Quote:
Originally Posted by SoonerCoug
I would seriously love to be enlightened by anyone who has more experience with Chinese culture.
All I know is that my coworker cooked and ate the placenta after his new baby was born, and he's an MD who thinks it's healthy to drink your own urine.
Very confusing for me. Somebody please help me out.
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Not sure I can enlighten you but I've had a bit of experience. I would classify myself as an "interested informal observer" of Chinese culture - a Sinophile by hobby, if you will. As one who has experienced a few WTF moments when interacting with Chinese, the surprise/frustration implicit in your post made me chuckle.
I think it is pretty safe to generalize that Chinese culture, as with other Asian cultures such as Korean and Japanese, values group identity and duty to the group over individualism. Concepts such as family honor, filial duty, respect for elders, honoring ancestors, etc. flow from those group values. You could spend a lifetime exploring that. Another fascinating area to explore is the concept of "
guanxi" which influences, or is embedded in, the social interactions of Chinese society. You could spend a lifetime on that as well.
Of course, working with mainland Chinese (as opposed to Chinese people from Taiwan) has it's own special brand of interestingness. I guess my only advice is to just make friends with and continue to try to understand your Chinese coworkers. It could be the start of a fascinating and very rewarding lifelong love of trying to understand what makes Chinese people tick.