If you've ever visited China, you probably noticed how little space gets wasted. Families make do in spaces that seem absurdly small to many Americans. Vegetables are grown in often-surprising places: next to roads and railroad tracks, for instance.

Money doesn't get wasted either. Many have talked about how the Chinese consumer is the great hope for pulling the world out of recession, yet savings rates remain around 50%. In local markets, buyers and sellers haggle over every last fēn.

I could give other examples. The point I'm driving at is that one fundamental difference in default modes of Chinese and American thinking is scarcity versus abundance. I like this frame because it seems to explain quite a few otherwise mysterious differences between Chinese and American culture.

For instance, in earlier posts I addressed what seemed to be an extreme form of individualism in China, compared to a more collectivist bent in the U.S. — exactly the opposite of what we're usually told. If instead we view those differences through the lens of scarcity and abundance, the mystery disappears: in an unpredictable, harsh, and crowded world, it's best to keep your head down and hold on to your stuff. And to make use of every opportunity to generate resources for yourself. In contrast, an open frontier of limitless possibility means people can afford to be a little looser in how they disburse their treasure.

The scarcity-versus-abundance frame also explains a lot about guānxi, with the resource in question being goodwill. Americans tend to see goodwill in almost infinite terms: "what goes around comes around." The default Chinese mindset is a zero-sum affair: I do something for you, you owe me — and vice versa.

I remember well my first lesson in this. It was my first year in China — academic year 1991-92, in the industrial Northeastern city of Qiqihar. I was teaching English at what was then Qiqihar Light Industry Institute. One of my classes consisted of all the Institute's English teachers. Sitting in my apartment one day, I heard a knock: Cecilia, one of the English teachers. She had told me she wanted to be published in the U.S.; I had mentioned to her that my mother was an author.

When I answered the door the first thing I noticed was that she was holding a fancy box. She led me down the hallway and into an empty room. Out of the box she gingerly lifted a pure white nightie. She said it was for my mother. I could see the writing on the wall: accept the nightie and be duty-bound to get her published.

I said I couldn't accept it. She replied bluntly: "That means you won't help me." Which launched me into a meta-discussion about cultural difference which, while I didn't think of it this way or put it this way at the time, was all about the abundance of goodwill in American culture. I would definitely help her, I explained, and didn't need anything in return. A bit stunned, and skeptical, she seemed to be willing to accept this possibility. (I now think back on that conversation as my first as an intercultural consultant.)

As with any useful-seeming "explanation," we need to be careful about assigning the scarcity–abundance frame too much importance. At the same time, it's a good one to add to our toolkit in puzzling through what makes Chinese and American culture what they are.