The West versus China

When two very different cultures meet it is always interesting to analyse the differences. The Western culture and the Chinese culture are an example of two cultures differing in many ways. In the following paper the cultural differences between the West and China will be outlined.

Concerning this topic problems are going to be explained, an example will be given and solutions to the occurring problems are described. In the end some similarities will be shown as well to point out that there is still a connection between the cultures.

The knowledge is mainly based on the two by Alexander Thomas, Eva-Ulrike Kinast, Stefan Kammhuber and Sylvia Schroll-Machl but it is expanded with the information taken from other publications.

The problem

With the process of globalisation the meeting of cultures began to increase and involve more and more people. It has become easier to travel around the globe and the economy has reached a level where it is necessary for growing companies to interact and trade globally not only in the own region. This situation has come so far that even in our everyday life and even as a normal worker, we have to be informed and be able to build our own opinion about different cultures, ways of life and global politics. Anybody who wants to achieve a good position in his job is obligated to deal with global topics and should know how to deal with cultural differences.

A big problem in recent times has become the huge difference between the Chinese culture and the Western culture. Especially in this case the gap is very big. China has grown a very big and influential economy which is connected to many companies in the West. The West does not only mean the united states but also European countries. Although the cultures are different in the countries described as the Western countries, the people are more likely to understand each others culture and they find similarities between their cultures faster as if they would compare themselves to China.

To define the problem one can easily look into the example of a meeting between Chinese and Western business men. Assuming that both parties are not or not enough informed about and used to the other party's culture they will have great problems in communicating with each other even if they could understand each other and there wouldn't be a language barrier. Sometimes actions looking really usual and unnecessary to one party can have a very bad meaning for the other party. Especially the small things can have a big impact on the cooperation and relationship.

The problem is obviously that the Chinese culture and the Western culture have different ideas of communicating and dealing with each other or certain situations. Beyond this there are much more things that one has to understand and know about the other culture which will be outlined in the following part.

Differences between China and the West

China is a country whose culture reaches more than 5000 years into the past, whereas the western countries are quite “new” and therefore also their cultural history is not that long. China has established and manifested its tradition and its culture throughout thousands of years. If we would look at all the western countries as one party and at China as the other we can find differences in the cultures very easily. To be able to track them one has to see the different cultures from all the western countries as one and therefore find some typical cultural aspects which are used in more than one so called Western country. Then we can stereotype this cultural habit as a cultural aspect for the West.

China's old culture and long history have several superstitious believes that are not common anymore in Western countries. Those differences can lead to awkward situations in the everyday life. A good example for superstitious believes which definitely belong to the Chinese culture are numbers. As the pronunciation of certain numbers has similar words with a totally different meaning the Chinese people connect the number with the word which is similar to the number. The number 4 means for example death. Therefore people do not like to have this number in their cellphone number and in hotels you won't find a fourth floor. Another superstitious belief is the belief in evil spirits. Evil spirits are seen as some sort of zombie who can not think further. In many restaurants one will find a wall directly at the entrance for the reason that the evil spirits will be blocked there. Not only in restaurants you will find this cultural aspect but also in a lot of other architectures. Big buildings sometimes have a hole. This hole is not built in to secure the building from earthquakes or something like that. The idea behind the hole is that the evil spirits will fly through the hole and won't be able to enter the building. These are only examples for the diversity between the Chinese and the Western culture.

For economists or traveling people it is very important to learn more about cultural differences which' knowledge can be useful. If a someone is for example in a business meeting or has a discussion with another person there will mostly arrive problems as there are two different cultural based virtues. In the Western countries especially Germany people are very direct and they stick to their position, conviction and ideals even if they risk their social environment. In China this cultural based virtue is the other way around. Chinese people are indirect and for them it is only important to stick to their position, conviction and ideals as long as the social relationship does not suffer from this argument. In China this relationship to the other people in the close and also in the whole environment is much more important than sticking to his own conviction for example.

Being direct or indirect is also very closely connected to the metaphor of “loosing his face”. In China everything which could get someone in trouble and could question their authority should not be said in front of others. A good way is to talk personally with the person afterwords or even let someone else tell this person your own concern. In most of the western countries it is again the other way around. People want other people to be direct and honest, even if that could hurt someones feelings or question the person's authority.4 Especially in the marketing of products the Chinese people are a lot different as the western. Chinese people have other sight customs concerning the advertising. They have a different imagination how an advertisement should be constructed and they are also really sensible concerning colours shown in the pictures, even the skin color.5

There are definitely a lot more differences between China and the West but the last difference described in this essay is the difference between Chinese harmony and Western context orientation. While Chinese people try to create a maximum harmony with mutual respect, confidence and esteem, Western people especially Germans tend to focus on the topic. They try to be nicely and friendly but the main objective is to show the competence of something and show the other party the high quality of the object of their meeting.6

Situation in everyday business life

To be able to understand the differences between China and the West more easily the following example is going to include as many differences between the two cultures as possible. Imagine a marketing meeting involving Chinese business men and business men from Western countries.

The reason for the meeting is a planned marketing campaign in China for a healthy salad brand. When the Chinese business men start to present their idea for the marketing, the western business men interrupt the Chinese speakers telling them they would have a much better idea. The idea of the Western business men is to show big wallpapers everywhere as shown in the picture. They are even more proud to demonstrate the cheap phone number for a possible hotline.

Picture by Prof. Dr. Martin Woesler

This meeting probably brought up a lot of difficulties. As the Western business men were not informed about Chinese culture they did not know how to behave in this situation. Therefore they did one mistake after the other. Even if they would have known a little bit, the situation could have ended problematic anyways. As Edward T Hall already described, people tend to stick to their cultural type of identification. In the beginning there is an intellectual understanding for the other culture and people respect the other beliefs and customs but when it comes to close team work things get more complicated because of the grip of unconscious culture.7

Concerning the marketing meeting the business men from the western countries did many wrong things. At first they interrupted and revised the Chinese business men. Then they showed this completely wrong image of the Chinese girl. Wrong colours, sitting in the sun, the bare feet and that she eats alone are only a few mistakes which are not compatible with the Chinese culture. Last but not least the phone number the Western business men presented was cheap as is has a certain meaning. Therefore they should have taken a more expensive number to avoid wrong subconscious messages.

How to deal with differences

As China plays a very important role in the international market and almost all businesses have contacts in China, it is important to deal with cultural differences to be able to create a good relationship. This does not only count for business relationships but also for intercultural and interpersonal relationships.

First of all it is necessary to be willing to accept and learn about the differences. People working or living in this context have to bring a lot of sensitivity for the cultural differences8 and should start of using general cultural Dimensions. Such general cultural models can be a good help when trying to understand another totally different culture. Those models have been approved empirically and can be adopted quite easily.

Researchers who try to figure out such cultural standards try to find a typical habit of the human feeling, thinking, behaviour and perception.9 They are indeed just an extract of the whole variety of one nations culture but as they can achieve categorial identifications the cultural standards can be used as some sort of stereotypes.10 As a person wants to learn something about the other culture or has a reunion with a person from another culture it is necessary to learn something about the other culture to create a good climate. Intercultural trainings can be very helpful and the cultural standards method helps the person during the learning process as they are continuous, easy to understand and very close to the reality.11

Finding similarities between the two cultures

Although there are a lot of differences between Chinese culture and the Western culture, similarities can be found. It is important to point out differences to find a connection between those two cultures. These connections can be a good start for a intercultural meeting.

When it comes to managing positions both the Western and the Chinese culture place a high value on relationships. A good relationship is considered at very important.12 The relationship between teachers and students, or on an economical level, the relationship between a worker of a higher rank and a worker of a lower rank (concerning the position in a company but also the level of knowledge) is similar in both cultures. The person of the lower rank has to respect the one of the higher rank and to obey them. In most cases they also cannot criticize or question the higher rank's statements.13

Also both cultures have an embedded will that the people having grown up in this culture pursue for a higher status in life and for success. In both cultures tend to move into big cities where they can achieve the success they are all strive for.

Conclusion

The West versus China is a good example of two very different cultures varying a lot when it comes to a meeting or to an intercultural exchange. Throughout this paper the differences between the cultures and problems which arrive from that are pointed out and a possible solution to avoid these problems is given.

China has a very long tradition and a culture based on many years. They think more about the harmony and have several superstitious believes which seem strange for foreigners, especially those from Western countries. People from the Western countries are very direct and more focussed on showing the opposite party it's ability. On the Western side of the world people are really ambitious to stick to their opinion even if this means to threaten a good relationship. They are not afraid of loosing face or making someone loosing his face. Again in China this is the other side around and problems are preassigned.

There are still a lot of things that we can learn from each other and the trend goes to a greater and deeper understanding of each others cultures in order to create a harmonious relationship improving business and social connections. It would be helpful to start the relationship with the few similarities between the cultures to explore the differences without getting into trouble.

Bibliography

• Thomas, Alexander/Kinast, Eva-Ulrika/Schroll-Machl, Sylvia (2003):“Theoretische Grundlagen interkultureller Kommunikation und Kooperation”, in “Handbuch Interkulturelle Kommunikation und Kooperation, Band 1: Grundlagen und Praxisfelder”, published by Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, pp. 1-31

• Thomas, Alexander/Kammhuber, Stefan/Schroll-Machl, Sylvia (2003): “Möglichkeiten und Grenzen der Kulturstandardmethode”, in “Handbuch Interkulturelle Kommunikation und Kooperation, Band 2: Länder, Kulturen und interkulturelle Berufstätigkeit”, published by Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, pp. 1-23

• Hall, Edward T (1976): “Culture as Identification“, in “Beyond Culture“, published by Anchor Books/Doubleday, pp.223-240

• Pamperrien, Sabine (2013): “Zwischen Anprangerung und Ignoranz der 5000-jährigen Geschichte”, in: “Deutschlandfunk”, URL: http://www.dradio.de/dlf/sendungen/essayunddiskurs/2034698 / (March 10th 2013), pp.1-9

• Honold, Pia (1999): “Comparison Between German and Chinese Users“, in “Technical Communication, Second Quarter 1999“, pp.196-205

• Chen, Ping/Partington, David (2003): “An interpretive comparison of Chinese and Western conceptions of relationships in construction project management work“, in “International Journal of Project Management 22 (2004)”, published by Cranfield University, Cranfield, pp.397–406

References

4 Thomas/Kinast/Schroll-Machl (2003), p.28

5 Thomas/Kinast/Schroll-Machl (2003), p.20

6 Thomas/Kinast/Schroll-Machl (2003), p.27

7 Hall (1976), p.240

8 Thomas/Kammhuber/Schroll-Machl (2003), p.8

9 Thomas/Kinast/Schroll-Machl (2003), p.20

10 Thomas/Kinast/Schroll-Machl (2003), p.21

11 Thomas/Kinast/Schroll-Machl (2003), p.22

12 Chen/Partington (2003), p. 405

13 Honold (1999), p. 198