My name is R.P.BenDedek. Well actually it is not. It is the name I write under. I have a website and a newspaper column in America, and in addition to more serious stuff, I write photographic articles about China (where I live and work) as well as social commentaries on varieties of issues.
I was asked to write something for this site, a site I might add, that I cannot view from China. As I understand it, the object is to share thoughts and opinions about our 'multicultural Australia'. (Yeah! I am Australian - from Brisbane).
Because I am rather frank and straightforward when I write, I sometimes come in for abuse, often being called a 'racist'. But the truth is that I am not!
I am Caucasian - white! Within my family, there are the Japanese (Mum's favourite Auntie), Italians, Greeks, Russians, Germans, Irish and Scots (not the pom's thank God) and a rather odd assortment of other people. My Sister married a part Aboriginal, and it shows in the features and colour of one of her kids in particular, (and 'her' kids as well). One of my sisters grandkids married a Vietnamese, as did also my cousin. My youngest brother's first wife was also aboriginal, and his second wife is Asian. The next brother down has a wife and child who are Chinese (born and living in China). My eldest daughter was married to a Philippino (they got divorced - without kids), and a daughter in law is Indian (and Muslim). One Grandchild is obviously Asian (Thailand) and another not so obviously Chinese. I went to schools that were well mixed racially and religiously, and spent the last few years of high school, working before and after school in my parents shop, in a predominantly Italian and Greek community.
Because my cousin was in the American Air force in Vietnam and had a Vietnamese wife, and because his mother's family were married into Aboriginal communities, whenever we had parties at his home, the place was full of whites, blacks and Asians, a fair number of which I was related to either by blood or marriage.
I could now talk about religion but that would be a whole other long and boring story. Suffice it to say, I grew up seeing people as people and not this and that.
Nevertheless, I have a very big problem when it comes to this political football known today as 'Multiculturalism'. Like so many 'isms', it has become a 'weapon' in the hands of fanatics who seek to dominate all around them; setting themselves up as 'gods' whose laws and statutes must be obeyed or you get sent to hell.
Multiculturalism is supposed to be about welcoming other cultures, and sharing in their culture, but what it has become, is a tool in a very decidedly vicious attack on 'Australian' and western culture, in an attempt to overthrow the 'norms' of society so that 'anything and everything goes' (meaning that everything is permissible).
We have forced down our throats that we must respect other cultures. It should not have to be forced, because it is the right thing to do. But then, 'lack of respect' is classified as being anything you do or say, that does not hold up another culture or ethnic person on a pedestal. (If they are white Australian it doesn't matter). And when you express an opinion that does not support this goal, you are immediately branded 'racist and discriminatory'. And this of course is the final goal of the activists who push this doctrine.
The real aim and objective, is not to raise other cultures to mystical heights for us to worship, but to guarantee that they (the politically motivated activists) can 'control' society, so that no one will ever have the right to express their true feelings about the personal activities of the activists themselves. In short, they use the term and accusation 'racist', to silence all negative public expressions against 'everyone and everything'.
Multiculturalism has been hijacked by base people trying either to make their 'marginal' lifestyles become the 'norm', or at least to become 'protected'.
What has happened as a result of this, is that Australians are beginning to feel under obligation to become what they are not, and to adopt cultural practices or ideas with which they have no affinity, and in the process, feel that they cannot 'be natural', 'speak the truth' about anything, or 'have an opinion' that is not officially sanctioned.
It's like being in a pressure cooker, and one day, there will be a violent explosion, as average Australians refuse to be told what to think and believe and feel about just about everything.
From this perspective then, one of the negative things that a migrant might feel in Australia, even if it is not spoken or actively demonstrated, is that they 'do not really belong'; that no one wants to know them.
Historically however, this is just not true. We are a country of migrants, coming from vastly different backgrounds. After the war, many people who were formally our enemies, (soldiers who fought for the other side for instance), were welcomed in Australia.
Naturally, 'foreigners' are kept at a distance for awhile while people work out what they are made of. The modern day multiculturalist can jump up and down and scream about this statement as much as they like, but you don't have to be a different colour, religion, or race, to find yourself in this very same situation, when you move into a small community. I have moved around enough in Australia, to speak with Authority when I say, I have been the outsider enough times to know, that it often takes a lot of time and patience to be 'accepted'.
Acceptance however, is not a right! It is something you gain as you demonstrate your good character, and willingness to 'enter in' to community life. Living in China as I do, I know only too well what an 'outsider' feels like, and also know only too well, how it feels to know when I am accepted as one of the family.
I was at a friends house having lunch one day, when I got up from the table and went to the rice cooker, lifted the lid, and helped myself to more rice. There was a sudden burst of laughter, accompanied by many remarks in Chinese. When I asked what was going on, my friend turned to me and laughed, "Grandma says that now she KNOWS that you feel like a member of the family - you help yourself!"
From time to time we read reports in the paper of how some 'racially motivated' attack occurred, or how an 'anti-gay' attack occurred. It is so easy to call an attack on a migrant 'racist', or on a gay person 'homophobia', but the reality is that being abused, attacked or robbed, is rarely the result of being different, in a society where everyone 'is different'.
People cop abuse and are attacked firstly because it is in the nature of the perpetrator of the violence to behave this way. They need no excuse at all. That they 'use' an excuse, is a mere convenience for them; a way to 'justify' their behaviour in their own imaginations.
Another reason why people get attacked, irrespective of race, colour or creed, is that they don't use common sense. If I, a white guy, gets beat up in a dark alley late at night, everyone says, "What were you doing there! You should have known better!" But if the victim is 'a protected species', then obviously the attack was racially motivated.
When it comes to common sense, it often appears that young people have none, for in their fervent 'faith' in 'my human rights', they will often speak and behave unwisely in a potentially explosive situation. So naturally, when the trouble breaks out, 'it wasn't my fault!'
That my in fact be true, but if only you had used some wisdom!
One of the results of these constant accusations that 'we Australians' are racists, is that 'we Australians' feel that 'we' in fact, are the victims of 'reverse racism'. Our culture, our traditions and especially our religious beliefs are publicly denigrated, despite the fact that such behaviour is by definition, discriminatory.
I think it is fair to say, that Australians could care less where you come from, what religion you are, what language you speak, or what your affiliations are, as long as you make the effort to 'be Australian'; to be one of us, and not 'one of them!'
As a 'foreigner', you undoubtedly feel that you have to watch your 'P's & Q's, which means, you have to be careful not to offend anyone. Well, I can tell you, that the average Aussie today, finds him/herself in the same situation. We have been through the whole feminist thing, where you got into trouble no matter how you addressed a woman; you got accused of being chauvinistic if you did or did not open a door for a woman; where you were impolite if you did not offer your seat to a woman and yet got abused if you did: 'What? You think I am such a weak wilting lily that I can't stand for 10 minutes?"
I think that the average Australian today is constantly, paranoically, and pathetically on guard against saying or doing the wrong thing, and worried that even the best intentions will be misread.
Our traditional culture taught us 'to give 'em a fair go!' and as many of us fight to 'retrieve our culture', I hope that this attitude takes root again, and instead of people insisting on their rights, that they begin to think about the feelings of others!
I'm not sure if this makes sense to a new Australian, but I hope that one day it does, and that you can understand that the best way to go through life, is by following your path and experiences and not allowing your head and heart to be filled with false, overstated or unfounded fear.
Welcome to Australia!
R.P.BenDedek.
Hubei Radio &Television University Wuhan.
Hubei GuangBo DianShi DaXue (LuXiang)
(+86) (027) 8752 6349
Magic City Morning Star News International Column http://magic-city-news.com/cat_index_33.shtml
The King' Calendar : The Secret of Qumran http://www.kingscalendar.com
Sunday, November 27, 2005
Monday, November 21, 2005
Understanding culture's role in waking the 'Dragon' and the 'Tiger' - Dean Foster, Expatica
http://www.expatica.com/source/site_article.asp?subchannel_id=166&story_id=25327&name=Understanding+culture%27s+role+in+waking+the+%27Dragon%27+and+the+%27Tiger%27
An interesting discussion on WHAT IS CULTURE? About half way through....Sue
Understanding culture's role in waking the 'Dragon' and the 'Tiger'
As China and India assume a leadership role in the new, post-global world, intercultural expert Dean Foster argues that the rise of these giants is largely a case of being the right culture at the right time.
Here's a cross-cultural quiz for all you global gurus. First study these two examples.
1) On the one hand, you have an Asian country with:
*
a billion plus people, mainly uneducated, who do not speak English
* an authoritarian government and political system
* a communist economic system
* a social system that strongly rejects outside influences
2) On the other hand, you have an Asian country with:
* almost one billion people, many of whom have been educated by western standards and who speak English
* a democratic government and political system (in fact, the world's largest…)
* an economy based on capitalism
* a social system open to Western influences
Now answer the 64,000 dollar question: Given these factors, in the 1990's, which country would you have predicted to have been the first one to economically 'take off'?
The logical answer [2] is wrong because, despite the demographic clue (a), despite the political clue (b), despite the economic clue (c), and despite the sociological clue (d), you didn't have all the cultural clues. And, as we'll see, it is culture which most profoundly determines the destiny of nations.
Now, here's the missing, critical cultural information for the 'dragon' (yes, that's China): a Confucian-based cultural system, resulting in active consensus-driven compliance with authority.
And here's the missing, critical cultural information for the 'tiger' (India): a Hindu-based cultural system, resulting in passive individual acceptance of unchangeable realities.
These two fundamentally different cultural orientations, at work for thousands of years in both countries, determine the answer to the question of which country, China or India, would take off first in the 1990's, and the answer is of course: China.
Economists, no doubt, will look at recent economic policies and find the reasons for China's growth there (however, economic policy, as we will see, is an outgrowth of cultural orientations); political scientists and social pundits will find their explanations for China's sudden emergence by emphasising the changes in politics that have supposedly recently occurred but which, upon closer examination, appear not that dissimilar to older political traditions.
India: the world's service office
If we only look at the immediate, we see only the superficial. Current economic and political policy, if viewed through the current lens, gives us a superficial account of what is really happening. However, to understand culture, we need to understand its roots, where it comes from, its history, and in so doing we are forced to view things through a much deeper lens.
There is an old Chinese story about walking through the woods and coming upon a rushing stream. When first observing the stream, with its cascading waters and rocks, one might be tempted to conclude that the rocks are certainly more powerful than the water, as they force the water to part as it rushes over the rocks. However, if we were able to return to the stream in one hundred years, it is likely the rocks will be gone, eroded by the more powerful stream of rushing water.
Despite the undeniably real contributions that particular recent economic and political policies may have made to the hastening of China and India's emergence, the real engine behind this phenomenon is culture, shaping those very same economic and political decisions, determining how it all happens for each country and why, and determining how it will all unfold in the future.
Culture: The critical determinant of a nation's destiny
The emergence of these two giants presents us with the opportunity to witness the immense power of culture and its impact on the fate of nations. Despite the Indian advantages of an educated, English-speaking workforce, a familiarity with western practices and social systems, a democratic government and a more capitalist economy, or despite the Chinese disadvantages of an uneducated, non-English-speaking workforce, a historic rejection of western ways, an authoritarian political regime and an ideologically communist economic system, the factor that tipped the scales powerfully in favour of China and against India was culture.
The proof
The proof lies not only in China 'taking off' first, but the result of China's transformation (and, eventually, India's) reveals this 'culture factor'. What is the defining aspect of China's success if not that of having become the 'world's factory': the place where the world comes to realise economies of scale through the replication and reproduction of its goods and services?
Of all the possibilities that a nation can present to the world, its choices are most profoundly and always a reflection of its culture, and China is nothing if not a culture with a historical orientation to repetition, reproduction and replication; a tradition emerging from its deep Confucian values of perfecting, repeating, and reinforcing, as opposed to changing, the obligatory relationships that immutably exist between people.
Repetition
Chinese history, in many ways, is the story of the static repetition of one dynasty after another, without the apparent development that is often inherent in a nation's history. There is an old Chinese saying, 'perseverance can make an iron bar into a needle': the end-product being the result of the sheer repetition of the same act being repeated over and over and over again.
No teleological development here. No causal, progressive, incremental change, but just the same thing again, and again, and again, until the end-result is achieved. The building of the Great Wall simply requires the lining up of a million people repeating the same act of placing one brick on another until. One of the hallmarks of Chinese negotiating style is the insistence of one's position again and again, despite logical challenges to that position by the other side, until the other side eventually folds.
Culture determines the economic, political and social systems and paths that a nation chooses, and globalisation merely gives nations the opportunity to reveal their cultural identities on the world stage.
Most importantly, in China, there are over 20 distinctly different spoken languages, making the language spoken in Hong Kong (Cantonese) unintelligible to speakers in Beijing (who speak Mandarin).
However, the written form of Chinese – using symbols, or 'kanji', that represent concepts or words rather than alphabetic sounds — can be read by all, independent of how one speaks the words they read. Therefore, the very complicated written kanji-based Chinese script never advanced to a simpler alphabet. Consequently, today, the average Chinese child must learn approximately 3,000-5,000 kanji in primary school, simply to attain a basic level of functional literacy, a cumbersome task. Yet the greater need for maintaining comprehension among many different language speakers is stronger than the need to simplify the written script into one of alphabetic sounds.
In an educational system geared to the rote memorisation of logically unrelated facts, provided by an authority that cannot be questioned, students learn more than just how to read: more deeply, they learn the value of rote memorisation. They learn that mastery comes from repeating the same act over and over and over again; that facts flow from the powerful and resource-rich, that such people cannot be questioned, and that intellectual value is measured by the quantitative accumulation of data, and not the critical, analytical or creative interpretation of perceived experience.
How can China's great economic success today, emerging from this cultural tradition, be anything but having become the world's factory, where the same item is produced over and over again a million-fold; and where the proprietary ownership by individuals or corporations of knowledge, information and data that can be duplicated for all presents the west with one of its knottiest problems when working with China today (read, piracy of CDs, books, copyrights). Should it be any surprise that doing business with China inevitably entails the transfer of expertise, knowledge and resources that then get replicated, duplicated and mass-produced, seemingly overnight?
But what is it about these Confucian, consensus-driven values, that transfigures them into the factory of modern China?
China: A civilisation in search of a nation
Confucius, (1500 BC) had the misfortune of existing during a time of great civil strife in China, and the good fortune of being a wealthy aristocrat, who could to dedicate his life to thinking about how to make things better.
While his sage musings have been corrupted into endless fortune cookie missives for our entertainment (fortune cookies are actually an American invention, and can only be found in Shanghai today by way of being imported from San Francisco, where they were invented), Confucius did attempt to create a system of thought that he believed would ultimately yield an organised, peaceful society, one very different from the tragic reality of his day.
China: the factory of the world
His theory: that an organised and peaceful society could only result if every individual understood their role in relation to everyone else. This meant that the goal of the individual was to understand their responsibilities to and from others, as given to them by authority, and to perfect their performance in the discharge of these responsibilities.
No Horatio Alger myths of growing up in the gutter and becoming a self-made millionaire; no stories of being born in the log cabin and becoming president of the country. In Confucius' world, younger son obeys older son, wife obeys husband and father obeys state, and so on. Passive acceptance of one's role, indeed, perfection and performance of one's given role as defined by authority, is the greatest virtue – in fact, it defined, for the Chinese, the 'Confucian Gentleman'. This leads to acquiescence in the face of authority, and of active participation in the accomplishment of consensus-driven goals.
Should it be any surprise, therefore, that China's history has been one of repetitive dynastic cycles for almost 5000 years — the dynastic system only ended less than one hundred years ago, a blip in the geologic time of Chinese history — of authority dictating from above through a complex civil hierarchy, of the imposition of top-down social and economic policy onto a population pre-disposed to carrying out such policy, and of the economic advantage taking form in the replication and duplication of goods and services previously created elsewhere?
Economics, politics and social systems do not determine the culture of nations; in fact, it is precisely the opposite: culture determines the economic, political and social systems and paths that a nation chooses, and globalisation merely gives nations the opportunity to reveal their cultural identities on the world stage. The emergence of China in today's global world into the world's factory is perhaps one of the greatest current examples of this phenomenon, but not the only one.
The Indian mystique
If China's becoming the world's factory is a direct result of its historical cultural traditions, can we see the same dynamic at work with India? The answer is yes. Although economically coming into its own well over ten years later than the China explosion, India's boom, in its nature and even its timing, is a reflection of unique aspects of Indian culture. For if China has become the world's factory, what is India if not the world's 'back-office'?
Call most help lines, and a consumer reaches a customer service representative in Bangalore; most US-based and many European-based companies have outsourced or are in the process of outsourcing their internal processing and transactional systems to India; India now processes everything from orders to invoices to taxes to records and archives of every ilk and description, for businesses, governments and individuals the world over.
Modern technology certainly has made this possible, but modern technology does not just exist within the province of India, and yet it is India where it has been applied in its current shape and form. And that current shape and form, unique to India and emerging out of deep Indian cultural traditions, is 'Service'.
Not manufacturing, as is the case in the factory of China, but serving, from the world's back-office of India.
The fate is caste
For almost three thousand years, India was a culture shackled by a unique caste system, a rigid social hierarchy that organised people according to rank and role, mirroring the ordering and ranking of the tens of thousands of different manifestations of the eternal spirit in the Hindu pantheon of gods, each god slotted into their own individual position in the Hindu hierarchy. The unique nature of this ranking, whether cosmological (for gods) or social (for people) was to define clearly and with no ambivalence, the obligations to serve between gods and between people.
Social scientists might even explain India's delay in 'taking off' as the result of being the world's largest democracy and that democracy is a messy and unwieldy thing.
In the secular world of the here and now, this meant that those below served those above, and those above expected to be served by those below, in specific ways. Serving is precisely what this tradition is all about.
In 1947, when India became an independent nation, the caste system was made illegal. Nevertheless, the legacy of approximately three thousand years of rigid hierarchical organisation remains entrenched in the way society works. Mix this three-thousand-year-old cultural tradition with the added dash of modern IT technology, and serving converts to service, as in service-oriented, service-focused, and service-driven.
Now, economists might point out the financial advantages of shipping service-oriented activities to low wage and low cost countries, but there are many such countries available, and India and its well-educated English-speaking workforce was always available for this work before it exploded when it did. Political scientists might explain India's rise by citing the deliberate creation of recent government policies that systematically leveraged the advantage of a technologically educated and English-speaking workforce, but why a workforce specifically engaged in the servicing of the world's work?
Social scientists might even explain India's delay in 'taking off' as the result of being the world's largest democracy and that democracy is a messy and unwieldy thing. It doesn't allow for lining people up and getting them all to do the same thing that needs to be done at the same time – as China was able to do.
But the source of India's boom lies deep in its cultural heart, for IT opportunity and technological advantage and even politics can all converge to produce a great many things, but in India they converge to produce the world's 'back office', and the reason for that is the Indian cultural context in which all this occurs.
"…that which is ordained"
In the old Hindu world of the castes, the old saying, "Run as far and as fast as you wish, you cannot escape that which is ordained" was a truth that determined one's fate in life. There are few Indians today, however, who would willing subscribe to such fatalism, and most young professionals in Bangalore, Mumbai or Hyderabad have as burning a desire to control their life for the better as most young people anywhere.
Hot expat destination: China
Doing business in India: A marketplace shifting to high speed
China, part I
Doing business in a post-global market place: an interview with Dean Foster
China, Part II
China, part III
Negotiating in the post-global world (part I)
From Bangalore to Brussels: Ensuring expatriate success out of India
Recruiting, developing, and retaining staff in China
India in a post-global world: dispelling the myths
Job market in India hotter still
Wage costs higher in China than India
But these deep, fatalistic traditions resist and punish the kind of behaviours that are precisely required to achieve the control over one's life that many aspire to today. Acting and thinking independently at work, seeking empowerment to engage in individually held decisions and ideas, challenging or questioning authority when necessary, sharing information…good or bad…up and down the hierarchy in order to promote efficiency, willing to be personally accountable for risk, all these factors are not inherent in the Indian tradition.
One of the greatest challenges in transforming the Indian business landscape to insure its continued success, now that it has succeeded in establishing itself as the world's service office, is an organisational one, for no office can work well without accountability, efficient organisational hierarchy, the valuing and rewarding of contributions, action and risk-taking, and speedy, open and honest communication. So alongside the will, the expertise, the opportunity, and the possibilities that culture provides, there are the obstacles that it puts up, as well.
Culture as prophet
As we have seen, politics and economics, from both within and without, impact a nation's course, but how a nation responds to these forces and circumstances, and how it is impacted by them, is a reflection of its culture. In today's globalised world, how nations respond to these global economic and political forces becomes a profound reflection of its culture, and the convergence of culture and globalisation provides nations with advantages, as well as disadvantages.
If the advantages that globalisation exposes outweigh the disadvantages, the result can be a China and India phenomenon. If the disadvantages outweigh the advantages, or if a nation cannot or will not maximise the cultural advantages that globalisation exposes, the results can be some of the awful political and social dislocations that all too often make the daily news headlines. Some of India's cultural traditions held India back economically at first, giving the initial economic advantage to China; but these same cultural traditions also allowed India to eventually emerge, through globalisation, as the world's service-office.
For centuries, some of China's cultural traditions prevented China from economically developing until these cultural traditions converged, through globalisation, with the world's need for inexpensive manufactured goods in quantity. Change is always the one certainty, and while culture is the force that can propel a nation under the right circumstances from one condition to another, those same cultural factors can easily hold the nation back from moving on to yet a greater stage.
Today, for both China and India, it is a case of being the right culture at the right time, and for both of these giants, their continued success will depend upon their ability, not only to continue to provide what their cultures already predispose them to do so well (that's the easy part), but rather, to grow beyond what these traditions offer, as the tiger and the dragon assume a leadership role in the new, post-global world of the 21st century.
Dean Foster is president of Dean Foster Associates (www.learnaboutcultures.com)
Subject: Doing business in China/ India, business culture
An interesting discussion on WHAT IS CULTURE? About half way through....Sue
Understanding culture's role in waking the 'Dragon' and the 'Tiger'
As China and India assume a leadership role in the new, post-global world, intercultural expert Dean Foster argues that the rise of these giants is largely a case of being the right culture at the right time.
Here's a cross-cultural quiz for all you global gurus. First study these two examples.
1) On the one hand, you have an Asian country with:
*
a billion plus people, mainly uneducated, who do not speak English
* an authoritarian government and political system
* a communist economic system
* a social system that strongly rejects outside influences
2) On the other hand, you have an Asian country with:
* almost one billion people, many of whom have been educated by western standards and who speak English
* a democratic government and political system (in fact, the world's largest…)
* an economy based on capitalism
* a social system open to Western influences
Now answer the 64,000 dollar question: Given these factors, in the 1990's, which country would you have predicted to have been the first one to economically 'take off'?
The logical answer [2] is wrong because, despite the demographic clue (a), despite the political clue (b), despite the economic clue (c), and despite the sociological clue (d), you didn't have all the cultural clues. And, as we'll see, it is culture which most profoundly determines the destiny of nations.
Now, here's the missing, critical cultural information for the 'dragon' (yes, that's China): a Confucian-based cultural system, resulting in active consensus-driven compliance with authority.
And here's the missing, critical cultural information for the 'tiger' (India): a Hindu-based cultural system, resulting in passive individual acceptance of unchangeable realities.
These two fundamentally different cultural orientations, at work for thousands of years in both countries, determine the answer to the question of which country, China or India, would take off first in the 1990's, and the answer is of course: China.
Economists, no doubt, will look at recent economic policies and find the reasons for China's growth there (however, economic policy, as we will see, is an outgrowth of cultural orientations); political scientists and social pundits will find their explanations for China's sudden emergence by emphasising the changes in politics that have supposedly recently occurred but which, upon closer examination, appear not that dissimilar to older political traditions.
India: the world's service office
If we only look at the immediate, we see only the superficial. Current economic and political policy, if viewed through the current lens, gives us a superficial account of what is really happening. However, to understand culture, we need to understand its roots, where it comes from, its history, and in so doing we are forced to view things through a much deeper lens.
There is an old Chinese story about walking through the woods and coming upon a rushing stream. When first observing the stream, with its cascading waters and rocks, one might be tempted to conclude that the rocks are certainly more powerful than the water, as they force the water to part as it rushes over the rocks. However, if we were able to return to the stream in one hundred years, it is likely the rocks will be gone, eroded by the more powerful stream of rushing water.
Despite the undeniably real contributions that particular recent economic and political policies may have made to the hastening of China and India's emergence, the real engine behind this phenomenon is culture, shaping those very same economic and political decisions, determining how it all happens for each country and why, and determining how it will all unfold in the future.
Culture: The critical determinant of a nation's destiny
The emergence of these two giants presents us with the opportunity to witness the immense power of culture and its impact on the fate of nations. Despite the Indian advantages of an educated, English-speaking workforce, a familiarity with western practices and social systems, a democratic government and a more capitalist economy, or despite the Chinese disadvantages of an uneducated, non-English-speaking workforce, a historic rejection of western ways, an authoritarian political regime and an ideologically communist economic system, the factor that tipped the scales powerfully in favour of China and against India was culture.
The proof
The proof lies not only in China 'taking off' first, but the result of China's transformation (and, eventually, India's) reveals this 'culture factor'. What is the defining aspect of China's success if not that of having become the 'world's factory': the place where the world comes to realise economies of scale through the replication and reproduction of its goods and services?
Of all the possibilities that a nation can present to the world, its choices are most profoundly and always a reflection of its culture, and China is nothing if not a culture with a historical orientation to repetition, reproduction and replication; a tradition emerging from its deep Confucian values of perfecting, repeating, and reinforcing, as opposed to changing, the obligatory relationships that immutably exist between people.
Repetition
Chinese history, in many ways, is the story of the static repetition of one dynasty after another, without the apparent development that is often inherent in a nation's history. There is an old Chinese saying, 'perseverance can make an iron bar into a needle': the end-product being the result of the sheer repetition of the same act being repeated over and over and over again.
No teleological development here. No causal, progressive, incremental change, but just the same thing again, and again, and again, until the end-result is achieved. The building of the Great Wall simply requires the lining up of a million people repeating the same act of placing one brick on another until. One of the hallmarks of Chinese negotiating style is the insistence of one's position again and again, despite logical challenges to that position by the other side, until the other side eventually folds.
Culture determines the economic, political and social systems and paths that a nation chooses, and globalisation merely gives nations the opportunity to reveal their cultural identities on the world stage.
Most importantly, in China, there are over 20 distinctly different spoken languages, making the language spoken in Hong Kong (Cantonese) unintelligible to speakers in Beijing (who speak Mandarin).
However, the written form of Chinese – using symbols, or 'kanji', that represent concepts or words rather than alphabetic sounds — can be read by all, independent of how one speaks the words they read. Therefore, the very complicated written kanji-based Chinese script never advanced to a simpler alphabet. Consequently, today, the average Chinese child must learn approximately 3,000-5,000 kanji in primary school, simply to attain a basic level of functional literacy, a cumbersome task. Yet the greater need for maintaining comprehension among many different language speakers is stronger than the need to simplify the written script into one of alphabetic sounds.
In an educational system geared to the rote memorisation of logically unrelated facts, provided by an authority that cannot be questioned, students learn more than just how to read: more deeply, they learn the value of rote memorisation. They learn that mastery comes from repeating the same act over and over and over again; that facts flow from the powerful and resource-rich, that such people cannot be questioned, and that intellectual value is measured by the quantitative accumulation of data, and not the critical, analytical or creative interpretation of perceived experience.
How can China's great economic success today, emerging from this cultural tradition, be anything but having become the world's factory, where the same item is produced over and over again a million-fold; and where the proprietary ownership by individuals or corporations of knowledge, information and data that can be duplicated for all presents the west with one of its knottiest problems when working with China today (read, piracy of CDs, books, copyrights). Should it be any surprise that doing business with China inevitably entails the transfer of expertise, knowledge and resources that then get replicated, duplicated and mass-produced, seemingly overnight?
But what is it about these Confucian, consensus-driven values, that transfigures them into the factory of modern China?
China: A civilisation in search of a nation
Confucius, (1500 BC) had the misfortune of existing during a time of great civil strife in China, and the good fortune of being a wealthy aristocrat, who could to dedicate his life to thinking about how to make things better.
While his sage musings have been corrupted into endless fortune cookie missives for our entertainment (fortune cookies are actually an American invention, and can only be found in Shanghai today by way of being imported from San Francisco, where they were invented), Confucius did attempt to create a system of thought that he believed would ultimately yield an organised, peaceful society, one very different from the tragic reality of his day.
China: the factory of the world
His theory: that an organised and peaceful society could only result if every individual understood their role in relation to everyone else. This meant that the goal of the individual was to understand their responsibilities to and from others, as given to them by authority, and to perfect their performance in the discharge of these responsibilities.
No Horatio Alger myths of growing up in the gutter and becoming a self-made millionaire; no stories of being born in the log cabin and becoming president of the country. In Confucius' world, younger son obeys older son, wife obeys husband and father obeys state, and so on. Passive acceptance of one's role, indeed, perfection and performance of one's given role as defined by authority, is the greatest virtue – in fact, it defined, for the Chinese, the 'Confucian Gentleman'. This leads to acquiescence in the face of authority, and of active participation in the accomplishment of consensus-driven goals.
Should it be any surprise, therefore, that China's history has been one of repetitive dynastic cycles for almost 5000 years — the dynastic system only ended less than one hundred years ago, a blip in the geologic time of Chinese history — of authority dictating from above through a complex civil hierarchy, of the imposition of top-down social and economic policy onto a population pre-disposed to carrying out such policy, and of the economic advantage taking form in the replication and duplication of goods and services previously created elsewhere?
Economics, politics and social systems do not determine the culture of nations; in fact, it is precisely the opposite: culture determines the economic, political and social systems and paths that a nation chooses, and globalisation merely gives nations the opportunity to reveal their cultural identities on the world stage. The emergence of China in today's global world into the world's factory is perhaps one of the greatest current examples of this phenomenon, but not the only one.
The Indian mystique
If China's becoming the world's factory is a direct result of its historical cultural traditions, can we see the same dynamic at work with India? The answer is yes. Although economically coming into its own well over ten years later than the China explosion, India's boom, in its nature and even its timing, is a reflection of unique aspects of Indian culture. For if China has become the world's factory, what is India if not the world's 'back-office'?
Call most help lines, and a consumer reaches a customer service representative in Bangalore; most US-based and many European-based companies have outsourced or are in the process of outsourcing their internal processing and transactional systems to India; India now processes everything from orders to invoices to taxes to records and archives of every ilk and description, for businesses, governments and individuals the world over.
Modern technology certainly has made this possible, but modern technology does not just exist within the province of India, and yet it is India where it has been applied in its current shape and form. And that current shape and form, unique to India and emerging out of deep Indian cultural traditions, is 'Service'.
Not manufacturing, as is the case in the factory of China, but serving, from the world's back-office of India.
The fate is caste
For almost three thousand years, India was a culture shackled by a unique caste system, a rigid social hierarchy that organised people according to rank and role, mirroring the ordering and ranking of the tens of thousands of different manifestations of the eternal spirit in the Hindu pantheon of gods, each god slotted into their own individual position in the Hindu hierarchy. The unique nature of this ranking, whether cosmological (for gods) or social (for people) was to define clearly and with no ambivalence, the obligations to serve between gods and between people.
Social scientists might even explain India's delay in 'taking off' as the result of being the world's largest democracy and that democracy is a messy and unwieldy thing.
In the secular world of the here and now, this meant that those below served those above, and those above expected to be served by those below, in specific ways. Serving is precisely what this tradition is all about.
In 1947, when India became an independent nation, the caste system was made illegal. Nevertheless, the legacy of approximately three thousand years of rigid hierarchical organisation remains entrenched in the way society works. Mix this three-thousand-year-old cultural tradition with the added dash of modern IT technology, and serving converts to service, as in service-oriented, service-focused, and service-driven.
Now, economists might point out the financial advantages of shipping service-oriented activities to low wage and low cost countries, but there are many such countries available, and India and its well-educated English-speaking workforce was always available for this work before it exploded when it did. Political scientists might explain India's rise by citing the deliberate creation of recent government policies that systematically leveraged the advantage of a technologically educated and English-speaking workforce, but why a workforce specifically engaged in the servicing of the world's work?
Social scientists might even explain India's delay in 'taking off' as the result of being the world's largest democracy and that democracy is a messy and unwieldy thing. It doesn't allow for lining people up and getting them all to do the same thing that needs to be done at the same time – as China was able to do.
But the source of India's boom lies deep in its cultural heart, for IT opportunity and technological advantage and even politics can all converge to produce a great many things, but in India they converge to produce the world's 'back office', and the reason for that is the Indian cultural context in which all this occurs.
"…that which is ordained"
In the old Hindu world of the castes, the old saying, "Run as far and as fast as you wish, you cannot escape that which is ordained" was a truth that determined one's fate in life. There are few Indians today, however, who would willing subscribe to such fatalism, and most young professionals in Bangalore, Mumbai or Hyderabad have as burning a desire to control their life for the better as most young people anywhere.
Hot expat destination: China
Doing business in India: A marketplace shifting to high speed
China, part I
Doing business in a post-global market place: an interview with Dean Foster
China, Part II
China, part III
Negotiating in the post-global world (part I)
From Bangalore to Brussels: Ensuring expatriate success out of India
Recruiting, developing, and retaining staff in China
India in a post-global world: dispelling the myths
Job market in India hotter still
Wage costs higher in China than India
But these deep, fatalistic traditions resist and punish the kind of behaviours that are precisely required to achieve the control over one's life that many aspire to today. Acting and thinking independently at work, seeking empowerment to engage in individually held decisions and ideas, challenging or questioning authority when necessary, sharing information…good or bad…up and down the hierarchy in order to promote efficiency, willing to be personally accountable for risk, all these factors are not inherent in the Indian tradition.
One of the greatest challenges in transforming the Indian business landscape to insure its continued success, now that it has succeeded in establishing itself as the world's service office, is an organisational one, for no office can work well without accountability, efficient organisational hierarchy, the valuing and rewarding of contributions, action and risk-taking, and speedy, open and honest communication. So alongside the will, the expertise, the opportunity, and the possibilities that culture provides, there are the obstacles that it puts up, as well.
Culture as prophet
As we have seen, politics and economics, from both within and without, impact a nation's course, but how a nation responds to these forces and circumstances, and how it is impacted by them, is a reflection of its culture. In today's globalised world, how nations respond to these global economic and political forces becomes a profound reflection of its culture, and the convergence of culture and globalisation provides nations with advantages, as well as disadvantages.
If the advantages that globalisation exposes outweigh the disadvantages, the result can be a China and India phenomenon. If the disadvantages outweigh the advantages, or if a nation cannot or will not maximise the cultural advantages that globalisation exposes, the results can be some of the awful political and social dislocations that all too often make the daily news headlines. Some of India's cultural traditions held India back economically at first, giving the initial economic advantage to China; but these same cultural traditions also allowed India to eventually emerge, through globalisation, as the world's service-office.
For centuries, some of China's cultural traditions prevented China from economically developing until these cultural traditions converged, through globalisation, with the world's need for inexpensive manufactured goods in quantity. Change is always the one certainty, and while culture is the force that can propel a nation under the right circumstances from one condition to another, those same cultural factors can easily hold the nation back from moving on to yet a greater stage.
Today, for both China and India, it is a case of being the right culture at the right time, and for both of these giants, their continued success will depend upon their ability, not only to continue to provide what their cultures already predispose them to do so well (that's the easy part), but rather, to grow beyond what these traditions offer, as the tiger and the dragon assume a leadership role in the new, post-global world of the 21st century.
Dean Foster is president of Dean Foster Associates (www.learnaboutcultures.com)
Subject: Doing business in China/ India, business culture
Thursday, November 17, 2005
South Africa or Sydney - Anonymous, MSN Group
Which would you choose after reading this post on an MSN Group?
I'm planning to come to Sydney over the festive season and would like to initiate a house/apartment swop with somebody coming to Johannesburg over the festive season. I've got a sweet little two-bedroom house close to Melville with an electric fence and electronic gate. If you know of somebody who'd like to swop with me for the festive season, please email me
I'm planning to come to Sydney over the festive season and would like to initiate a house/apartment swop with somebody coming to Johannesburg over the festive season. I've got a sweet little two-bedroom house close to Melville with an electric fence and electronic gate. If you know of somebody who'd like to swop with me for the festive season, please email me
Wednesday, November 16, 2005
Muslim raids will either unite or divide - Joseph Wakim, The Advertiser
Joseph Wakim: Muslim raids will either unite or divide
I thought this was a good example of how Australians respond to messages they hear in the media. Blog Owner, Sue Ellson
http://www.theadvertiser.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,17244586%255E5000423,00.html
Joseph Wakim: Muslim raids will either unite or divide
15nov05 THE recent raids and arrests of 18 terror suspects may be divisive for Australian Muslims, but this is good news as it renders "them" to be more like "us".
In the first camp, there are those who heaved a collective sigh of relief. After a week-long drum roll from the Prime Minister that Australia was facing a potential terrorist threat, these Muslims demanded that the politicians either put up or shut up. They detested the fact that such alarmist and opportunistic scaremongering could make front-page news without a shred of evidence.
When the arrests replaced the generalised allegations, it was hoped that the smoke would dissipate and the focus would shift from collective "Islamophobia" to individual prosecution. If found guilty, the suspects would be exorcised from the peace-loving majority and handed over to the criminal justice system. It has been acknowledged that many Muslims have collaborated with ASIO to flush out these bad apples before they contaminate the rest.
For this (mainly second-generation) camp, this is not betraying your brother but defending your nation, and vindicates their loyalty as Australian citizens. Their families migrated to Australia precisely because they sought a transparent regime where the rule of law prevails. For them, anyone who engages in terrorist activities has turned their back on Islam.
In the second camp are those who have been suspicious about the timing of the arrests, and believe that the sequence of events was too staged to be credible. If the monitoring and surveillance has been undertaken for over 12 months with over 240 hours of secretly recorded conversations, why were the raids conducted on cue, just before the anti-terror laws were debated in parliament?
Rather than being the end of the Islamophobia, this camp worries that the spiral will escalate. The arrests confirm the Australian nightmare of a London-style, home-grown breed of terrorists. How could that nice boy down the street turn against us and plot to destroy his own homeland?
If we cannot trust him, how can we trust others of his ilk? It is this (leap in) logic and generalised distrust that these Muslims worry about from their fellow Australians.
The fear in this (mainly first-generation) camp is that the more there are raids and arrests, the more there will be attraction to militant martyrdom. There is fear that wrongful detentions would inflame charges of injustice and distrust of the judicial system; rather than curtailing the spiral, Muslim victimisation and vilification will inflame a more volatile climate.
Like all communities, Muslims are not a homogenous mass. Apart from the two camps described above – warriors of law and worriers of victimisation – there are shades in between.
Like all communities, Muslims are diverse across the generational, educational, sectarian and political spectrums. Like all communities, they have a right to their fair share of bad apples, some imported and some home grown.
In Australian multicultural discourse, we have been challenged to celebrate diversity of communities. This must extend to diversity within communities. The Muslim community is as pluralistic as the rest of us. Behaving or treating these fellow citizens as one herd is surely un-Australian.
# Joseph Wakim is founder of the Australian Arabic Council and a former Victorian Multicultural Affairs Commissioner.
I thought this was a good example of how Australians respond to messages they hear in the media. Blog Owner, Sue Ellson
http://www.theadvertiser.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,17244586%255E5000423,00.html
Joseph Wakim: Muslim raids will either unite or divide
15nov05 THE recent raids and arrests of 18 terror suspects may be divisive for Australian Muslims, but this is good news as it renders "them" to be more like "us".
In the first camp, there are those who heaved a collective sigh of relief. After a week-long drum roll from the Prime Minister that Australia was facing a potential terrorist threat, these Muslims demanded that the politicians either put up or shut up. They detested the fact that such alarmist and opportunistic scaremongering could make front-page news without a shred of evidence.
When the arrests replaced the generalised allegations, it was hoped that the smoke would dissipate and the focus would shift from collective "Islamophobia" to individual prosecution. If found guilty, the suspects would be exorcised from the peace-loving majority and handed over to the criminal justice system. It has been acknowledged that many Muslims have collaborated with ASIO to flush out these bad apples before they contaminate the rest.
For this (mainly second-generation) camp, this is not betraying your brother but defending your nation, and vindicates their loyalty as Australian citizens. Their families migrated to Australia precisely because they sought a transparent regime where the rule of law prevails. For them, anyone who engages in terrorist activities has turned their back on Islam.
In the second camp are those who have been suspicious about the timing of the arrests, and believe that the sequence of events was too staged to be credible. If the monitoring and surveillance has been undertaken for over 12 months with over 240 hours of secretly recorded conversations, why were the raids conducted on cue, just before the anti-terror laws were debated in parliament?
Rather than being the end of the Islamophobia, this camp worries that the spiral will escalate. The arrests confirm the Australian nightmare of a London-style, home-grown breed of terrorists. How could that nice boy down the street turn against us and plot to destroy his own homeland?
If we cannot trust him, how can we trust others of his ilk? It is this (leap in) logic and generalised distrust that these Muslims worry about from their fellow Australians.
The fear in this (mainly first-generation) camp is that the more there are raids and arrests, the more there will be attraction to militant martyrdom. There is fear that wrongful detentions would inflame charges of injustice and distrust of the judicial system; rather than curtailing the spiral, Muslim victimisation and vilification will inflame a more volatile climate.
Like all communities, Muslims are not a homogenous mass. Apart from the two camps described above – warriors of law and worriers of victimisation – there are shades in between.
Like all communities, Muslims are diverse across the generational, educational, sectarian and political spectrums. Like all communities, they have a right to their fair share of bad apples, some imported and some home grown.
In Australian multicultural discourse, we have been challenged to celebrate diversity of communities. This must extend to diversity within communities. The Muslim community is as pluralistic as the rest of us. Behaving or treating these fellow citizens as one herd is surely un-Australian.
# Joseph Wakim is founder of the Australian Arabic Council and a former Victorian Multicultural Affairs Commissioner.
Tuesday, November 08, 2005
Welcome to the Living in Harmony Australia Blog - Sue Ellson, Newcomers Network
Welcome!
In 2003, Newcomers Network was approached by the Australian Federal Government to support both the Australian Citizenship and Living in Harmony Initiatives. In 2004 and 2005, we received a Certificate of Appreciation. See more details at http://www.newcomersnetwork.com/mel/information/links/h.php
Now it is time to go high tech! We would like to explore new ways of sharing the 'Living in Harmony' message...to Australians that may not have heard this message before. But what I would also like to do is encourage more people, hopefully through word of mouth, to hear more stories of harmony, inspirational pieces that uplift us from the fear that seems to underlie so many of the messages we hear today.
Share your wisdom, insight and faith with us. Tell me how I can reach new people, to help them understand the value of diversity in Australia. In all its forms - not just of culture, linguistics or religious faith, but also of beliefs, interests and activities. Why is the 'melting pot' that is Australia, particularly here in Victoria, the envy of many other countries in the world?
There may be times when you want to 'vent' your concerns. Discuss what bothers you. That is okay here, but I would ask that you respect individual people's privacy and do not mention identifiable information about these people. I welcome healthy discussion and debate around the issues, not comment for or against certain individuals.
Anyone can post on this blog, you do not need to register to make a comment.
I am a 'migrant' to Melbourne, Victoria from Adelaide, South Australia. All of my friends in Melbourne come from other countries or locations...funny thing that! Here, I would like to welcome you to a space of harmony...where you can be who you are and you will be accepted as is. I look forward to hearing from you soon!
Sue Ellson
Founder
Newcomers Network
http://www.newcomersnetwork.com
Founder
Living in Harmony Australia Blog
http://www.livinginharmonyaustralia.blogspot.com
Co-Founder
Network of Networks
http://www.networkofnetworks.blogspot.com
In 2003, Newcomers Network was approached by the Australian Federal Government to support both the Australian Citizenship and Living in Harmony Initiatives. In 2004 and 2005, we received a Certificate of Appreciation. See more details at http://www.newcomersnetwork.com/mel/information/links/h.php
Now it is time to go high tech! We would like to explore new ways of sharing the 'Living in Harmony' message...to Australians that may not have heard this message before. But what I would also like to do is encourage more people, hopefully through word of mouth, to hear more stories of harmony, inspirational pieces that uplift us from the fear that seems to underlie so many of the messages we hear today.
Share your wisdom, insight and faith with us. Tell me how I can reach new people, to help them understand the value of diversity in Australia. In all its forms - not just of culture, linguistics or religious faith, but also of beliefs, interests and activities. Why is the 'melting pot' that is Australia, particularly here in Victoria, the envy of many other countries in the world?
There may be times when you want to 'vent' your concerns. Discuss what bothers you. That is okay here, but I would ask that you respect individual people's privacy and do not mention identifiable information about these people. I welcome healthy discussion and debate around the issues, not comment for or against certain individuals.
Anyone can post on this blog, you do not need to register to make a comment.
I am a 'migrant' to Melbourne, Victoria from Adelaide, South Australia. All of my friends in Melbourne come from other countries or locations...funny thing that! Here, I would like to welcome you to a space of harmony...where you can be who you are and you will be accepted as is. I look forward to hearing from you soon!
Sue Ellson
Founder
Newcomers Network
http://www.newcomersnetwork.com
Founder
Living in Harmony Australia Blog
http://www.livinginharmonyaustralia.blogspot.com
Co-Founder
Network of Networks
http://www.networkofnetworks.blogspot.com
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