Posted on Wednesday, June 29, 2005 7:04 PM
#personal #central kindom
the 70-year-old "entrepreneurs" were shocked by questions we asked during the meeting, and one of them was so irritated that he stood up and shouted, "if you guys just want to offend our great ideas, pls go, NOW ". our friend from the local told us that we should ask our question in less direct and more tactful way, and respect these senior citizens. we are so puzzled because we believe asking the proper questions and helping them figure out what are the improvement areas of the plan is the best way to respect them.
just a reminder, we were in an inland province and all of us are from costal cities like shanghai.
we encountered similar "cultural shocks" in the following days. i feel i was in a constant process of readjusting my "rule of games" to the local one in order to fit myself into the new cultural environment. does it make sense? certainly, it works. is it less efficient? perhaps not, if everybody plays the same game rules.