Clarity,
Office 17622,
PO Box 6945,
London.
W1A 6US
United Kingdom
Phone/ Voicemail:
+44 (0)20 3287 3053 (UK)
+1 (561) 459-4758 (US).
...Meet the Chinese before they got Westernized (25 years ago):
The following is Footnote 5 on page 9 of Hu Wenzhong and Cornelius L. Grove, "Encountering the Chinese: A Guide for Americans" (Yarmouth, Maine: Intercultural Press, Inc., 1991). This book is a guide to modern Chinese customs, attitudes, and culture – primarily regarding practical matters -- for American students, business men, and tourists.
In the early 1980s, a group of social scientists from around the world conducted a survey of Chinese values. In order to avoid biasing the research by using Western values as their starting point – as has happened frequently in cross-cultural research – they approached a number of Chinese social scientists and asked them to prepare a list of at least ten “fundamental and basic values for Chinese people.” This composite list appears in no particular order:
Filial piety
Industry (working hard)
Tolerance of others
Harmony with others
Humility
Loyalty to superiors
Observation of rites and social
Rituals
Reciprocation of greetings, favors, and gifts
Kindness (forgiveness, compassion)
Knowledge (education)
Solidarity with others
Moderation, following the middle way
Self-cultivation
Ordering relationships by status and observing this order
Sense of righteousness
Benevolent authority
Non-competitiveness
Personal steadiness and stability
Resistance to corruption
Patriotism
Sincerity
Keeping oneself disinterested and pure
Thrift
Persistence (perseverance)
Patience
Repayment of both the good or evil that another person has caused you
Sense of cultural superiority
Adaptability
Prudence (carefulness)
Trustworthiness
Having a sense of shame
Courtesy
Contentedness with one’s position in life
Being conservative
Protecting your “face”
Close, intimate friendship
Chastity in women
Having few desires
Respect for tradition
Wealth
“Chinese Values and the Search for Culture-Free Dimensions of Culture,” by The Chinese Culture Connection. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 18, no. 2 (June 1987), 143-164. (The Chinese Culture Connection is a multinational group of scholars headed by Michael H. Bond of the Chinese University of Hong Kong.)
I look around me, and almost no one openly holds these values in my part of the world. Yet the Chinese would say the Yi embodies them.
Lindsay
The following is Footnote 5 on page 9 of Hu Wenzhong and Cornelius L. Grove, "Encountering the Chinese: A Guide for Americans" (Yarmouth, Maine: Intercultural Press, Inc., 1991). This book is a guide to modern Chinese customs, attitudes, and culture – primarily regarding practical matters -- for American students, business men, and tourists.
In the early 1980s, a group of social scientists from around the world conducted a survey of Chinese values. In order to avoid biasing the research by using Western values as their starting point – as has happened frequently in cross-cultural research – they approached a number of Chinese social scientists and asked them to prepare a list of at least ten “fundamental and basic values for Chinese people.” This composite list appears in no particular order:
Filial piety
Industry (working hard)
Tolerance of others
Harmony with others
Humility
Loyalty to superiors
Observation of rites and social
Rituals
Reciprocation of greetings, favors, and gifts
Kindness (forgiveness, compassion)
Knowledge (education)
Solidarity with others
Moderation, following the middle way
Self-cultivation
Ordering relationships by status and observing this order
Sense of righteousness
Benevolent authority
Non-competitiveness
Personal steadiness and stability
Resistance to corruption
Patriotism
Sincerity
Keeping oneself disinterested and pure
Thrift
Persistence (perseverance)
Patience
Repayment of both the good or evil that another person has caused you
Sense of cultural superiority
Adaptability
Prudence (carefulness)
Trustworthiness
Having a sense of shame
Courtesy
Contentedness with one’s position in life
Being conservative
Protecting your “face”
Close, intimate friendship
Chastity in women
Having few desires
Respect for tradition
Wealth
“Chinese Values and the Search for Culture-Free Dimensions of Culture,” by The Chinese Culture Connection. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 18, no. 2 (June 1987), 143-164. (The Chinese Culture Connection is a multinational group of scholars headed by Michael H. Bond of the Chinese University of Hong Kong.)
I look around me, and almost no one openly holds these values in my part of the world. Yet the Chinese would say the Yi embodies them.
Lindsay