I suppose the article is intended to be funny, but it's so staggeringly racist that I can't even... And then half way down, the diagram with the rubric "Oriental" in 14 point bold. I suppose it's a mercy the author didn't discuss African concepts of time, or goodness knows what sort of language they'd have used.
We know what typeface they would have used, anyway.
But how do different cultures drive? Like this?
I've also heard the Asians drive like this while Westerners drive like that.
This sort of "business advice for negotiating with inscrutable Asians" has been a staple in business magazines for a while. When my family lived in Japan back in the early 90s, I noticed that it was practically its own genre.
What we really need are more pieces on "business advice for negotiating with excitable Italians" or "business advice for negotiating with morose Rumanians".
I don't think the article is trying to be funny whatsoever! I think it's being overly earnest and trying to impart big wisdom.
I wonder which cultures had a whole extra 15 seconds to wait for the ad to finish.
I like the line about how Chinese businesspeople can be offended when American businessmen have to conclude meetings to catch their flight home before achieving a true meeting of the minds. Chinese people sure are foreign and difficult. It's probably worth hiring the author as a consultant to smooth over misunderstandings like that.
There are different attitudes toward time and work, but for fuck's sake will authors like this shut up with "the sun rises and sets" and "100,000 years" and Noh.
I don't think there are underlying logical/mental structures to any of these variations anyway - it's about collective habits and norms, which self-perpetuate.
My two cents:
We recognize that it is not fair that people like the Chinese, who, under the saintly guidance of Confucian morality multiply like mice, should come to degrade the human condition precisely at the moment when we begin to understand that intelligence serves to refrain and regulate the zoological instincts, which are contrary to a truly religious conception of life. If we reject the Chinese, it is because man, as he progresses, multiples less, and feels the horror of numbers, for the same reason that he has begun to value quality. In the United States, Asians are rejected because of the same fear of physical overflow, characteristic of superior stocks; but also because Americans simply do not like Asians, even despise them, and would be incapable of intermarriage with them. The ladies of San Francisco have refused to dance with officials of the Japanese Navy, who are men as clean, intelligent, and, in their way, as handsome as those of any other navy in the world. Yet, these ladies will never understand that a Japanese may be handsome. Nor is it easy to convince the Anglo-Saxon that if the yellow and black races have their characteristic smell, the Whites, for a foreigner, also have theirs, even though we may not be aware of it. In Latin America, the repulsion of one blood that confronts another strange blood also exists, but infinitely more attenuated. There, a thousand bridges are available for the sincere and cordial fusion of all races. The ethnic barricading of those to the north in contrast to the much more open sympathy of those to the south is the most important factor, and at the same time, the most favorable to us, if one reflects even superficially upon the future, because it will be seen immediately that we belong to tomorrow, while the Anglo-Saxons are gradually becoming more a part of yesterday. The Yankees will end up building the last great empire of a single race, the final empire of White supremacy. Meanwhile, we will continue to suffer the vast chaos of an ethnic stock in formation, contaminated by the fermentation of all types, but secure of the avatar into a better race. In Spanish America, Nature will no longer repeat one of her partial attempts. This time, the race that will come out of the forgotten Atlantis will no longer be a race of a single color or of particular features. This future race will not be a fifth, or a sixth race, destined to prevail over its ancestors. What is gong to emerge out there is the definitive race, the synthetical race, the integral race, made up of the genius and the blood of all peoples and, for that reason, more capable of true brotherhood and of a truly universal vision.
As proof of the veracity of the cyclical nature of time, how often do we (in the West) say, "If I had known then what I know now, I would never have done what I did?"
How is this "proof of the veracity of the cyclical nature of time"?
Someone once told me, "Time is a flat circle." Everything we've ever done or will do, we're gonna do over and over and over again.
I don't remember who told me that. But based on the article in the OP, I'm guessing he must have been an Oriental.
I work in an environment where time is extremely flexible, and its annoying as hell. Meetings start half an hour late and take twice as long as they should. Nothing is ever turned in on time. Deadlines are mere suggestions. Everything is scheduled at the last minute. It drives me crazy. Give me Western Imperialist time management standards any day.
"Remember that yankees place a premium on quick deals and immediate results. This is because they are unmoored from any culture, change jobs frequently, divorce frequently, may be murdered by drug dealers or their own government at any time, die from inability to obtain healthcare, and thus feel they have to take their profits early and then retire to a life of drug use, hedonism, and internet trolling." -- Sun Tzu
12: YOU MEAN THE MOEBIUS?
The Spaniard, in contrast, is always conscious of the double truth -- that of immediate reality as well as that of the poetic whole.
It is probably indicative of my Germanic mindset that I have no idea what this means.
What I find most annoying about concepts of time in China is that people tend to turn up early for things. Like, really early. Like, at least half an hour early, with no acknowledgement of being early. Since I am not a morning person and am only grudgingly punctual, this annoys me probably more than it should. If you say you're going to pick me up at 7:30, then anything before 7:25 is "early" and you should at least be apologetic about it. You shouldn't call me at 7 am all frantic wondering where I am because you've been waiting for me.
But on the article, this is what I have the hardest time with:
"Richard Lewis is an internationally renowned linguist"
He's up there with Keith Chen, the dude who declared that the reason the Latin races Southern Europeans are lazy and profligate because they have a morphologically inflected future tense.
But anyways...why bother with a PhD to actually learn stuff when you can make $$$$ writing stuff like this?
"business advice for negotiating with excitable Italians"
A friend's husband (he's Italian; they live in Italy) has a tech company that he basically markets as "we're-the-shit-together-having-American-minded Italians!"
I was hoping that this article wouldn't be so useless that I couldn't pass it to my bosses, who are so impatient with a Chinese quasi-governmental entity we're working for that the whole relationship is probably going to explode. However, it is pretty damned useless after all.
Sorry about that! By the way, I think my grandmother looks a bit like you. Or did when she was young.
But anyways...why bother with a PhD to actually learn stuff when you can make $$$$ writing stuff like this?
Because, knowlege is its own reward!
Also, since time is cyclical you'll get a chance to make the opposite choice the next time.
15 - Moebius was French, and really, isn't calling L'Incal a comic strip overly dismissive?
Rfts has a friend who is Italian, now thankful to be living elsewhere, who has described to her the horrors of being a temperamentally punctual and impatient person surrounded by his fellow Italians.
21.--That's okay! It was funny, which is its own kind of useful.
As for the other thing, that is odd! I do sort of look like generic Northern-European woman.
Jesus, the whole "I have plumbed the deepest depths of the zeitgeists of all world cultures, and I shall now reveal my Theory of Everything which explains them all" tone of that article makes me want to track that guy down and slap the shit out of him. It would have been a much better article had it ditched the metaphysics and been reduced to a set of bullet points under the heading "Here are some cultural norms regarding punctuality in various countries."
A personal favorite of mine in this genre is Bruce Laingen's cable discussing those inscrutable Persians, written a few months before the Iran hostage crisis. It foreshadows decades of the most influential American thinking on the Middle East.
WITNESS A YAZDI RESISTING THE IDEA THAT IRANIAN BEHAVIOR HAS CONSEQUENCES ON THE PERCEPTION OF IRAN IN THE U.S. OR THAT THIS PERCEPTION IS SOMEHOW RELATED TO AMERICAN POLICIES REGARDING IRAN. THIS SAME QUALITY ALSO HELPS EXPLAIN PERSIAN AVERSION TO ACCEPTING RESPONSIBILITY FOR ONE'S OWN ACTIONS.
31: It really is. I feel that I'm finally understanding you, ogged.
Mrs. Mortimer wrote the ur-Text of the genre.
33: didn't Kant write something similar?
33:
"Of the Different Human Races," 1775
Hume also wrote a fun one: "Of National Characters"
These sorts of essays go back at least to Spanish encounters with the indigenous in the Americas.
That should have been to 34. The first link is to Kant's essay on the classification, origins, and characteristics of different races.
The Spaniard, in contrast, is always conscious of the double truth -- that of immediate reality as well as that of the poetic whole.
All that time meditating, when I could have just been born Spanish!
These sorts of essays go back at least to Spanish encounters with the indigenous in the Americas.
There's Tacitus on the Germanic tribes as well.
Really, these things must go all the way back.
36: I was thinking of something else, which was specifically about different European nationalities, IIRC.
39: Hmmm. I believe he specifically riffs on Hume's essay on national characters in "Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and the Sublime", but it's been a while, and I don't own a copy of the text.
This is what Wikipedia has to say about it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observations_on_the_Feeling_of_the_Beautiful_and_Sublime#Section_Four
Really, these things must go all the way back.
18th century writers overgeneralized like this, while...
Enlil brought out of the mountains those who do not resemble other people, who are not reckoned as part of the Land, the Gutians, an unbridled people, with human intelligence but canine instincts and monkeys' features.
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NMM to Chester Nez, last of the Navajo code talkers |>
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NMM to Chester Nez, last of the Navajo code talkers |>
Smooth-skin people eat meat before brains, make too much mouth noise, make fun of our name.
6 strikes me as very true, and also very sad.
47
It will make you less sad when you realize the guy probably makes at least in the mid 6 figures writing stuff like this and leading training sessions at corporate headquarters around the globe.
Unless you are sad at the butchering of human knowledge, in which case, weep away.
I thought Business Insider just put up whatever so long as they didn't have to pay for copy. Or is that the new Forbes online whatever?
He might not be earning much from Business Insider, but these sorts of guys make a killing teaching seminars and workshops at B-schools and corporate HQs and writing reports. The amount of money around for shoddy academics that prop up the status quo is kind of insane. If I had no sense of ethics or morals or dignity I might turn to the dark side. Find some 19th century racial taxonomies, slap a little Whorfian* lingo on top, and bam! Present for execs at Walmart Germany.
*Disclaimer: this has nothing to do with the actual ideas of poor Benjamin Whorf.
I tried to sell out, but it turns out to be very hard to do if you wait too long. They either think I've internalized an ethical system or that I'm too lazy to effectively support capital.
the butchering of human knowledge
Knowledge sausage!
Maybe I could go around to high schools as a public service and warn kids that they need to sell out before 35.
Uggh, I skimmed this the first time I saw it at Business Insider. It is terrible! This culture stuff is hard to do well - they often end up in absurd bs stereotypes with stupidly indulgent and simplistic recommendations.
But there are real differences in how groups work, as Spike and Jackmormon's comments attest. I think Europeans are a bit obsessed with this stereotyping, partly there are real differences in how groups work across very small distances and it causes real frictions. It's hilarious and painful to hear my friend talk about working on an Italian acquisition of a German firm. I didn't really get Minivet's critique that this is all social norms not cognitive - sure, but those are part of reality as well. BTW, I thought Erin Meyers sounds like she does a much better version of this: http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/05/cross-culture-work-in-a-global-economy/.
Rfts has a friend who is Italian, now thankful to be living elsewhere, who has described to her the horrors...
I work in Milan, and I tend to be the last one for meetings at 3-5 minutes late. But Italians are never happier than when they're slagging their own culture. That said, the country really is driving its best and brightest young people abroad because the system is so intolerable and inhospitable for a talented young person. They are simultaneously proud of and sad about the Italian diaspora.
BTW, I do this "sellout" work. I got my PhD in a business school and I teach MBAs and execs and do research on business.
But there are real differences in how groups work, as Spike and Jackmormon's comments attest. I think Europeans are a bit obsessed with this stereotyping, partly there are real differences in how groups work across very small distances and it causes real frictions.
If only there were an academic discipline designed to study cultural difference without reducing everything to simplistic stereotypes...
If only there were an academic discipline designed to study cultural difference without reducing everything to simplistic stereotypes...
Heh. While some anthropologists have done well in business (Paco Underhill) they haven't thrived in business schools. Surprising given the field's long experience in propping up colonialism imperialism. I have met several who thrive in health/med school settings.
Surprising given the field's long experience in propping up colonialism imperialism.
Yeah, they seem to have gotten off that bus just a little bit too soon to really cash in.
(Paco Underhill)
Any relation to Ruth?
Any relation to Ruth?
Huh, I don't know. Seems like a perfect second generation academic move. Study the field because Mom did then do something totally different.
Some digging seems to indicate that Ruth didn't have any children, so if there's any relationship it's more distant.
There's Tacitus on the Germanic tribes as well.
I'll raise you Herodotus on more or less everybody.
Speaking as someone who has lived in Hong Kong, I find the idea that Asians are incapable of making quick decisions and don't have the concept of "wasting time" to be completely ridiculous.
Surprising given the field's long experience in propping up colonialism imperialism
The only people who think that anthropologists did anything material to prop up colonialism are anthropologists, and that's only because it gives them a nice frisson to think how powerful they were, albeit in the service of evil.
I work in Milan, and I tend to be the last one for meetings at 3-5 minutes late. But Italians are never happier than when they're slagging their own culture
This guy is Sicilian.
Not that there's anything wrong with being Sicilian.
63: Obviously they must have learned it from the British.
Not that there's anything wrong with being Sicilian.
I'll raise you Herodotus on more or less everybodything.
Speaking as someone who has lived in Hong Kong, I find the idea that Asians are incapable of making quick decisions and don't have the concept of "wasting time" to be completely ridiculous.
The truly amazing thing about stereotypes is the way people can continue to hold them in the face of direct, personal, and constant disconfirmation.
Like, Americans continue to think Mexicans are lazy, even when they are looking straight at a guy that they know just risked his life crossing the border so he can spend 12 hours a day mowing lawns for two dollars an hour.
Being paid two dollars an hour means that he can't be working very hard. People who work harder get paid more - that's the miracle of the market.
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Remember my terrible, horrible, no good, very bad boss? (Googlefail on finding my previous comments.)
She got a huge fucking smackdown from the big boss. Among other things, she's no longer going to supervise the administrative staff, which is huge. She was a total fucking bitch to them and drove yet another incredibly competent one to quit about 6 weeks ago. Big Boss has hired the secretary back with a promotion!
And Stupidhead Boss is no longer in charge of me for everything, but giving the secretaries a human supervisor is the much bigger deal.
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72: Congrats! Always a good thing when one's life is less entangled with the lives of the Stupidheads.
72: Yes, that makes an immense difference. I hope that the "still have to report to terrible boss somewhat" lines are very clear. Muddled reporting can be its own nightmare.
64 Depending on how expansive you regard the term "anthropologist" that's not true. Unless you regard the writing of what amounts to being intelligence reports and the compilation of dictionaries and grammars to be immaterial.
I think the comments about such articles (or authors) working for corporate training is really dated. Maybe 20-30 years ago. I've seen nothing so stupid in corporate training for international work in a long, long time. I am still not positive that the article isn't a clever troll.
Regarding the use of the word Oriental; The company I work for was recently in negotiations with a huge Korean holding company. On their side - half a dozen Koreans. On our side a bunch of Indians and me, the cacasuian guy. (All guys on both sides because... Tech.) At some point for an obscure reason the lead negotiater on their side turned to me and started explaining the "difference between Oriental culture and American culture" which sort of made my jaw drop.
DN
My 17 year old will refer to anything that's ever happened being "yesterday". It's like having a toddler around. What nationality is she?
A friend of mine is a psycholinguist who specifically works on this sort of cross-cultural 'Sapir-Whorff'-y stuff. I should send her the link, and then listen and see if I can hear the screams from [a place in the Low Countries].
