Chinese Etiquette & Ethics In Business

The author is a knowledgeable guide to the peoples and cultures of Asia. This book addresses both the Asian desire for "what/how" and the Western desire for "why?" The many details of etiquette, travel and business meetings in China are thoroughly covered and explained.The author writes for a western audience, highlighting the values of Chinese culture, but warning of the tactics, drive and skills of Chinese organizations and individuals to win in the war of business.More importantly, the book directly explains why and how many Chinese believe that their 5,000 year old culture is right and will prevail. Key concepts of Confucius, Lao Tzu, ying/yang, face, feng shui, circles, back doors, networks and harmony are clearly explained. The contrast between generic Asian and Western cultural expectations is clearly made. Chinese culture is described as collectivist, hierarchical, relationship oriented, holistic, circular, way seeking, haggling, courting, formal, brokered, indirect, explaining, questioning, patient and long-term.This is a good book for those who are serious about understanding and succeeding in their long-term relations with Chinese individuals and organizations.As the negative reviewers note, regional differences are not covered, the short language section is not perfectly edited and the author's willingness to generalize about cultural beliefs can be viewed as insensitive, or not.

This book is chock-full of erroneous, confusing, and even harmful information. De Mente's information is so superficial, stereotyping, and ethnocentric as to verge on racism. E.g., the Chinese as "simpleminded" (25), Taiwan as "turning out students who are little better than robots" (23); "incapable of viewing the overall picture" (127). He writes of cultural values and customs as "cop-outs" (140); "psychological ploys" (141), "syndromes" (142), "mentalities" (193). The author's deep insensitivity to Chinese culture causes him to oversimplify and give advice that may actually alienate the reader from Chinese people: e.g., to get in the other person's face, stare into their eyes, and speak something extremely simple; repeat until they respond. (p. 91).Throughout the book de Mente makes an utter mess of Chinese language. In addition to countless typographical errors, he mixes several different Romanization systems together with a pronunciation guide that is both idiosyncratic and often just plain wrong. He does not differentiate between `Mandarin' and Cantonese --as, for example when listing titles such as President, Director, etc. (130) even though he has stated earlier that they are `mutually unintelligible" languages. He insists on reversing the traditional order of Chinese names so that Mao Zedong becomes Zedong Mao, Sun Yat-sen becomes Yat-sen Sun, and the venerable Daoist sage known to the whole literate world as Laozi (aka Lao-tze or Lao-tsu) becomes Ze Lao. And Taijiquan (aka T'ai Chi Ch'uan) becomes Dai Ji Juan (169) - which makes no sense in ANY system!Information sources tend to be generalized as unspecified "critics", "sociologists", etc., without citations. The book has neither an index nor a bibliography. All in all, it's hard to believe that the publisher didn't insist on more integrity.As a cultural anthropologist who has done field-research in mainland China since 1988, I found this book deeply offensive, and would not recommend it to anyone at all.

After reading Boye Lafayette De Mente's Chinese Etiquette and Ethics in Business, I felt it imperative to respond because I found major flaws in his analysis. De Mente has spent thirty years in Japan and East Asia, but is clearly not an expert on Chinese etiquette and ethics in business. He appears to have collected information from a wide variety of sources and thrown them all together claiming that he is writing about Chinese business etiquette. However, he does not distinguish which Chinese culture he is referring to and often mixes characteristics of the etiquette observed in different Chinese subcultures. Many of the tips he gives as things to do in Chinese etiquette would cause serious social blunders in Shandong business culture. He frequently mixes Cantonese customs and northern Chinese customs which, under certain circumstances, are incompatible. I have included a few examples of where De Mente's analysis does not fit in the business culture found in Shandong Province. De Mente obviously does not have a clear understanding of the northern Chinese psychology when he states that Chinese downplay the status one's friends and employer. This would certainly depend on who is present when the "downplaying" occurs. Northern Chinese often laud their friend's accomplishments in order to give them face and would never speak in a negative fashion about their employer while he or anyone who might inform him of what was being said was present because of the obvious consequences. Furthermore, the essence of interacting within northern Chinese culture is personal friendships which can be very intimate rather than being between organizations as De Mente purports. Normally, Shandongnese businessmen do business with an organization because of the personal friendship between two members of the respective organizations. De Mente also suggests to "look the other party directly in the eyes, and say something simple in Chinese" in order to break the psychological block many Chinese have a! bout Chinese speaking foreigners. This tactic may appear to be effective in the immediate encounter, but it would be much too direct for most northern Chinese to accept. Furthermore, it would be a direct affront to their face. Rather than facilitating interaction with them, in the long term, it would more than likely cause them not to want to interact with an individual even though he has the ability to speak Chinese. Because one can speak Chinese, the expectation is that he also has a certain level of understanding of the culture. Therefore, this very un-Chinese behavior would be more damaging than not interacting in Chinese at all. In his chapter on eating and drinking etiquette, De Mente states that the host is seated nearest the door and that "In Chinese etiquette, the left side is the seat of honor." However, in Shandong banquette culture the principle host is always seated furthest from the door and the seat of honor is always to the principle host's right. Furthermore, if a Shandong host were to only sip his alcoholic beverage while his guests were drinking full glasses, as De Mente suggests is the case, he would be seen as not fulfilling his responsibilities as host. Moreover, such an action would be a direct affront to his guests' face. Refusing to drink with someone, which includes the amount that is consumed with each drink, is tantamount to refusing to give that person face. This type of host would also be deemed as not being forthright because he refuses to drink to his ability. Thus, Shandong guests would not want to conduct business with such a host because he is not willing to reveal everything about himself to them. Also, De Mente translates suiyi as 'to sip.' Sip might be what some guests do when the host tells them to suiyi, but suiyi does not mean to sip. This is a phrase commonly used by hosts to accomplish one of three tasks. One, it is a means for calling a time out in the performance. Actors can then eat a few bites of food and chat freely. This suiyi can be transla! ted as 'as you please.' Suiyi can also be used by hosts to display to the guests that he is performing his duties as host. In this usage, it should translate something roughly equivalent to 'Make yourself at home.' The third use of suiyi comes in the drinking context. Sometimes it means '[we are not going to play the Shandong banquet game today.] Don't stand on formalities.' However, when used in the context of drinking wars, it should be translated as 'Since you can't handle drinking very much, you do not have to drink your entire glass.' Combine this with the fact that glasses are filled almost to the point of overflowing, and the result is De Mente's 'sip.' Finally, one glance at De Mente's glossary should inform the reader of the book's major flaw. It is a hodgepodge of Cantonese and Mandarin terms thrown together without being distinguished. Were the reader to adopt many of the phrases listed in the common business vocabulary section, he would have great difficulty being comprehended by Shandong businessmen. Therefore, I would not recommend the person not familiar with Chinese culture who can not distinguish among the regional subcultures to use this book as a guide to interacting with Chinese professionals. The notion of subculture must be considered when professionally interacting with Chinese businessmen.