Kaiwen Lian

Have you ever wondered about the cultural values of a country with five thousand years of history? In China’s history, it has long been closed to the outside world, not only because its vast territory supported it to be self-sufficient, but also because the feudal system of China wanted to restrict people’s activities. Hence China developed unique cultures under the influences of geography, politics, and economics. Being Chinese, the most important values in my culture are collectivism, indirect communication, and formality.

There is a hard spirit of collectivism in China because Chinese people always feel that they belong to a certain group. Chinese collective consciousness was developed under a certain political system, the feudal system, to increase productivity. Thousands of years ago, most of the Chinese people were farmers and maintained their life mainly through agricultural activities. Therefore, most of the central governments in Chinese history encouraged farmers to cooperate or form organized units by enforcing mandatory laws like banning privately owned lands. Under the political and economic influences, nowadays, Chinese people are willing to put the collective goals before the individual goals and to think from a collective perspective. For example, marriage always combines two families in China, so the spouse must be a person accepted by both families. If family members do not support the marriage, then the couple will probably break up. Chinese etiquette of politeness was born under such a collective environment.

Indirect communication in China is one important way to be polite. There is an old saying in Chinese culture: “Give yourself some room for whatever you do in case we meet again”. It means that Chinese people regard other people’s feelings much more important than their feelings because they are concerned about that saying bad news may hurt other people’s feelings or ruin relationships. For instance, in a resignation letter from an employee, Chinese people probably will not write about why he/she is dissatisfied with the company but will make up some lies instead as excuses. Indirect communication is a double-edged sword because, on one side, Chinese people hold a belief that communicating indirectly is the best way to maintain your relationship with others, but on the other side, doing so will lead to misunderstanding or inefficiency. In the resignation letter example, although making up lies could take care of other people’s feelings, the company leaders will lose a chance to know the defects inside the company, which may cause more brain drains in the future. Nowadays, more and more Chinese people have noticed that indirect communications are often ineffective for cooperating. Although people may hold different thoughts about indirect communication, there is one thing in Chinese culture people all agree on – the formal behaviors.

Formality in Chinese culture is also an important value because it encourages people to respect each other. In China, different levels of formality are appropriate in different situations. For example, there are lots of honorifics existing in the Chinese language. Chinese people should use “Nin” to indicate the respectful person when they talk to elders or teachers, while when speaking with contemporaries, they just say “Ni” to indicate each other. Furthermore, Chinese people behaved formally in daily life to show their respect, such as standing up when answering the teacher’s questions and keeping not to talk when eating before elders. Hence, Chinese people always judge whether or not someone is a good person to work with based on one’s manners and attitudes. Acting formally is the best way to show your personalities and cultivate your reputations.

In conclusion, the most important values in Chinese culture are collectivism, indirect communication, and formality. Some of these values, such as indirect communication, may seem obsolete under the modern social environment. However, as the spirit of the Chinese nation, Chinese people are still proud of inheriting these values from generation to generation.