countries including Japan, Korea, and Vietnam.
ReplyDeleteThe Confucian thought lies within its concepts and doctrines, such as Ren. Ren means benevolence or more simply to love your fellow man. To them, societies stability is based on the morality of the people.
How can you become more benevolent you might be asking yourselves? Well there are five aspects associated with benevolence. They are respectfulness, tolerance, trustworthiness in word, quickness and generosity.
I found it very interesting that my book noted that, "Confucianism has been a key factor in the uninterrupted survival of Chinese civilization over the past two thousand years."
@ Brandon:
ReplyDeleteTrue that!!! I'm from Maine, and honestly it feels like I'm in another country down here some times. The pace is so much slower, and there is not as much emphasis on work down here. I could see it being hard to adjust to this when coming from a culture with a higher work ethic.
What I found interesting was that in the 1950s and 60s, China experienced huge levels of investment, comparable to what they're experiencing now, but the investment was applied wastefully. Eventually the growth levels fell and China experienced wrongly direct expansionary policies. This led economists to believe that investment-led growth was not sustainable. They now continue to warn about depending on high rates of investments for rapid economic growth.
ReplyDeleteCurrently, because there's a large excess of growth in investment over growth in other sources of demand, like GDP, it suggests that there will soon be an adjustment. Also, extremely high rates of investment are wasteful and investors are receiving poorer and poorer returns.
Lauren: that's a really cool point that your book makes. It makes you realize how dependent these two countries are on each other, which is a scary thought. What would happen if China stopped exporting and the US stopped importing? I think that China would fall into a huge recession because of the lack of investment and Americans would be forced to stop being lazy and actually work for their living like so many other countries do.
ReplyDeleteMy book also makes the attempt to tackle some of the problems that business leaders are facing such as managing employees. There is a huge gap in the education timeline of the Chinese. Due to the Cultural Revolution many people over the age of forty five have suffered from a disrupted education and work experience. It’s hard to find qualified professionals to manage the new entry workers.
ReplyDelete@ Abdiel
ReplyDeleteThat's true China does rely heavily on foreign exports. I don't think that's the best thing for them. If their relations go bad somehow, it will not be good for their economy. It's almost like pulling up the rug from under their economy.