First of all I must say that I had an AMAZING lunch today. I had this fried rice dish with octopus, and it was cooked and served .. in a giant leaf. Pretty cool, and it tasted amazing. It came with a little soup, and was very cheap, costing uner $2 USD (12 RMB).
As for integrity beyond the self and the art of dealing with Chinese business practices, I have to start out saying that I failed miserably. I went to Chinese class tonight with my chinese friend to listen in on a class, sort of try it out to see if I liked it and wanted to spend my money. This is allowed and everything went smoothly; I got into the class, which had only 3 students, I liked the teacher, I got along with everyone, and the content, while perhaps a little easy, was interesting. Then came trouble.
My friend went outside for a phone call and the front desk finally realized that it was a Chinese person listening in on the class. They immediately told her to leave, stating that Chinese cannot listen in on classes. She got upset, and came in to get me. I promptly proceeded outside to find out what in the world was the problem.
After a few minutes of consoling my friend and asking "what's going on, who told you to leave," a woman at the desk, who actually was the person I had dealt with on more than one occassion and had never mentioned anything before, said that she had asked my friend to leave. Then, apparantly her superior, walked over to handle the situation. She opened up with "our rules are that no chinese person can listen into a class." I immediately asked "why?" Chinese people are not used to this question, and I am not being racist, it is true. Authority is accepted completely here, including bosses, government officials, and teachers. The favorite comment that I hear too often here is "this is policy," and after I ask "why," I get a puzzled look and a "there is no why, it is policy. All schools have this policy." I feel like I am a 3rd grader again asking my parents a stream of questions that they are too annoyed to answer.
The lady gets annoyed, which in turn annoys me, as her request for my friend to leave is most unacceptable, mostly due to her rude attitude, no previous warning or information even though I walked in speaking Chinese to my friend as we asked where the class was, and the fact that I feel entitled as the customer to some rights - a big mistake in China. In China the customer is not #1, and I'm not sure what #2 is. Authority must be maintained, the structure must not be changed. I did not have this in mind when I was there, so I proceeded with the logical argument
This is my money, so if you want it you'll have to be a little lenient with me. I want my friend to listen in on my class so I can better decide if it is fit for me. "
Well, with the knowledge that people in china are not used to asking "why", and are not used to challenging authority (even rightly so), I could have handled this a lot better. Instead of being the American, coming in here thinking that the customer is always right, money is king, and authority must have reason behind it, I should have been looking at the situation from another point of view: how can I work this out so I benefit as much as possible, without my friend losing face (that's a topic for another day), and without the company losing face? From this point of view, I should have just said "oh, I'm sorry I wasn't aware of this" instead of getting into a near yelling match, and continued with "well, I've already listened to enough, we'll be on our way."
Besides being rational, I could take this a step further and look at it as integrity beyond the self, or selflessness. If I were her, raised in China and thinking this way, how would I feel if an American came in here making demands I had never heard before, and then yelling at me and calling me illogical and backward? If instead of feeling that things were unfair, I could have seen the situation in a completely different light, and tried to maintain integrity on both sides. Instead of just thinking about face, I could take it a step further and be polite and respectful instead, thanking them for already allowing me the time we had, telling them that I enjoyed the course and was thinking about joining. Possibly the results would be the same as with the rational approach, but for different reasons and caring different intentions, would may have diffused the situation much easier, and possibly lead to an allowance of us to walk around the rules a bit (as actually does happen often in China, if proper respect is shown, or proper bribes). Rather, when faced with disrespect and cockiness, people tend to tense up and not budge at all.
Either way, I would still have classes to attend, but now I'm looking for a new school. Personal development does have real value - go figure.
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1 comment:
Thats a pretty interesting point. I do find myself trying to fight for what I think is right sometimes, not really thinking about what consequences that might have for other people. It's hard to lay down sometimes, but it is good to look at it from the other perspective, shows real character. It's like with your parents, even if they are not making much sense, you should realize that there is a point to their madness, and I think being aware of that is a good thing, even if you don't agree.
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