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[Adventurer]

Last Updated: Monday, 9 April 2007, 09:10 GMT 10:10 UK

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Filial piety key to Chinese jobs

Family values used to be very strong in China
Working hard is no longer enough to warrant a promotion in one Chinese county, according to state media.
New rules state that government employees in Changyuan county, in Henan province, must be nice to their parents as well as being good at their jobs.

Assessors will interview relatives and friends of employees, to see if they espouse the values of filial piety.

Analysts say that as China modernises, traditions such as caring for parents have started to fade away.

The new proposal is an indicator that China's leaders are worried about supporting the country's ageing population.

Eroding values

For thousands of years, being a good son or daughter has been an important part of Chinese culture.

Filial piety was one of the main criteria for the selection of officials as early as the Han Dynasty (from 206 BC to AD 220).

Now it looks set to gain importance again. Special investigators in Changyuan county will grill relatives, friends and colleagues on each official's behaviour, including their family values and whether they have any drinking or gambling habits.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6538243.stm

[stevemcgarrett]

Adventurer:

The 3 keys to job success in China are (in no particular order):

1. guanxi
2. guanxi
3. guanxi

[Adventurer]

[stevemcgarrett]

Personal connections are of paramount importance in all Chinese business dealings.

By the way, I think that the prospect of filial piety waning in one-child families in China is slim.

[Kuros]

[stevemcgarrett]

Kuros:

Great quote from your friend. I winced when I read it because it contains more than a kernel of truth. But one has to live in China awhile to appreciate the extent of this message's import.

And, yes, guanxi needs to be demystified. Actually, I've come to believe that in a country where the laws are capriciously enforced, guanxi is a survival tactic as much as anything else. And, yes, it can include family.

[bixlerscott]

Interesting to see how a communist country goes capitalist... This was the highlight of my university studies with my Chinese professors. I want to go to China, but the pay is too terribly low. It if were not for my student loan debt, I would go ahead and do it.

[stevemcgarrett]

Yeah, I hear ya bixler. The same situation prevented me from going right at the start of the opening and reform period three decades ago. The pay sucks and it hasn't even kept pace with inflation. Many colleges simply cannot find qualified foreign teachers as a result. Many moons ago this was not a big problem.

Actually, the Chinese people have never been communist in their hearts. At the risk of essentializing them, they are in the main born capitalists. Anyone who's lived among Chinese can see that plainly.

[thepeel]

I'm not so sure that I would characterize China as Capitalist. The lack of respected property rights (regardless of what the government says it has done and will do), fully near zero rule of law in many ways and a government directed and financed "market" isn't a market in truth.

They have many hurdles before I would grant them the status of market economy or capitalist. Simply not being communist any longer isn't enough, in my mind.

But about their culture.. My experiences with the Chinese is that they are natural capitalists. If they can achieve their potential depends on many factors. I see no reason why China can't one day be a large Taiwan, HK or Singapore. Both peaceful and prosperous.

[stevemcgarrett]

BJWD:

[tzechuk]

But that's the thing - the Chinese are trying to, yet again, create a little niche for themselves. They want to remain a socialist country but with all the goodies that come with a capitalised state.

BTW, I did extensive research on Guanxi when I was an undergrad and grad student - in fact, my undergrad thesis is on guanxi, relationship marketing and internet business/marketing.

It is still my number 1 research area.

Might just as well that I am Chinese and understand the meaning of Guanxi first hand?!

[Kuros]

So, Tzechuk, since you're an expert. Can you explain the difference between networking/relationship-building in the West and Guanxi as such in China? Is Guanxi just the Eastern way of networking, or is it essentially different in any way?

[tzechuk]

OK, in a nutshell.

CRM (Customer Relationship Management) = the western *equivalent*, is a bunch of databases. They record your buying behaviour, your likes and dislikes, your personal info etc. etc. and then they fire off some newsletters and stuff with your name printed on top (easily generated with mail-merges) and tell you they care. They predict when your next purchase might be by the way you have made your purchases in the past. They may make suggestions to what you need to buy next and when but mostly these recommendations are quite random.

It's a good method. Without a doubt. I think CRM is a great marketing breakthrough.

Guanxi, however, is getting to know a person on_a_personal_level. There is a lot of face-to-face going on in guanxi. They try to understand you as a person and get to become your friend and build up a personal-friendship. Also, with guanxi, you are talking about a network of people, not just one person. If you become one person's friend, you will know this person's friend, and this person's friend's friend and so forth. This is what make guanxi a bit different from simply a *relationship* in the western sense. A lot of the time (in the western sense), if you are a friend's friend, you are not obligated to help. You think, well I know him only through John, I am not really his friend, so I don't need to go out of my way to help him. But in China, if you are introduced to a friend's friend as being a good friend of this mutual friend, then this new friend WILL go out of his way to help you. He may introduce you to even more people, may network for you with or without your presence and do other stuff.

The differences between the east and the west are very subtle and it isn't readily felt but if you have good guanxi with a chinese person, they remain loyal to you as long as your guanxi remains good.