This Week's CultureQuiz: CHINA!
Can you answer all five CultureQuiz questions about Chinese culture correctly?
China is always in the news. There’s not a day that goes by that the actions of the world’s second biggest economy (the US is #1), with the world’s second largest population (India just surpassed China as #1) in one of the world’s largest countries, doesn’t affect all of us globally. If you work for a global company, no matter where they are headquartered, chances are you are also, directly or indirectly, working with China and Chinese teams and associates. But China is also one of the world’s oldest cultures, going back approximately 5000 years, and a culture this influential with a history that deep, can also be unique and challenging in many ways, requiring us to understand important aspects of Chinese culture, if only to work more effectively with our Chinese associates. So how much do you know about Chinese culture? Test yourself today with this week’s CultureQuiz on China: go ahead and see how much YOU know, and choose the correct multiple choice answer for each of the following five Chinese CultureQuiz questions! (The correct answers follow the quiz, so if you haven’t already subscribed, you can do so right here)
CHINA CultureQuiz questions:
You’ve been welcomed into the office of your colleague in Beijing, who immediately hands you his business card with his name on it, written in Chinese on one side, and English on the other: Director Wu Minwen. You read it, and greet him as:
a. Mr. Wu.
b. Mr. Minwen.
c. Director Wu.
d. Director Minwen.
You are invited to a Chinese banquet in the evening after the day’s meeting, and express concern about eating with chopsticks, a skill you feel you have never mastered very well. As dinner progresses, you feel more and more confident, but an uncomfortable hush suddenly descends at the table when you place your chopsticks down into your rice bowl. Did you do something wrong?
a. Nothing, the silence was simply coincidental to your placing your chopsticks into your rice bowl.
b. Never place your chopsticks standing upright into your rice bowl. This is a Chinese sign for “death”.
c. Actually, the silence represents a pause indicating respect for your efforts.
d. Never rest your chopsticks by placing them inside a dish of food; rather, always rest one on one side of your plate, and the other on the opposite side of your plate.
At the next day’s meeting, a serious negotiation begins to take place, and while you are willing to lower your demands, expecting your Chinese colleagues to reciprocate by also lowering their demands, they do not, but instead, keep repeating the same demands they started with over and over again. Why is this happening, and why won’t they “negotiate”?
a. The Chinese are expecting you to eventually “burn-out” and give in. Do not. The one who can sit the longest without giving in usually gets the best terms in China.
b. This is a time-worn Chinese negotiation strategy, and the best counter-strategy is to keep raising your demands each time they repeat their position until they realize they will not get what they are demanding.
c. The Chinese typically do not behave this way at a negotiation, and if they do so, it is usually an indication that they are inexperienced with western business negotiations. Simply explain to them that this strategy is making you uncomfortable, and they will, in most cases, stop when they realize this is causing them to lose “face” in your eyes.
d. The Chinese are negotiating, but in a way consistent with their culture. Repetition (“strike the iron bar until it becomes a needle”) is a central Chinese cultural theme; instead of expecting them to compromise on terms, consider providing them with more of what they really need (if you can find this out), earning you their obligation to give you more of what you really want.
At the end of the day, you enter a taxi with your Chinese colleague. You should…
Allow your Chinese colleague to enter the taxi first, and indicate that he or she should sit in the back seat behind the front passenger seat.
enter the taxi before your Chinese colleague does, and sit in the front passenger seat beside the driver.
Indicate to your Chinese colleague that he or she should enter the taxi first and sit next to the driver in front.
Enter the taxi first and sit in the back behind the front passenger seat, while indicating to your Chinese colleague to join you in the back behind the driver.
After arriving home from your successful meeting in China, you arrange to send a gift to your Chinese colleague in Beijing, as a “thank you” for hosting you and your team in China. The best gift to send would be…
a. an antique clock, packaged in white gift wrapping, symbolizing your relationship enduring over time.
b. four stylish luxury pens, symbolizing your working together throughout all four seasons of the year.
c. a “coffee-table” picture book of your company’s headquarter’s city, filled with rich historical background, and personally inscribed by you.
d. your company’s souvenir silver penknife, with your company’s logo.
Easy? Hard? Neither? So, how many CultureQuiz Questions did you get right? Here are the correct answers below…and the reasons why!
Here are your correct CHINA CultureQuiz ANSWERS:
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