The Journal of an American Living in China: The importance of flexibility

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Published on Friday, 13 July 2012 08:00

By Kent Clark, China Correspondent

I currently tutor a high school senior who will be attending college in the United States next year.  It is common, in the provincial capital that I live in, for high school seniors that plan to study abroad the following year to stop attending regular classes their senior year.  This is to allow them time to prepare for the SAT, as well as the rigorous English-language TOEFL exam, which is needed for university admission in English speaking countries.  My student long ago completed those exams so he has spent the past six months with nothing to do other than improve his English.  Since his English is pretty good, we often talk about political, cultural, and commercial differences between China and the United States.

“Bill Gates would never make it in China.”  As 18 year olds are prone to do, my student sometimes makes brash statements such as this.  We were having a discussion about private companies in China versus private companies in America right after the Facebook IPO.  “Many Western entrepreneurs come here and can spend maybe 10 years, but still have no relationships,” was his more balanced approach to our discussion.  As long as his grammar and pronunciation are correct, I try not to get into the habit of debating the merits of his opinions.  However, this particular sentiment struck a chord with me since I am currently one of those many.  I asked him what he thinks is the primary reason that so many outsiders fail in this country.  He said that he didn’t know, it is just what he reads and hears about.  “Maybe they just don’t understand the culture.”

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U.S. apologizes for 130-year-old law

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Published on Saturday, 07 July 2012 09:41

The U.S. House of Representatives on [June 18] unanimously expressed regret for the passage of discriminatory laws against Chinese immigrants to the United States, particularly the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.

Thanks to a grass-roots campaign of Chinese-American communities across the country, the vote marked the first time the House acknowledged the laws' far-reaching injustice. It followed a similar apology approved by the U.S. Senate in November.

Representative Judy Chu, a California Democrat who co-sponsored the bill, called [the] passage a "breakthrough" in the "historic" effort to acknowledge the harm done by exclusion law 130 years after its adoption.

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Foxconn workers must have dignity, not just pay raises

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Published on Friday, 13 July 2012 07:56

Newswise — In the global controversy that followed a rash of worker suicides at Foxconn Technology Group – the Taiwanese company whose huge Chinese factories assemble the world’s most popular consumer electronics – the firm and corporate partners such as Apple repeatedly invoked the notion of safeguarding employees’ dignity.

But the maker of everything from iPhones to PlayStations can’t simply manufacture self-worth through pay raises, overtime limits and better assembly lines in some factories, a new University of Nebraska-Lincoln study suggests.

For lasting change, Foxconn could provide legitimate paths to worker dignity – by limiting verbal abuse and developing management and discipline practices that help employees save face. Perhaps most importantly, it can improve employees’ lives away from work, said Kristen Lucas, a UNL assistant professor of communication studies and lead author of the study.

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Cultural differences in communication

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Published on Monday, 30 April 2012 09:59

By Kent Clark, China Correspondent

The ability to communicate clearly with others is a skill.  The more people one knows, the more one realizes that riding a unicycle while juggling four flaming piggy banks is easier for some than the simple act of communicating an idea or a feeling.  Due to many linguistic and cultural differences, China is a fertile breeding ground for communication mishaps.  Of course language is a rather large reason for these misunderstandings, but culture plays a very important role as well.  The picture above is one from a series depicting the multitude of cultural differences between China and the generic “west”- a generalization of North American and European cultures. 

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