Flush with dollars, Chinese students, tourists, and businessmen have become a common sight in the West. Riding upon this wave of internationalization, the Chinese government has helped finance and push Chinese language learning outside of China as a part of its soft diplomacy program, and more people overseas are learning Chinese than ever before. At the same time, China has dramatically increased defense spending, and has taken on a more robust military posture in Asia, much to the alarm of its neighbors.
In many ways, China has come into its own as a nation. Having said this, there are dark clouds on the horizon. The Chinese economy has finally started to slow, and many people question whether the Chinese government can manage a soft landing. Meanwhile, it appears that the government itself is making internal changes, the outwardly visible manifestation of which is a strong anti-corruption campaign, though there are hints of many more changes below the surface.
Times have become uncertain, and given the uncertainty of the times and China’s newfound place in the international community as a business leader and a military power, understanding how to work with the Chinese people has become more important than ever before.
Notes on Pronunciation
What has traditionally been referred to as “the Chinese language” is in fact a family of ten closely related but mutually unintelligible languages that includes Cantonese, Shanghainese, Fukienese, Hokkien, Hakka, Chin Chow, and Mandarin. There are also several dozen regional dialects within these languages that are used by some of the 56 officially recognized ethnic groups in China.
Following the takeover of China by the Chinese Communist Party in 1949 it was decreed that Mandarin, the primary language of the Beijing region, was to be the country’s national language. All schools outside this region would teach it as a second language, no matter what their native dialect. As a result of this decree, younger generations of Chinese outside of the Beijing area–including Hong Kong–are generally bilingual. Visitors who would like to communicate in Chinese even on a basic level are therefore advised to study Mandarin.
It is worth noting that people in all of China’s regions have historically used the same ideograms for writing their various languages. Although pronunciation is unique to each language, the meanings of the characters are the same. This makes it possible for people to communicate with one another, no matter which dialect they may speak.
There are four basic tones in Mandarin: first tone (high-level), second tone (rising), third tone (falling-rising), and fourth tone (falling). While most of the sounds in the language are easy for English speakers to emulate, getting the tones right can be a challenge because many words are spelled and look the same but have different meanings based on how they are pronounced.
Getting the tones right requires a combination of keen hearing, imitation, and practice. This begins with knowing how the vowels and consonants are pronounced. Here is a quick guide to their Romanized versions:
VOWELS
| a | as in ah |
| ai | as in buy |
| ao | as in how |
| e | as in fur |
| ei | as in day |
| i | as in see, or, when following the consonants c, ch, r, s, sh, z, and zh, as ur |
| ian | as yen |
| ie | as in here |
| iu | as you |
| o | as awe |
| ou | as in how |
| u | as in woo |
| ü | as urr |
| ui | as way |
| uo | as war |
CONSONANTS
| c | as the ts in cats or rats |
| h | as in hah or how |
| j | as in jeans |
| q | as the ch in cheap |
| r | sounds like a combination of j and r |
| x | as the sh in sheen |
| z | as the ds in fads |
| zh | as juh |
Other consonants are pronounced more or less as they are in English.
Part I
The Middle Kingdom
Chapter 1
The Origins of Chinese Etiquette
Nothing says traditional Chinese ethics and etiquette more clearly or loudly than the name Confucius, the great philosopher-teacher who lived from 551 to 479 BC. In his efforts to provide principles for achieving social and political harmony, Confucius taught that society consisted of a hierarchy of overlapping relationships between people. These relationships were a ruler to his subjects, a father to his son, a husband to his wife, an elder brother to his younger brother, and a friend to a friend. With the exception of friend to friend relationships, all of these relationships involved people of different status.
In the Confucian world, everyone should cultivate yi (ee), which means “virtue”; ren (ren), which means “benevolence”; and li (lee), which means “etiquette”. Li is packed with a multitude of nuance and meaning that is not found in the English word “etiquette”. The Chinese character refers to the making of sacrifices on an altar, in the sense of offering proper respect to another person. From this, we get the idea of “rites” and “rituals”. And indeed, in traditional Confucian thinking etiquette has a very strong ritualistic aspect: The way something is done can be even more important than the final result, and the actions of an individual can be even more important than his inward motivations. So long as the proper respect is offered, then one has done his duty.
The way one shows respect is relative to the status of the individual, the kind of relationship, and the situation. For this reason, Confucius found it absurd that there could be any kind of universal law that determined everyone’s conduct at all times.
In the natural interplay of human relationships, benevolence flows from a person of higher status to someone of lower status, while respect flows the opposite direction. That is, a ruler should show benevolence to his subjects, and his subject should show him the proper respect. It is therefore a grave impropriety in Confucian thinking to ever challenge or question the motivations or actions of someone with a higher status. Confucius taught that if everyone would merely observe the proper etiquette according to his or her station in life, there would be harmony in the world, and that it is not our place to judge or correct those above us.
When it came to government, Confucius taught that government officials could cultivate virtue by studying ancient Chinese classical literature. In his view, government service should be a meritocracy, with rank bestowed based upon how cultivated a person was. In time, Confucian ideas resulted in the development of a system of imperial examinations, which any man could take. While these exams were supposed to test one’s knowledge and understanding of Chinese classical literature, in fact they just tested one’s ability to rote memorize long passages of text. A successful candidate would gain immediate employment as a government bureaucrat, with his rank depending upon his test score.
But what if a supreme ruler did not have virtue and did not show benevolence to his subjects? In Confucius’s view, a ruler received his divine right to rule via a mandate from Heaven, and this mandate could be withdrawn from an unvirtuous ruler. The signs that the mandate were withdrawn would involve some sort of natural disaster or national calamity. As people did not have the right to question authority, the only time they could rebel against a ruler was if they saw signs that the mandate of Heaven had been withdrawn, and that Heaven had chose someone else to rule.
As the generations passed, Confucius’s followers added to, codified, and ritualized the principles he originally prescribed. Because his principles addressed the most fundamental issues in all human relationships and were endorsed and enforced by succeeding imperial courts, they became deeply embedded in Chinese culture.
Over the following millennia the guidelines established by Confucius for proper behavior gradually spread to Korea, Japan, and parts of Southeast Asia, becoming the foundation for the ritualistic etiquette that has since distinguished all of these cultures.
However, in China (as well as in adjoining Korea and nearby Japan) the form and ritualistic aspects of the Confucian rules of etiquette became so pronounced they often overshadowed the original essence and purpose of the prescribed behavior. This had positive