Chinese Business Culture
By Kathy Keyi Jia M.A.
Cross-Cultural Biz Over the past twenty years China has surged to become a world economic power. Having raised millions of Chinese from poverty, China is playing a key role in the world’s economy. The Chinese people have achieved miracles, against all odds.
Despite great change, the fundamentals of culture and the ways in which Chinese conduct business remain essentially the same. The biggest challenge that Western companies face is gaining familiarity with Chinese business culture. Research shows that a lack of understanding of Chinese market culture and the inability to adapt to different ways of doing business are the main reasons for guan xi (relationship) problems, missed opportunities, and business failures.
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Terry Fox, Betty Fox, and Isadore Sharp
By Kathy Keyi Jia-Jones
Cross-Cultural Biz
In Canada, Terry Fox run has become a fall tradition. Canadians gather their colleagues and friends to run to raise money for cancer research and to commemorate Canadian national hero Terry Fox, who died of cancer in June 1981.
This year saw another success, yet it was different. Betty Fox, the mother Terry Fox, died in June. For 30 years after her son’s death, Betty kept her son’s legacy alive by continuing to campaign for “the Terry Fox Run” and raising funds. Betty, like Terry, showed courage and conviction and helped to advance the fight against cancer.
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Kathy Keyi Jia-Jones for Human Resources Professional Associations
Intrigued by the controversial book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, a memoir written by Yale professor Amy Chua, I watched her television interview with Joy Behar recently. Listening to Chua gave me a new perspective on the book and prompted me to jot down some thoughts. Though Chua is not an immigrant herself, her battle —a “hymn” or not – can also shed some light on the cultural aspect of immigrant integration.
“It is a memoir, not a parenting book”, the author declared at the beginning of the interview. Bombarded by Behar’s questions about her strict, long list of rules for her children– no play dates, no television, requiring an “A” in every subject except gym and drama, etc.—Chua sticks to her gun (or claws) as a Tiger Mother would do, ferociously defending herself.
Dismissing the American way of raising children as too lax, she demanded excellence and total obedience from her two daughters, believing the way her parents raised her was the only way. “I was raised by two extremely strict, but also extremely loving immigrant parents….their high expectations for me, coupled with love, were the greatest gift anyone’s ever given me—which is why I tried to do the same with my own two daughters.”
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