Blogs for Culture Vultures

Working with the Chinese?

Then you need to make a good impression!

Is there a correlation between culture and the COVID-19 pandemic?

This is a question we’ve posed before in previous blogs.

Do you work with the Chinese?

If so, then there are some fundamental cultural concepts you need to be aware of.

Do you work with the Chinese?

A common challenge many foreigners come across is how to handle the word ‘no’.

Culture is everywhere; whether you know it or not.

It influences everything from how we get married, do business with one another and yes, deal with a pandemic.

It’s fair to say that most ethnic groups stereotype other ethnicities.

Whilst stereotypes provide a way of understanding one’s own culture or ethnicities against other’s, they are generally unhelpful and misleading.

The COVID-19 pandemic is causing havoc across the globe.

Markets are in meltdown, flights have been grounded, gatherings banned and whole countries on lock down as the world tries to slow down its spread.

As COVID-19 continues to spread around the globe, China has claimed relative success in dealing with the virus.

On closer inspection, much of this success comes down to Chinese culture.

Ever wondered why in some parts of the world people wear masks?

We are often asked by people to travelling to Japan, China, Korea and Thailand why it is so common.

Do you work with the Chinese?

Then you really need to get to grasp with the importance of face – mianzi – in Chinese culture.

Doing business in China? Then you'll be attending lots of meetings!

If you’re attending meetings in China, then it’s important to understand a little about Chinese culture and how meetings are run.

Wherever you travel in the world, getting someone’s name wrong can be the difference between making a good impression or a bad impression.

If you’re travelling to China on business, it’s important that you take the time to understand the naming structures.

If you want to know how easy it is to do business with China, then look no further than the Business Culture Complexity Index ™ (BCCI), a tool which provides some great insights for expanding businesses.

The BCCI uses a number of data comparisons to produce a single ‘ease of doing business’ score for the world’s largest 50 economies, culturally speaking that is.

We hear a lot in the news about cultural differences with Western companies going East, but rarely about Eastern companies coming to the West.

A great little article in the South China Morning Post by Mark Magnier suggests that when it comes to navigating different business cultures, Chinese companies are finding very similar challenges when working on the global stage, especially in the USA.

With so many cultural differences between China and the West, the decision to relocate to China as an expat can be a difficult one.

With Taiwan the first country in Asia to legalise same sex marriage, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the acceptance of homosexuality was new to Asian culture.

However, homosexuality was generally an accepted part of the culture in many Asian countries until the West introduced its puritanical Christian religious ideology and played an influential role in bringing an end to the long-standing traditions in this part of the world.

Doing business with the Chinese? If so, then it’s more than likely that food will be involved at some point!

We are delighted to announce the release of our latest online cultural awareness training course - on China.

The new addition to our catalogue of online courses offers lots of fantastic insights into Chinese culture, the people and of course, Chinese business practices.

The global nature of commerce means today's businesses are always looking for opportunities outside of their domestic markets.

Acquiring, or merging with, a foreign company is common way to achieve this.

"Guanxi" (pronounced (jwan-see) is one of the most powerful forces in Chinese culture.

Though the direct translation of "guanxi" is "relationships", the concept as it is used and applied in Chinese culture is much richer and encompassing.