Negotiation

[burlives]

People talk about negotiation in China. The talk is usually shallow. Something about giving gifts and following forms.

If I am to believe Chinese friends, negotiation is bargaining with sophistic rhetoric, saying things like, "well, I know the government conditions and what you offer is illegal, so if you can do illegal things, surely I can too." Such a device is supposed to encourage the interlocutor to up his offer to a government standard. It's not what Chinese would call chewing the words, it's chewing the worthless gristle out of the ideas. Also, it's better if one can talk fast. Negotiation, at least initially, is speed chess.

So it depends on character type? Everything does, though, doesn't it. As a defeatist quitter I feel a hopeless frustration when people hide the truth. I am happy to bullpoo, but who bullpoos in English these days? I suspect that when English is the medium, negotiation rarely gets past the first stage, the listing of outrageous restrictions and slum-like conditions. I also suspect that negotiation is a process that generates a social relationship -- the act of applying rhetorical devices to one another sets the scene for fellow feeling (which really should not be confused with, or even likened to, mutual understanding, though it invariably is). And gift-giving is for after that social relationship is established.

So just as Chinese are unable to make a plan, unable to create a schedule, so they are open changes in plans, to negotiation, and still equally unable to create a real schedule of merit and its reward.

That, and they're the meanest, cheapest-spirited people walking the face of the earth. After age 30 if they knew what one was they'd all be lawyers.

[George61]

That, and they're the meanest, cheapest-spirited people walking the face of the earth.

You're having a tough time, Burl boy. I'm sure you don't actually mean that. SOME of them may be, but not all of them.
Welcome to Superbarfly status. I hope things get better for you, because life in China is meant to be enjoyed. Why would we be here, otherwise?

[burlives]

George61 said:

You're having a tough time, Burl boy. I'm sure you don't actually mean that. SOME of them may be, but not all of them.

It's my consistent finding that Chinese are mean-spirited, bloody-minded and shallowly attached to their own spirits. The curious other side of the coin is their depth of feeling. I usually like to say that Chinese are a passionate people. Joyless, yes, but shot through with grief and boisterous energy.

All 1.3 billion of them.

[Raoul Duke]

I've certainly seen a boatload of what Burl has seen, but I've seen the opposite extreme here, too.

I've found a strong inverse correlation here between niceness on the one hand, and money-influence on the other. (Like space-time in relativistic Physics, the concepts of "money" and "influence" cannot be separated in China and still retain any meaning.)

Chinese people with no money-influence can be the nicest, warmest, sweetest, most generous people in the world. They are the ones who make life here wonderful. Chinese people with lots of money-influence can be the vilest buttheads on the planet. They are the ones who make life here a living hell. There is a sliding scale between these extremes. There are exceptions throughout, most likely attributable to quantum events.

So, which end of this spectrum do you suppose you'll find yourself negotiating and signing contracts with?

[burlives]

People with no money know spite. Getting to know farmers is getting to know that families with sons assume the role of village bully because they figure they have the muscle to make it work. Ask students if their fathers ever had their field beds burnt. Because if you've got students with farmers as parents then those parents did something right enough to happen into enough money to send their kids away from the village, and their neighbours will have found that reason enough to make a move. Ask your students if their village has a well. Ask them if the pipes that run water to every house still run water. Because the side closer to the well has higher water pressure and the other side of the village runs dry as the water table drops.

And what does "village" mean? If there's houses but no shop, if there's no 7-11, nor no supermarket, if there's no building other than families homes, then it's a village. Otherwise, it's a town. And villages exist side by side, sometimes. Sometimes you can cross the road and be in another village.

It's not like what we know.

When I was on the CELTA course I found that people started asking me "Jeeze, why do you stay there!?", and I had to come up with a reason. I started saying, "because Chinese are Stone Age."

[con's fly is open]

Whenever I hear that old chestnut "It's a dog-eat-dog world", I'm almost always hearing it from the mouth of a dog. But I've seen how savage business gets in China, and if you're not watching your ass, someone will take advantage- partner, customer, employee. In Chinese, "Skullduggery" must be the same word as "Opportunity". My boss was paranoid to what I thought was a ridiculous extreme... until I saw the sleazy crap people tried to pull with the school. this country is not for the faint-hearted.