As usual with Chinese matters, we begin thousands of years ago, around 4500 BC, when two legendary rulers, Yan and Huang, encouraged business by advocating commodity exchange. However, when Guanzhong drew up his fourfold characterization of Chinese society, “merchant” was placed at the bottom, below the peasant toiling in his rice field. The great unifying [...]
Chinese society is ascription-oriented: a person’s family background plays a key role. “Where is your family from?” or “What do your parents do?” are the most frequent questions raised during social talk or even a job interview. For some Chinese managers recruiting new staff, family background is more important than education or commercial background. Not [...]
In addition to the philosophies above, Chinese culture has been deeply influenced by incoming religions, and, recently, by the culture of the West. It is important to understand that none of these imports have supplanted the old philosophies: they have just been stirred into the mixture and been allowed to brew. Religious Influence One of common pitfalls [...]
