China Business. It Helps To Know The Culture. Part III. Stereotypes As Excess Baggage.

This is the third and final part of a three part series of posts by Jason Patent, a China market access consultant with years of on the ground experience and all sorts of degrees from top schools (including a Ph.D from Berkeley) that qualify him to discuss how Chinese culture is likely to impact your doing business with China. Jason's first post is here?and his second is here.

Here is his third:

Human beings stereotype. It's part of our wiring. There's no getting around it.

In China you will be dealing with your own stereotypes of Chinese people. You could either pretend they're not there and have them sink your business, or you can acknowledge them and re-frame them into more positive ways of thinking. It's up to you.

Here are 9 common stereotypes you're likely to have in whole or in part, and ways to re-frame them:

1. The Chinese are out to cheat me.

China has been through a lot of tough history, over thousands of years and even up to very recent times. Chinese people have had to make tough choices in a world of scarcity. This mentality has been passed down through the generations. No Chinese does anything a Westerner wouldn't do if fighting for survival.

The upshot: Cross your T’s and dot your I’s. Be prudent, not paranoid.

2. The Chinese think they're superior.

The Chinese are legitimately proud of their amazing cultural accomplishments. Think of the food, the monuments, the language, and on and on. Chinese give respect where it's due: to Westerners for their advanced technology and social institutions, and to themselves for what they've done.

The upshot: Allow yourself to admire what there is to admire, while keeping your cool.

3. The Chinese lie.?

People from every culture lie. What Westerners call “lying” in China is often just a more subtle form of communication than we're used to. China is what's known as a “high context” culture: information is assumed to be in the background — the context. The more you learn about the assumed context, the better you'll get at seeing the meaning behind the words.

The upshot: Get trained on Chinese communication style. Learn as much as you can about the Chinese mindset, so that you know what background assumptions people bring to the conversation.

4. The Chinese go back on their word.

Shaped for millennia by a fickle, resource-poor environment rife with natural disasters, the Chinese see the world as constantly in flux. Circumstances change, and it's foolish to set a plan in stone now for an imagined future, when it might not be a fit for the actual future. It's best to remain adaptable and flexible.

The upshot: Be ready for your counterparts to ask for changes to contracts. Understand that in China the contract is often seen as the beginning of a relationship, not a fixed definition of reality.

5. The Chinese are always stalling for time.?

Like any business counterpart anywhere in the world, the Chinese have strategies for getting what they want. A common one is to use home court to their advantage. It's easier on the Chinese if things take longer than it is on you.

Upshot: Be ready and set reasonable expectations that things probably aren't going to happen quickly.

6. The Chinese are stingy.?

The Chinese are thrifty. Again, over millennia the Chinese have often had to scrape together meager livings out of a hostile, overcrowded environment. Every resource is precious, and could disappear at a moment's notice if not carefully guarded.

The upshot: Negotiation is not viewed as a win–win proposition. Be thrifty with your resources too, and meet the Chinese on their own zero-sum terms.

7. The Chinese don't care about quality.?

Everyone cares about quality. But when it comes to priorities, sometimes it's more important to the Chinese to save some resources than to make something that fits Westerners' high standards. See above about precious resources.

The upshot: Be fastidious and unrelenting in your QC. Get feet on the street and keep them there.

8. The Chinese don't care about their environment.?

The world of the average Chinese person is relatively small. People are focused — narrowly, from a prosperous Western perspective — on day-to-day concerns like having enough to eat and a roof over their heads. It might be nice to have a cleaner environment, but for many Chinese that's a luxury.

The upshot: Instead of complaining about the awful air, imagine what it would be like if you didn’t get to leave it in a week or two.

9. The Chinese hate Westerners.

In fact Westerners are much admired in China. What Westerners perceive as “hatred” is usually more a vague sense of suspicion. Like everything else, this results from the thought habits of the past, especially the past century and a half, which saw Westerners exploit and mistreat China. All this means is that you have to earn their trust.

The upshot: Behave in a way that is worthy of trust, and trust will come. With time.

Categories can be useful. Reasoned, informed judgment can be useful. Stereotypes have zero business value. Get savvy about your own stereotypes and re-frame them. Not only will you feel better and get along better, but your business will do better.

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China Business. It Helps To Know The Culture. Part III. Stereotypes As Excess Baggage.

This is the third and final part of a three part series of posts by Jason Patent, a China market access consultant with years of on the ground experience and all sorts of degrees from top schools (including a Ph.D from Berkeley) that qualify him to discuss how Chinese culture is likely to impact your doing business with China. Jason's first post is here?and his second is here.

Here is his third:

Human beings stereotype. It's part of our wiring. There's no getting around it.

In China you will be dealing with your own stereotypes of Chinese people. You could either pretend they're not there and have them sink your business, or you can acknowledge them and re-frame them into more positive ways of thinking. It's up to you.

Here are 9 common stereotypes you're likely to have in whole or in part, and ways to re-frame them:

1. The Chinese are out to cheat me.

China has been through a lot of tough history, over thousands of years and even up to very recent times. Chinese people have had to make tough choices in a world of scarcity. This mentality has been passed down through the generations. No Chinese does anything a Westerner wouldn't do if fighting for survival.

The upshot: Cross your T’s and dot your I’s. Be prudent, not paranoid.

2. The Chinese think they're superior.

The Chinese are legitimately proud of their amazing cultural accomplishments. Think of the food, the monuments, the language, and on and on. Chinese give respect where it's due: to Westerners for their advanced technology and social institutions, and to themselves for what they've done.

The upshot: Allow yourself to admire what there is to admire, while keeping your cool.

3. The Chinese lie.?

People from every culture lie. What Westerners call “lying” in China is often just a more subtle form of communication than we're used to. China is what's known as a “high context” culture: information is assumed to be in the background — the context. The more you learn about the assumed context, the better you'll get at seeing the meaning behind the words.

The upshot: Get trained on Chinese communication style. Learn as much as you can about the Chinese mindset, so that you know what background assumptions people bring to the conversation.

4. The Chinese go back on their word.

Shaped for millennia by a fickle, resource-poor environment rife with natural disasters, the Chinese see the world as constantly in flux. Circumstances change, and it's foolish to set a plan in stone now for an imagined future, when it might not be a fit for the actual future. It's best to remain adaptable and flexible.

The upshot: Be ready for your counterparts to ask for changes to contracts. Understand that in China the contract is often seen as the beginning of a relationship, not a fixed definition of reality.

5. The Chinese are always stalling for time.?

Like any business counterpart anywhere in the world, the Chinese have strategies for getting what they want. A common one is to use home court to their advantage. It's easier on the Chinese if things take longer than it is on you.

Upshot: Be ready and set reasonable expectations that things probably aren't going to happen quickly.

6. The Chinese are stingy.?

The Chinese are thrifty. Again, over millennia the Chinese have often had to scrape together meager livings out of a hostile, overcrowded environment. Every resource is precious, and could disappear at a moment's notice if not carefully guarded.

The upshot: Negotiation is not viewed as a win–win proposition. Be thrifty with your resources too, and meet the Chinese on their own zero-sum terms.

7. The Chinese don't care about quality.?

Everyone cares about quality. But when it comes to priorities, sometimes it's more important to the Chinese to save some resources than to make something that fits Westerners' high standards. See above about precious resources.

The upshot: Be fastidious and unrelenting in your QC. Get feet on the street and keep them there.

8. The Chinese don't care about their environment.?

The world of the average Chinese person is relatively small. People are focused — narrowly, from a prosperous Western perspective — on day-to-day concerns like having enough to eat and a roof over their heads. It might be nice to have a cleaner environment, but for many Chinese that's a luxury.

The upshot: Instead of complaining about the awful air, imagine what it would be like if you didn’t get to leave it in a week or two.

9. The Chinese hate Westerners.

In fact Westerners are much admired in China. What Westerners perceive as “hatred” is usually more a vague sense of suspicion. Like everything else, this results from the thought habits of the past, especially the past century and a half, which saw Westerners exploit and mistreat China. All this means is that you have to earn their trust.

The upshot: Behave in a way that is worthy of trust, and trust will come. With time.

Categories can be useful. Reasoned, informed judgment can be useful. Stereotypes have zero business value. Get savvy about your own stereotypes and re-frame them. Not only will you feel better and get along better, but your business will do better.

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The Top 3 TV Stereotypes of the Week: Please Disgruntled Mr. Postman

This week in TV Stereotypes, Movieline features old-fashioned generalization about inner city gang members, perfect boyfriends and grumpy postal workers. Unlike in previous weeks though, one of these stereotypical characters was portrayed by an Oscar winner. Can you guess which one before proceeding?

1. Disgruntled Postal Workers (Weeds)

“Whatever you do, do not go into that locked room,” William Schiff, the former high school math teacher who romanced Nancy Botwin when she was still his student, told the Botwin family once they moved into his house. Since his days teaching, Schiff (played brilliantly by Richard Dreyfuss) had switched careers to mailman. Like television’s most famous disgruntled postal worker before him (Newman, Seinfeld), Schiff was portly, angry, complained of a bad back and, on occasion, chose to just not deliver the mail at all. Prisoner of his own rage, he kept those undelivered letters captive in his own home. But Weeds is a premium cable series (and Dreyfuss is a premium caliber actor), so William Schiff was not just a frustrated government worker. He was also an avid hat wearer and deluded Skymall addict who thought that if he ordered bunk beds for the boys, Nancy and her family would stay and live with him forever. When that fantasy finally eroded, he packed his life savings into a neck pillow, bought a one-way ticket to Copenhagen and followed the family to the airport. Alas, this disgruntled postal worker would not live happily ever after because at the last minute, cops boarded the plane and arrested Schiff for burglary of a United States post office.

2. Gangbangers (Law & Order: Los Angeles)

The opening of this week’s Law & Order: Los Angeles, “Ballona Creek,” played out like a stereotype mix ‘n match. There were unhappy city employees in bright yellow vests being disrespected by everyone that passed — including the hot, young California girls on roller blades and the Mexican gangbangers nearby. “Hey, Homes,” one flannel-wearing punk yelled while his friends threw rocks at the city worker busy below. (That’s gangbanger speak for “Hey!”) Moments later, a body was discovered in the creek and the gangbangers were assumed the primary suspects. Because, you know, they are gangbangers and as one hard-nosed cop noted, “young people used to fish in the creek. Now they just hunt here.”

As the investigation continued, Skeet Ulrich’s senior detective observed, “A witness saw the ‘bangers giving [the suspect] a hard time around Centinela.” It was enough to convince the team to keep the ‘bangers as main suspects.

Later, as detectives tried to narrow down which gang might have been responsible for the murder, an investigator quipped that all ‘bangers “like to go to Ballona Creek and drink and get high.” Had the investigators slowed down with the generalizations, they may have shifted their attention to other city employees sooner, specifically Luis Valdez, a former Latino janitor-turned-city employee-turned-serial killer, who ended the episode being tried for the murder.

3. The Perfect Boyfriend (The Big Bang Theory)

In this week’s Big Bang Theory, “The Boyfriend Complexity,” Penny asked Leonard to pretend to be her boyfriend while her father visited town, hoping to prove once-and-for-all that she was capable of keeping an intelligent, parent-friendly beau. But her plan backfired when Leonard played the role of “perfect boyfriend” a little too perfectly by engaging Penny’s father in conversation, laughing at all of his jokes, openly displaying his affection for his daughter and even inviting Penny’s dad out so the two men could bond. The ruse worked so well that Penny’s father would not stop raving about Leonard his entire visit.

Frustrated, Penny told her father the truth, which still did not dissuade her father from loving Leonard, who continued to play the one-note role so perfectly that Penny’s father pleaded with him to take Penny back: “Cheat! Lie! I don’t care. I want grand kids before I die and I want them to grow up in a house without wheels.”

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Top TV Week page stereotypes: domineering Mother-in-Law, where are you?

Drunk teenagers and shady lawyers topped support TV stereotype last week. But this week, which would be mothers, whipped conquered all boyfriends and deficient homophobic. Do you know which shows use these characters simplified horrible - and in one case, bright - effect? Proceed below to find out. Remember, the winners of this week to take a mother-in-law home useful-but-Wilkinson - i.e. - up to ensure that your spouse finally puts his foot.

1. Overbearing Mother-in-Law (Desperate Housewives)
If you have not seen Desperate Housewives from season 1, all you need to know current Wisteria Lane: Susan (Teri Hatcher) is make more money as a sexy web servant who vacuums in front of a webcam in corsets tight men overweight salivation home.Gaby (Eva Longoria) has finally admitted having nez.Bree employment (Marcia Cross), now a Cougar, is exhausted to have sexual intercourse without interruption with her tattooed boy played by Brian Austin Green toy.And less exotic plot, this week, usually to Lynette (Felicity Huffman), who has committed her mother-in-law Alison (Lois Smith) to help take care of her baby.

Well that Lynette had hoped for a little relief at home, it was soon disappointed to realize that his stepmother is out-mothering in his own maison.Alison love on his son, making him breakfast à l'Ordre, reload his coffee without prompt and keep the impeccable laundry and immaculés.Elle did likewise for Lynette, said children making them totally impuissant.Et and then when it comes to simple decisions, Alison has disagreed with Lynette gall.

Of course this leads to the argument "I can't do much of your mother", waving in the air to show frustration hand fatigue.

"But you said that you like my mother," said Tom cluelessly.

Apparently, Tom has never seen a single episode of Everybody Loves Raymond or any other sitcom on the middleclass married couples with a parent entitled nebby, otherwise he would have known better.

2 Friend whipped (rules of engagement)
OH, Timmy, you bonus character of rules of engagement added during the third season as a counterpart of character of David Spade (so it is no longer the fifth wise cracking), you'll never learn.In the episode "House" this week, Timmy tries desperately to be "one of the guys" but cannot because it is helplessly in love with an annoying girl named Alison.And if we know anything about the love of the sitcom, it transforms the male characters in thoughts couards.

Timmy embraces additional top of Alison lip cream cheese.He fills his whole conversation he had with his friends from guy earlier this evening.And then when Alison requests to a quiche to dinner, Timmy hastily accepts, disgust of his close friends sex male.(I can only assume that the scene in which Timmy holds handbag from his girlfriend while she runs to the ladies room is always on the cutting room floor.)

After the commercial break final proof that Timmy had overcome his ways of "whipped friend" stereotypical, writers scripted exchange a little in which a friend talks about her restaurant neighborhood .Lorsqu ' she left, Timmy looks in his friends and the cracks, "looks like someone had a b * tch additional assistance this morning."Stereotypical rire.Misogynie abundance conquers all.

3. The homophobic (the Colbert Report)
In its approach to week rally this weekend Sanity restoration or fear, Stephen Colbert (in character as host Comedy Central mean-spirited, right) with her fears in a segment last night called fear for tous.Colbert sitting in front of the editor of Out Magazine (as a Muslim, and Mexican Stephen Colbert has been similarly fear of) and said "first of all, thank you for entering .and stop I see that you accomplissez.Et is not as if I feel it too .but it won't work."

Later, Colbert has used his fear panel talk about how he is especially fear "gay secrets" doctors gay secrètes.Découvrez segment full below.

Good job, Colbert Report .Suivre these Chin and those stereotypes down, Desperate Housewives and the rules of engagement practice truth.

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