Use me

There's a colleague of mine whom I finally had the opportunity to meet in person today, after several months of occasional emails. As we sipped beverages in the hot, sticky Beijing July air — Coke for me, specialty Hefeweizen made in Wuhan for him — the conversation turned, as it often does in China, to intercultural matters.

My colleague was asking about some of the finer points of relationship-building. At one point an old stereotype surfaced about how the Chinese will make nice with Westerners, take their ideas, and then discard the Westerners from whom they got the ideas.

I explained to my colleague a Chinese dichotomy that goes back at least to the turn of the last century, probably much further back. In the late years of the Qing Dynasty, as China was grappling with the consequences of domination by Western powers, some reformers began writing and talking of how to "self-strengthen" （自强). One principle some espoused was to make practical use (yòng / 用) of Western expertise, while maintaining the essence (tǐ / 体) of Chinese culture.

This ti–yong dichotomy is known as a hallmark of the reform movement of the time. And it is still operating today, in the form of a willingness to "use" foreigners with expertise, until they no longer need the foreigners who brought the expertise. Keep the expertise, lose the foreigner.

Many Westerners are shocked and indignant when they discover this aspect of Chinese culture. They feel they have somehow been wronged. It's a completely understandable feeling. It also misses the point, one that I have emphasized in this blog: You need to know what you're dealing with. This is simply an aspect of doing business in China. If you go in not knowing about it, you'll be taken by surprise. If you are clear about it beforehand, then you can plan accordingly.

There's much to be said about the kind of leadership that is required to succeed in an environment in which we might feel as though we are being "immoral." I'll take this up in later posts.

I'm off to nearby Huairou tomorrow to get into the nitty gritty of my intercultural project here, and may not be able to post for a few days.