These two may well be more related to the “Salesman telling you anything they think you want to hear” phenomenon than anything Chinese-culture specific.
So, the Javanese, then.
Well, other Indonesians, too, such as on Sumatra and Sulawesi. I gave the Javans as an example because they’re the dominant culture in the country. The Balinese are rather unique, in the same was as, say, the Hawaiians are Americans but sort of stand apart themselves. It’s pretty much a Malay thing maybe, as the Malaysians do it, too. I once heard Indonesians and Malaysians described as one people separated by history, with the British ruling Malaysia and the Dutch Indonesia for so long. That’s about right, I think. The Malaysian and Indonesian languages are really different dialects of the same language; they started going off in different directions linguistically after separation. I’ve noticed that Malaysians can understand Indonesians better than Indonesians can understand Malaysians. (Then there’s the Balinese language.)
Exactly. This doesn’t seem like a Chinese thing in particular, it seems like what happens when I contact any business for any thing ever. People answer the question in whatever way is the least effort and greatest benefit to them. When I call a store to inquire about a service or item, without even pausing, it’s “yes we do that”, or “yes we have that”. Like, I’m asking a kind of obscure question… you don’t even want to ponder for a tiny second before answering? Then when I show up at the store and ask a clerk to help me find the item, it magically becomes “no, we don’t have those”. Again, without even “hmm… maybe in small electrics…” or “let me ask the manager”. And of course, you can imagine what happens when I ask for the guy I talked to on the phone. 
In one of his books, Dick Feynman describes a trip he took to Japan where he encountered this; he tells of wanting to stay in a traditional Japanese-style hotel rather than a Western-style hotel when he was there for a conference. His hosts were initially positive, but he soon realized that nothing was actually happening to make that change occur, and no one would would come out and say why. Finally he gets to the heart of the matter: if there are messages for the attendees from the conference, it’s going to be too much trouble to set up a way to get them to a second hotel. “Fine,” says Feynman. “Every morning I’ll stop by here at this hotel before I go to the conference and check my messages.”
And, like magic, all of a sudden the obstacles vanished and he got his room.
He also relates a story of spending a year in Brazil, teaching physics at a university there. He describes the students as suffering from a similar malady as dracoi encountered. He gave a homework assignment, simple math to illustrate a point about how to solve problems, and and only 5 or 6 of about fifty students turned it in. He was disappointed, and gave a little speech about how it was necessary in physics to do, not just take notes, and after the class a little delegation of students came up to him and said that he didn’t understand, that this work was beneath them. And as the class wore on, and the homework assignments got tougher, no one could do them. He said there was this culture against asking questions; he begged them to ask if they didn’t understand something, but on the few occasions when someone would interrupt his lecture to ask something, the other students would almost gang up on the questioner: “Look, he’s trying to teach us, quit interrupting him!”
He got to observe another class being taught, and he was horrified: the instructor would stand in front of the class, and speak: “Two bodies… are considered equivalent… if equal torque… produces equal momentum. Two bodies are considered equivalent if equal torque produces equal momentum.” And then a pause to let every finish copying that line down, then on to the next sentence.
After that class he talked to one of the students and asked about the class, and asked if he felt he would do well on an upcoming exam. “It will be very easy,” replied the student confidently. “I can tell you now one of the questions that will be on it. ‘When are two bodies considered equivalent?’ And the answer will be, ‘Two bodies are considered equivalent if equal torque produces equal momentum.’”
Feynman called this “fake learning,” and he offered the analogy of a famous scholar of ancient Greek studies who is told that a certain university is producing top-notch students of Greek studies. The scholar goes there and asks a student, “What were Plato’s ideas about the relationship between Truth and Beauty?” The student has no idea. Then he asks, “WHat did Plato write in the Third Symposium?”
BRAAP! Off the student goes, reciting in perfect Greek the exact text of Plato’s writings in the Third Symposium, flawlessly.
But what Plato was discussing in the Third Symposium is the relationship between Truth and Beauty!
Feynman argues that this is phony, useless learning, and he rails quite strongly against it and the system that perpetuated it.
After hearing so many such anecdotes, and invariably noting that they serve to buffer the Westerner (typically American’s) sense of superiority in their cultural attitudes toward learning, one should inevitably start to question whether they are true, or if they are, whether it’s representative of that country as a whole. China, Japan, Brazil… these countries all produce engineers, scientists, patents in large quantities. Broad swathes of American surburban colleges pump out hordes of rote-learning alumni. Is it more likely that there’s a cultural bias against original thought, or that visitors simply remember the encounters that reinforce their preconceptions? Think about that the next time you get in your wife’s Honda Accord that has been magically running for 4 years without a service appointment.
Bricker, do you remember which book this is? I have got to read it.
I don’t have cites to dig up at the moment, but this is exactly what I learned in several intercultural communications classes I took a few years back. In order to save face, many East Asian cultures will never answer “no” to inquiries in casual conversation, or even in situations where low-context Westerners would think it’s kind of important to get a straight answer.
My professor used the example of a Chinese acquaintance who’d failed to pick her up at the airport one time. She’d called ahead of time and asked if the friend could pick her up at a certain time. The friend answered yes, no problem. However, the friend had already made a conflicting appointment and would not have been able to meet my Prof at the airport. She’d only answered yes to save face.
The solution to all this was to never ask yes or no questions (“Where is the library?” instead of “Is the this the way to the library?”), but in cases like the above you’d simply have to be familiar with subtler cues and context that Westerners are very unlikely to catch on to, and differentiate between “yes as in yes” or “yes as in no.”
I don’t know about Chinese but I have worked with Koreans and Japanese, and I have found a lot of times, the problem stems from their poor English.
I found when Japanese and Koreans learn English they do so, and they do well in their own schools. But they are not learning AMERICAN. They don’t learn any of the slang, and they tend to incorporate a lot of of their native languages into their “Version” of English.
So when two Japanese who learned English in Japan speak, they understand, but they are really not speaking American English, it’s like a Japanese version and then they get embarrased that they didn’t speak correctly.
One thing I found working with immigrants is that they WANT to learn AMERICAN and they WANT to speak it well. I have talked to Polish, Dutch, Greeks, Russians, Serbs and they always say “But do I speak it like an American.” Usually I can tell, besides the accent of course, 'cause they use way to proper English, so they don’t sound American, even without the accent.
So often people will say “Yes,” to avoid embarrasment. I worked as a systems admin for a large hotel and my main job was simpy to translate from the computer MIS manager to the rest of the staff. The MIS guy was like “Why can’t they understand this, it’s simple.” He refused to speak about computers in a way regular folk could understand.
So if I was off, these people would say “Sure, Mario I understand.” Then when I came back to work they’d be like “Mark what the heck did he say?”
Although this is Southeast Asia and not East Asia, a similar occurrence in Thailand goes beyond a simple “yes.” It is quite common for someone to say flat out “I will meet you at such-and-such a place at 8pm” but have absolutely no intention of doing so. And when the person does not show up, the other party is not put out, because after all, this is Thailand, and it would be rude to point out that he had said he would be there. Plus the person the promise was made to would never be so foolish as to actually believe it. He might not wait even five minutes, assuming he bothered to show up himself.
It’s all about saying what you think the other person WANTS to hear. Keeps you on your toes.
I come across this question often and it always makes me think how easy it is for people to misunderstand other cultures. Often explanations are totally wrong or they exagerate a very minor point and make it much more than it is. All cultures have expressions and customs which cannot be interpreted literally. Look at British English from a century ago and you will find extremely flowery and roundabout ways of saying things because anything less than that would be rude.
In Spanish you ask a customer “What do you want?” which would be extremely rude in English.
In Spanish when you mean to say “I dropped the glass” the literal construction means “the glass fell away from me”. I had an argument with an American who explained this by saying Spanish people will not take responsibility for dropping something so they say it fell. Which is as stupid as it gets.
I find the whole “saving face” theme greatly exagerated in western countries. Everybody wants to “save face”, not only Asian people. What that means is that no one wants to be humiliated. To some people, many on this board, being proven wrong is a humiliation and they will try to “save face” by not admitting it, by changing the subject, by insulting the opponent, etc. That is what saving face is and everybody does it, just in different ways. Why is America not going to admit to policy mistakes any time soon? Because that would be a loss of face. So let us not exagerate the “Asians just want to save face”. In reality the concept of having big face is somewhat different but it has nothing to do with why they tend to say yes to everything.
It is really much more simple than all this. To Chinese people saying yes is like saying “I’m listening”, “carry on”, not “I agree with what you are saying” or “the answer to your question is afirmative”. It is as simple as that.
People, when they speak a foreign language they do not master, will use the grammar and construction of their native language and translate the words. The Chinese tend to do one other thing which leads to confusion.
If you have not had lunch and someone asks you “Oh, you did not have lunch yet?”, In English you would answer “No” (I did not have lunch yet) but in Chinese you would answer “Yes” (what you said is true, I did not have lunch yet). The old “Yes, we have no bananas”.
I always tell my Chinese friends to be extremely careful with these things. Never answer just yes or no but make the full phrase. And do not say yes just to signify you are listening like you do in Chinese. I tell them it is their responsibility to be careful about avoiding misundertandings when they are speking English and it is really not difficult. But many do not find it so easy and keep doing it.
Every language has these things. In my experience some Americans who like to multitask and start to do something else while you are talking to them are really not paying full attention to what I’m saying. If I stop talking they will say “I’m listening, go on”. Well one thing you can be 100% certain when someone says “I’m listening” is that they are NOT listening. I can go on talking and then suddenly stop and ask “what did I just say?” and most of the time they have no idea. Their mind is somewhere else.
Wouldn’t intense rote learning actually be beneficial if your goal was to pump out large quantities of “engineers, scientists, [and] patents” – especially in corporate environments – where methodical research is emphasized over out-of-the-box freethinking? I see it as the difference between nerds and artist-philosophers.
Anecdotally (and over-generalizing, I’m sure), the sciency-products of these cultures that I’ve personally met (maybe a dozen or two?) were universally “brilliant” in the sense that they were highly educated, financially successful, and very good at what they do… but that’s all they knew how to do or really even cared about. “Well-balanced” is not a term I’d use to describe them; it seems almost as though all creativity and independent thought were lost in their educational pursuit of sheer algorithmic prowess… like they’d turned into human super-calculators, damned capable at specific tasks but otherwise lifeless and robotic.
(Missed edit)
Still anecdotally, I’ve also had several people educated in traditional Chinese schools tell me how much they envied the Western systems and the individualism and independent thought they cultivated. But there is always a trade-off: To the limit that educational success can be quantified as test scores, these same rote learning cultures often have some of the highest international math and science scores (can’t find cite right now) – whether that’s due to a difference in West-vs-East educational philosophy or more mundane things like student/teacher ratios, income/GDP, and overall quality of education I don’t know.
My guess is that neither style is really better, but that they do have real, concrete differences that lead to noticeable effects on people’s personalities and their intellectual propensity towards breadth vs depth.
Wow, I had no idea. I’m flabbergasted.
So how do you actually make appointments in those cultures?
You just never count on someone showing up, that’s all. People in other cultures are much more accepting of having to wait around. In fact they enjoy it. Have a cup of tea, chat with people, read the newspaper, listen to the news update on the radio. That’s what life is about … enjoying yourself while you’re waiting.
I’m not challenging your response, I’m just looking for clarification:
job interviews?
first dates?
meeting the new s.o.'s parents?
the dinner where you’re planning on popping the question?
meeting to see a movie/show/sporting event?
Pretty sure it’s “Surely You’re Joking, Mr Feynman”.
On the other hand, if you did have lunch, both “yes” and “no” would be ambiguous in English. Those kinds of questions are confusing in any language, heh.
That seems to be correct (link removed):
I had read about the Japanese-style
hotels, which were supposed to be very different from the hotel we were
staying in.
The next morning I called the Japanese guy who was organizing
everything up to my room. "I would like to stay in a Japanese-style hotel."
"I am afraid that it is impossible, Professor Feynman."
I had read that the Japanese are very polite, but very obstinate: You
have to keep working on them. So I decided to be as obstinate as they, and
equally polite. It was a battle of minds: It took thirty minutes, back and
forth.
"Why do you want to go to a Japanese-style hotel?"
"Because in this hotel, I don't feel like I'm in Japan."
"Japanese-style hotels are no good. You have to sleep on the floor."
"That's what I want; I want to see how it is."
"And there are no chairs -- you sit on the floor at the table."
"It's OK. That will be delightful. That's what I'm looking for."
Finally he owns up to what the situation is: "If you're in another
hotel, the bus will have to make an extra stop on its way to the meeting."
"No, no!" I say. "In the morning, I'll come to this hotel, and get on
the bus here."
"Well, then, OK. That's fine." That's all there was to it -- except it
took half an hour to get to the real problem.
He's walking over to the telephone to make a call to the other hotel
when suddenly he stops; everything is blocked up again. It takes another
fifteen minutes to discover that this time it's the mail. If there are any
messages from the meeting, they already have it arranged where to deliver
them.
"It's OK," I say. "When I come in the morning to get the bus, I'll look
for any messages for me here at this hotel."
"All right. That's fine." He gets on the telephone and at last we're on
our way to the Japanese-style hotel.
Edit: Wow, somebody pirated the entire book and put it online. Didn’t realize it when I posted the link, sorry.
Of course, these things vary. I’ll speak from my experience with Indian culture.
Depends on the company’s familiarity and adoption of Western standards. You should plan on sitting in reception indefinitely until the interviewer is ready for you. He might be out at a long lunch or he might be in his office, but something more important has come up. People dropping in unexpectedly for a casual chat can be considered more important than a job applicant waiting for an interview, depending upon who the casual chatter is. It’s not unheard of to be sent away to come back another day for your interview. The society is very hierarchical. You are expected to wait on your (potential) superiors.
(1) The “I ask you and and we embark on a special activity known as a ‘date’ solely for the purpose of exploring romantic options” institution isn’t very strong. First of all, it’s rare that a complete stranger will agree to go out with you. You have a few accidental meetings or encounters at school or office, you join the same social circle, gradually, the activities involve fewer and fewer people, and finally, almost by accident, you seem to find yourselves alone together frequently. You might know someone for years before a romantic relationship is even conceivable.
(2) Your parents set you up for a meeting, you meet two or three times, and you decide to get married. No dating.
If you go by situation (1) above, then you’ve already known the S.O.'s parents for years, just from casual encounters.
Under (2) above, somebody (X and his/her parents and siblings) will be invited to someone’s house for dinner. There’s no set time for dinner. Expect people to be late. Food won’t be served before 9 p.m. Don’t be surprised if your parents already know her parents.
“Popping the question” is rarely a special event situation like this. If you’re already spending so much time with someone that marriage is contemplable, you’ll just do it whenever you happen to be together. Her parents will probably be in the next room and her little brother will probably be eavesdropping and will go tell everyone as soon as it happens.
It’s unlikely you’re going to be arranging to do such things with strangers such that you’re require an appointment. You’ll all decide to meet at someone’s house and everyone will show up there and go over together. People will be late. You’ll have to leave before everyone shows up and at least one person will have to try to meet you later at the venue. You might not get seats together. At least one person will just plain not show up with no warning or explanation.