11 ms·

Guanxi

125 points by 5partan 10y ago

tantalor 10y ago
Don Corleone: We have known each other many years, but this is the first time you've come to me for counsel or for help. I can't remember the last time you invited me to your house for a cup of coffee, even though my wife is godmother to your only child. But let's be frank here. You never wanted my friendship. And you feared to be in my debt.
- hkmurakami 10y ago
  Genuine question: is that quote an example of this? >Guanxi largely originates from the Chinese social philosophy of Confucianism, which stresses the importance of associating oneself with others in a hierarchical manner, in order to maintain social and economic order. Particularly, there is an emphasis on implicit mutual obligations, reciprocity, and trust, which are the foundations of guanxi and guanxi networks. The "hierarchical" part seems to be crucially lacking in your example. A good example imo of Guanxi networks in the West are College Alumni Networks, as well as the more recent but analogous Startup Accelerator Network. The "older/younger class" relationship makes these Hierarchical.
  - pcr0 10y ago
    How is the hierarchial part lacking? Clearly the Godfather is in a higher position, as a result of simply having more associations and mutual favors than anyone else.
    - hkmurakami 10y ago
      Hmm, the "non-official" nature of the power relationship lead me to think otherwise, but I now see your position. (I do still think that Guanxi manifests itself in more "officially connected" ways -- but maybe I just don't know the Mafia hierarchy well enough!) Thanks for clarifying.
  - ekianjo 10y ago
    > But let's be frank here. You never wanted my friendship. And you feared to be in my debt. This is the part hinting at the fact that Don Corleone is in a higher position of power. And since this is Don Corleone speaking, you are missing the way he is being adressed by the one asking the favor - clearly looking up to him. Hierchical power structures are not just a part of Confucianism, there are everywhere around the globe.
deleted 10y ago
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hyh1048576 10y ago
As someone who was born and raised in China I just like to remind people that the real meaning of "guanxi" is a function of location and time. i.e. the real meaning of "guanxi" is different from 20 yrs ago to present, and the word has different meaning from small cities to big cities like Beijing and Shanghai, also it doesn't mean exactly the same thing from, say, southern China to north east China. In general in big cities "guanxi" plays a smaller role, while in small cities especially the underdeveloped ones it plays a bigger role, to the extent that even doing some fairly trivial business (or even things like getting a passport or going to hospital) needs you to have some "guanxi". By "needs one to have some 'guanxi'" I mean it's not impossible for one to do without "guanxi" but it's just way smoother and faster if you know someone who can help. That's also one of the reasons people prefer to live in big cities. It's just more fair for young people without acquaintances in every possible field. On the other hand, parents are more familiar with "guanxi". The existence of "guanxi" also makes people doubt if they have failed to lubricate some "guanxi" if they got rejected or failed for something (e.g. U.S. visa, or a reasonable exam) even if there are other reasons more likely to cause it. "guanxi" sometimes even helps one to pass the test for driver's license, oh a big facepalm to road security... (What I said above is not to confuse you guys, the wikipedia page is still worth reading though.)
- deleted 10y ago
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- faitswulff 10y ago
  Honestly, this exists in the West, too. "Who you know and not what you know," and all that - this is true from hiring and firing to lobbying. I'm guessing it's not the social networking that is different, but the rituals around connecting and how you take advantage of those connections.
  - mc32 10y ago
    Superficially it can seem similar to western ideas of connections and bribes, but it's not, it's different. There are different dynamics at play, so, while in the end, both facilitate transactions, they work differently and the barriers work differently.
gbraad 10y ago
Guanxi is a concept that most foreigners will never completely grok. It is not only about relationship. Most foreigners call it even the G-word when spoken about. It is different how we see relationships being maintained. There is a lot more play and rituals involved. It differs how much it influences daily interactions, citywide or regionally. In Beijing it is noticeable in a lesser degree, but often is perceived by outsiders/foreigners as 'bribing' when a small present is involved. Edit: I do not mean anything bad. I have lived in Beijing, China for many years (married to a Chinese). Just some foreigners have more difficulty to understand this (as the reasoning why they call it the G-word). I hate to call this a 'cultural difference', as I believe it is mostly related to misunderstanding. This is all due to a different upbring, in a different environment (and receiving a different sense of what is common). This can often lead to misunderstandings as people perceive the actions in the wrong way. It might help to have a look at Cultural Dimensions [https://docs.com/gerard-braad/1061/cultural-dimensions-asia https://docs.com/gerard-braad/1061/cultural-dimensions-asia]. This explains some of the things involved. Just a translating it to 'relationship' does not mean it has the same meaning. Many words and concepts are different between cultures. TL;DR It is definitely not the negative words mentioned below. Just 'smoothing' a relationship which seems beneficial should not be seen as brown-nosing. Above; hyh1048576 explained it very well. People blame themselves if they got rejected for something... others might judge them as saying they haven't put enough 'effort' into it. When the relation seems beneficial, they will try to do something to 'smoothing' the relationship. But as mentioned, in Beijing this happens in a much lesser degree but not invisible.
- yen223 10y ago
  I'm genuinely asking as a Chinese guy: How is it difficult to grok? There's nothing mystical about 'guanxi'. It is literally the Mandarin translation of "relationship", nothing more. There's nothing uniquely Chinese about the notion that having strong relationships with the right people can make your life easier.
  - ihsw 10y ago
    I would reduce to a stream of words -- boot-licking, toady, lackey, stooge, sycophantic, brown-nose. I can definitely understand ladder-climbing in the workplace but there are countless instances of people acting without dignity or restraint. It's downright unsightly.
zem 10y ago
i grew up in dubai, which had the very similar concept of "wasta". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wasta https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wasta
- azernik 10y ago
  Israel also has/had the similar concept of "protektsiya" (loanword from Russian). There's a joke (mostly making fun of modern Israeli pretensions to clean modern society) - the kids these days don't mess with protektsiya, they have "connections" (the English word) instead.
- hyh1048576 10y ago
  I found this paragraph in the Wikipedia page pretty amazing: > Roughly equivalent words in other languages include sociolismo in Cuba; blat in Russia; guanxi in Chinese and Vetternwirtschaft in German, protektzia in Israeli slang, un pituto in Chilean Spanish, In Brazilian-Portuguese it is referred to as "pistolão", "QI" (Quem Indica, or Who Indicates), or in the slang "peixada", "Pidi Padu" in Malayalam, "arka" or "destek" in Turkish.
douche 10y ago
Interesting, I wasn't aware of this meaning - just the geographical region and the post-Imperial Guangxi Clique warlord organizations[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guangxi_Clique https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guangxi_Clique
- kelnos 10y ago
  Guanxi (關係) and Guangxi (廣西) are not the same thing (nor are they related).
  - jonathankoren 10y ago
    Mr. Burns: I wonder if this Homer Nixon [(meaning Homer Simpson)] is any relation [to President Richard Nixon]? Smithers: Unlikely, sir. They spell and pronounce their names differently. Mr. Burns: Bah! Schedule a game and I'll ask him myself.
- yen223 10y ago
  Guangxi and Guanxi are two completely unrelated things.
  - douche 10y ago
    Oy, yep, I need to read better...
    - mikeash 10y ago
      Seems like you're not alone, since the Wikipedia article starts off with a disambiguation for that.
      - zhemao 10y ago
        It wouldn't be hard to find another set of Chinese words with identical pinyin but completely different meaning, though. It's a very homophone-heavy language. For instance, the words for "buy" and "sell" differ only in tone.
userbinator 10y ago
Here's an example of how it works in practice to create a very different environment for tech: https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=4297 https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=4297
- colordrops 10y ago
  Gongkai means "open" or "public". Very different word from "guanxi".
  - userbinator 10y ago
    I'm aware of that, just saying that guanxi is necessary for such ecosystems to succeed.
anhtran 10y ago
This word in Vietnamese is `Quan hệ`. It's very close to China social. `Quan hệ` is important but you do not need to make a friend or a real relationship. For me it's just a little affected or cursory inside my mind.
girzel 10y ago
To what others have said here I'd add that, in my observation, the prevalence of guanxi is connected to a lack of fair, functioning, transparent social systems. You often need connections to get things done, because the existing systems (legal, administrative, etc) simply don't function. This could be anything from getting your kid into school, to being seen by a (competent) doctor, to protecting your company from frivolous, malicious legal action. I know plenty of Chinese people who are highly annoyed or disgusted by the necessity of cultivating guanxi, but know that they're not going to get what they're after otherwise.
RCortex 10y ago
Simple questions: 1) How do you build guanxi? 2) How do you maintain guanxi? 3) How is guanxi lost after it's been gained? 4) Give me an example with two people where one has far more guanxi than another. How are they treated differently by the third party they have guanxi with? (No direct familial relation)
- girzel 10y ago
  Guanxi is basically a kind of transactional friendship. You make guanxi the same way you make friends, by spending time with people, and going through things together. Some guanxi is built on real friendship (or on something like having gone to the same school together), in other cases it's pretty obvious to both parties that it's just a quid-pro-quo thing. In both cases, though, it sort of looks like a friendship from the outside. Treating people to dinner and getting them drunk is a pretty common way of building guanxi. I've had people invite me to dinner and give me alcohol I don't want, hoping to then get something out of me later. The whole thing is terribly uncomfortable, largely because I simply don't like going to dinner with people I don't know well, and do not feel like I owe them anything afterwards (if anything, I'm annoyed that they've imposed on my time). Then they call up week or two later and say "hey, can you help me out with this thing", and then I have to decide what to do about that. Like I said in my other comment, though, plenty of Chinese people don't like working this way either. My friends are real friends, and the people I usually work with are professionals, people who don't need to pretend that now we're blood brothers and we'll bend the rules to help each other. I've been in China for 15 years, and I've seen this kind of professionalism slowly supplanting the old system. You lose guanxi by pissing off your "friends", or not returning favors. In my case, I can play the "I'm a weird foreigner and don't understand your rules" card, and I've only ever mildly annoyed a few people.
  - deleted 10y ago
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  - zhemao 10y ago
    Yes, a lot of Chinese, especially those who have lived in the West for a time, are uncomfortable with the social expectations inherent in guanxi. My parents usually refuse to accept gifts or invitations to dinner from other Chinese that they don't know very well because they know this will usually be followed by a request for some rather annoying favor later. This also leads to somewhat amusing cultural disconnects. For instance, I was once interviewing a Chinese student for an officer position in the student club of which I was already an officer. (This is at a US university and I'm Chinese American) He came to the interview and gave me a bottle of 7-up.
kev6168 10y ago
Extreme lack of trust between all entities (individuals and institutions) is the fundamental reason for the extreme guanxi phenomena in China. Practicing guanxi is for __survival__ in China, not merely for getting a better deal, as is often the case in developed countries. This is the difference those who have lived long enough both in China and other developed western countries can appreciate deeply. Chinese often try to sugarcoat guanxi. But to put it bluntly, it is for law/rule breaking or law/rule bending favors to acquaintances. Only because the Chinese have practiced it for millenniums as a daily surviving activities, just as eating and sleeping, the Chinese have forgotten that it's an ugly way of life. Guanxi in China is not a shameful matter _at all_, but a proud and face-boosting accomplishment which is often boasted in meetings and banquets, on social networks, and announced publicly and proudly to anybody as a show of strength. So, the absolute necessity of guanxi, the enormous amount of utilities, the glories associated with it, most people not grown up in China/Taiwan would find it impossible to play at China's extreme level. What's the secret source to crack guanxi in China? IMHO, it is this: always remind yourself __the lack of trust is at the core of the Chinese society__, and deduce from there. Law and law enforcement are not trustful, so you need to have friends in the government. Business contracts are not to be trusted at all, so constant monitoring and vigilance are absolute necessary during the entire business interaction with your Chinese partner, even though the contract signing ceremony was attended by high level governmental officials and announced on national newspapers! Doctors and nurses will probably give sloppy or delayed treatment because they are expecting money and gifts from you or your relatives before they treat you, if they are not in your guanxi network, so always work on your network to include someone in hospitals. Don't trust the law to punish the bad doctors for such cruelty, there is no such thing. You get the picture. Now anybody still say it's similar in developed western countries? :) So how to go about build guanxi in China? If you have overcome the unbearable loath on the whole matter and said to yourself, I am gonna play it all the way to fucking make it in China. My advice is, do what the Chinese do. The No.1 approach used by Chinese to build guanxi is to __inject fixed|irremovable elements into your relationship with someone__ if you want to guanxi that person. Such fixed|irremovable elements include things such as born in the same province, graduated from same school, served in the same division in the army, have worked in the same company(maybe at different time), related to each other by blood no matter how distant that is, basically anything that will not change for the rest of your life, and preferably the elements happened in the past, not recently, as history and time add a little seriousness and trustworthiness to it. In contrast, fickle things in relationships (in the eyes of the Chinese) are things such as your abilities and accomplishments, your credentials, social status, the promises made, member of the same club at this moment (this helps a bit but needed further enhancement), etc. Fire up your imagination and creativity to find out the fixed elements in guanxi, promote it, enhance it, and build from there.
ekianjo 10y ago
Guanxi　is written as 関係, and in Japanese (読み方：かんけい) this means connection/relationship in a broad sense. I don't see anything special to this word or very specific to China at all.
- jpatokal 10y ago
  Kankei is used rather literally in Japanese for "connection", without the heavy overloading of the Chinese term: "The build is broken, did your push break it?" "Uun, kankei nai" = no, it's unrelated. Which is not to say that Japan doesn't have its own complex web of social obligations and favors (giri, osewa, senpai/kohai etc), they just don't use the same word for it.
  - ekianjo 10y ago
    It can be used as ビジネス関係 too so I am not sure what your point is. 関係 has tons of implications in Japanese. The expression 関係がよい is also very common in Japanese.
    - jpatokal 10y ago
      Simply put, if you have guanxi in China with somebody, you can call in a favour from then. But if you have 関係 with somebody in Japan, then that simply means there's some sort of relationship (vendor/customer, former schoolmates, whatever), not necessarily the kind that lets you call in favours.
      - Chathamization 10y ago
        > But if you have 関係 with somebody in Japan, then that simply means there's some sort of relationship (vendor/customer, former schoolmates, whatever), not necessarily the kind that lets you call in favours. That's the same as Chinese, though. If you want to say two people you'd use guanxi (”关系不好“ "guanxi bu hao" “have a bad relationship"). Even your above example is used in pretty much the same way guanxi is used. Here's an example from the Baidu entry on guanxi: "小王跟这件事没有关系" "Xiao Wang has no connection to that thing." From what you write, it sounds like the Japanese use of the word is fairly similar to the Chinese use of it.
hueving 10y ago
>In 2013, a CCP (Chinese Communist Party) official criticised the government officials for using public funds of over 10,000 yuan for banquets. This totals to approximately 48 billion dollars worth of banquets per year. Is it just me, or has the yuan significantly appreciated in value...?
- inimino 10y ago
  The meaning is throwing banquets that cost more than 10000 yuan (per banquet).
lunaru 10y ago
For anyone confused and reading into it too much, it's really just a Chinese word for what is a universal behavior across all human societies. When Elon buys SolarCity and the CEO is his cousin, that's guanxi. When your boss gives a promotion to guy who plays golf with him, that's guanxi. When you give your buddy a referral to a job because he helped you out with yours, that's guanxi. It's a necessary social lubricant that also spawns nepotism, favoritism, cronyism, corruption, etc and can be found in every business large enough, especially the government. And unlike what some posters seem to think, it's not a Chinese-only thing. It's a universal thing that has a Chinese word that nicely refers to it, and thus more recognized in Chinese society.
- dmix 10y ago
  It's also a useful defensive mechanism for clandestine organizations, such as mafias (Sicilian), deep states, and intelligence networks. By only allowing 'family' into the organization you can weed out the risks of informants/law enforcement/rats which might compromise your organization. So the person won't be easily bought or turned. The level of trust is much higher than just a typical self-interest business relationship. Something that goes deeper that you can depend on in the face of adversity and risks.
SZJX 10y ago
I would say this is actually not something very specific to China or East Asia. People actually act like this all around the world, this is especially true in the US, where connections and background are important for a variety of things (even more so than in China), quid pro quo is a commonality, and interest coalitions are unbreakable and control everything. This is just how the human society work more or less at the current moment.

125 points by 5partan 10y ago

Don Corleone: We have known each other many years, but this is the first time you've come to me for counsel or for help. I can't remember the last time you invited me to your house for a cup of coffee, even though my wife is godmother to your only child. But let's be frank here. You never wanted my friendship. And you feared to be in my debt.

hkmurakami 10y ago
Genuine question: is that quote an example of this? >Guanxi largely originates from the Chinese social philosophy of Confucianism, which stresses the importance of associating oneself with others in a hierarchical manner, in order to maintain social and economic order. Particularly, there is an emphasis on implicit mutual obligations, reciprocity, and trust, which are the foundations of guanxi and guanxi networks. The "hierarchical" part seems to be crucially lacking in your example. A good example imo of Guanxi networks in the West are College Alumni Networks, as well as the more recent but analogous Startup Accelerator Network. The "older/younger class" relationship makes these Hierarchical.
- pcr0 10y ago
  How is the hierarchial part lacking? Clearly the Godfather is in a higher position, as a result of simply having more associations and mutual favors than anyone else.
  - hkmurakami 10y ago
    Hmm, the "non-official" nature of the power relationship lead me to think otherwise, but I now see your position. (I do still think that Guanxi manifests itself in more "officially connected" ways -- but maybe I just don't know the Mafia hierarchy well enough!) Thanks for clarifying.
- ekianjo 10y ago
  > But let's be frank here. You never wanted my friendship. And you feared to be in my debt. This is the part hinting at the fact that Don Corleone is in a higher position of power. And since this is Don Corleone speaking, you are missing the way he is being adressed by the one asking the favor - clearly looking up to him. Hierchical power structures are not just a part of Confucianism, there are everywhere around the globe.

deleted 10y ago

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hyh1048576 10y ago

As someone who was born and raised in China I just like to remind people that the real meaning of "guanxi" is a function of location and time. i.e. the real meaning of "guanxi" is different from 20 yrs ago to present, and the word has different meaning from small cities to big cities like Beijing and Shanghai, also it doesn't mean exactly the same thing from, say, southern China to north east China. In general in big cities "guanxi" plays a smaller role, while in small cities especially the underdeveloped ones it plays a bigger role, to the extent that even doing some fairly trivial business (or even things like getting a passport or going to hospital) needs you to have some "guanxi". By "needs one to have some 'guanxi'" I mean it's not impossible for one to do without "guanxi" but it's just way smoother and faster if you know someone who can help. That's also one of the reasons people prefer to live in big cities. It's just more fair for young people without acquaintances in every possible field. On the other hand, parents are more familiar with "guanxi". The existence of "guanxi" also makes people doubt if they have failed to lubricate some "guanxi" if they got rejected or failed for something (e.g. U.S. visa, or a reasonable exam) even if there are other reasons more likely to cause it. "guanxi" sometimes even helps one to pass the test for driver's license, oh a big facepalm to road security... (What I said above is not to confuse you guys, the wikipedia page is still worth reading though.)

deleted 10y ago
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faitswulff 10y ago
Honestly, this exists in the West, too. "Who you know and not what you know," and all that - this is true from hiring and firing to lobbying. I'm guessing it's not the social networking that is different, but the rituals around connecting and how you take advantage of those connections.
- mc32 10y ago
  Superficially it can seem similar to western ideas of connections and bribes, but it's not, it's different. There are different dynamics at play, so, while in the end, both facilitate transactions, they work differently and the barriers work differently.

gbraad 10y ago

Guanxi is a concept that most foreigners will never completely grok. It is not only about relationship. Most foreigners call it even the G-word when spoken about. It is different how we see relationships being maintained. There is a lot more play and rituals involved. It differs how much it influences daily interactions, citywide or regionally. In Beijing it is noticeable in a lesser degree, but often is perceived by outsiders/foreigners as 'bribing' when a small present is involved. Edit: I do not mean anything bad. I have lived in Beijing, China for many years (married to a Chinese). Just some foreigners have more difficulty to understand this (as the reasoning why they call it the G-word). I hate to call this a 'cultural difference', as I believe it is mostly related to misunderstanding. This is all due to a different upbring, in a different environment (and receiving a different sense of what is common). This can often lead to misunderstandings as people perceive the actions in the wrong way. It might help to have a look at Cultural Dimensions [https://docs.com/gerard-braad/1061/cultural-dimensions-asia https://docs.com/gerard-braad/1061/cultural-dimensions-asia]. This explains some of the things involved. Just a translating it to 'relationship' does not mean it has the same meaning. Many words and concepts are different between cultures. TL;DR It is definitely not the negative words mentioned below. Just 'smoothing' a relationship which seems beneficial should not be seen as brown-nosing. Above; hyh1048576 explained it very well. People blame themselves if they got rejected for something... others might judge them as saying they haven't put enough 'effort' into it. When the relation seems beneficial, they will try to do something to 'smoothing' the relationship. But as mentioned, in Beijing this happens in a much lesser degree but not invisible.

yen223 10y ago
I'm genuinely asking as a Chinese guy: How is it difficult to grok? There's nothing mystical about 'guanxi'. It is literally the Mandarin translation of "relationship", nothing more. There's nothing uniquely Chinese about the notion that having strong relationships with the right people can make your life easier.
- ihsw 10y ago
  I would reduce to a stream of words -- boot-licking, toady, lackey, stooge, sycophantic, brown-nose. I can definitely understand ladder-climbing in the workplace but there are countless instances of people acting without dignity or restraint. It's downright unsightly.

zem 10y ago

i grew up in dubai, which had the very similar concept of "wasta". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wasta https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wasta

azernik 10y ago
Israel also has/had the similar concept of "protektsiya" (loanword from Russian). There's a joke (mostly making fun of modern Israeli pretensions to clean modern society) - the kids these days don't mess with protektsiya, they have "connections" (the English word) instead.
hyh1048576 10y ago
I found this paragraph in the Wikipedia page pretty amazing: > Roughly equivalent words in other languages include sociolismo in Cuba; blat in Russia; guanxi in Chinese and Vetternwirtschaft in German, protektzia in Israeli slang, un pituto in Chilean Spanish, In Brazilian-Portuguese it is referred to as "pistolão", "QI" (Quem Indica, or Who Indicates), or in the slang "peixada", "Pidi Padu" in Malayalam, "arka" or "destek" in Turkish.

douche 10y ago

Interesting, I wasn't aware of this meaning - just the geographical region and the post-Imperial Guangxi Clique warlord organizations[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guangxi_Clique https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guangxi_Clique

kelnos 10y ago
Guanxi (關係) and Guangxi (廣西) are not the same thing (nor are they related).
- jonathankoren 10y ago
  Mr. Burns: I wonder if this Homer Nixon [(meaning Homer Simpson)] is any relation [to President Richard Nixon]? Smithers: Unlikely, sir. They spell and pronounce their names differently. Mr. Burns: Bah! Schedule a game and I'll ask him myself.
yen223 10y ago
Guangxi and Guanxi are two completely unrelated things.
- douche 10y ago
  Oy, yep, I need to read better...
  - mikeash 10y ago
    Seems like you're not alone, since the Wikipedia article starts off with a disambiguation for that.
    - zhemao 10y ago
      It wouldn't be hard to find another set of Chinese words with identical pinyin but completely different meaning, though. It's a very homophone-heavy language. For instance, the words for "buy" and "sell" differ only in tone.

userbinator 10y ago

Here's an example of how it works in practice to create a very different environment for tech: https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=4297 https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=4297

colordrops 10y ago
Gongkai means "open" or "public". Very different word from "guanxi".
- userbinator 10y ago
  I'm aware of that, just saying that guanxi is necessary for such ecosystems to succeed.

anhtran 10y ago

This word in Vietnamese is `Quan hệ`. It's very close to China social. `Quan hệ` is important but you do not need to make a friend or a real relationship. For me it's just a little affected or cursory inside my mind.

girzel 10y ago

To what others have said here I'd add that, in my observation, the prevalence of guanxi is connected to a lack of fair, functioning, transparent social systems. You often need connections to get things done, because the existing systems (legal, administrative, etc) simply don't function. This could be anything from getting your kid into school, to being seen by a (competent) doctor, to protecting your company from frivolous, malicious legal action. I know plenty of Chinese people who are highly annoyed or disgusted by the necessity of cultivating guanxi, but know that they're not going to get what they're after otherwise.

RCortex 10y ago

Simple questions: 1) How do you build guanxi? 2) How do you maintain guanxi? 3) How is guanxi lost after it's been gained? 4) Give me an example with two people where one has far more guanxi than another. How are they treated differently by the third party they have guanxi with? (No direct familial relation)

girzel 10y ago
Guanxi is basically a kind of transactional friendship. You make guanxi the same way you make friends, by spending time with people, and going through things together. Some guanxi is built on real friendship (or on something like having gone to the same school together), in other cases it's pretty obvious to both parties that it's just a quid-pro-quo thing. In both cases, though, it sort of looks like a friendship from the outside. Treating people to dinner and getting them drunk is a pretty common way of building guanxi. I've had people invite me to dinner and give me alcohol I don't want, hoping to then get something out of me later. The whole thing is terribly uncomfortable, largely because I simply don't like going to dinner with people I don't know well, and do not feel like I owe them anything afterwards (if anything, I'm annoyed that they've imposed on my time). Then they call up week or two later and say "hey, can you help me out with this thing", and then I have to decide what to do about that. Like I said in my other comment, though, plenty of Chinese people don't like working this way either. My friends are real friends, and the people I usually work with are professionals, people who don't need to pretend that now we're blood brothers and we'll bend the rules to help each other. I've been in China for 15 years, and I've seen this kind of professionalism slowly supplanting the old system. You lose guanxi by pissing off your "friends", or not returning favors. In my case, I can play the "I'm a weird foreigner and don't understand your rules" card, and I've only ever mildly annoyed a few people.
- deleted 10y ago
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- zhemao 10y ago
  Yes, a lot of Chinese, especially those who have lived in the West for a time, are uncomfortable with the social expectations inherent in guanxi. My parents usually refuse to accept gifts or invitations to dinner from other Chinese that they don't know very well because they know this will usually be followed by a request for some rather annoying favor later. This also leads to somewhat amusing cultural disconnects. For instance, I was once interviewing a Chinese student for an officer position in the student club of which I was already an officer. (This is at a US university and I'm Chinese American) He came to the interview and gave me a bottle of 7-up.

kev6168 10y ago

Extreme lack of trust between all entities (individuals and institutions) is the fundamental reason for the extreme guanxi phenomena in China. Practicing guanxi is for __survival__ in China, not merely for getting a better deal, as is often the case in developed countries. This is the difference those who have lived long enough both in China and other developed western countries can appreciate deeply. Chinese often try to sugarcoat guanxi. But to put it bluntly, it is for law/rule breaking or law/rule bending favors to acquaintances. Only because the Chinese have practiced it for millenniums as a daily surviving activities, just as eating and sleeping, the Chinese have forgotten that it's an ugly way of life. Guanxi in China is not a shameful matter _at all_, but a proud and face-boosting accomplishment which is often boasted in meetings and banquets, on social networks, and announced publicly and proudly to anybody as a show of strength. So, the absolute necessity of guanxi, the enormous amount of utilities, the glories associated with it, most people not grown up in China/Taiwan would find it impossible to play at China's extreme level. What's the secret source to crack guanxi in China? IMHO, it is this: always remind yourself __the lack of trust is at the core of the Chinese society__, and deduce from there. Law and law enforcement are not trustful, so you need to have friends in the government. Business contracts are not to be trusted at all, so constant monitoring and vigilance are absolute necessary during the entire business interaction with your Chinese partner, even though the contract signing ceremony was attended by high level governmental officials and announced on national newspapers! Doctors and nurses will probably give sloppy or delayed treatment because they are expecting money and gifts from you or your relatives before they treat you, if they are not in your guanxi network, so always work on your network to include someone in hospitals. Don't trust the law to punish the bad doctors for such cruelty, there is no such thing. You get the picture. Now anybody still say it's similar in developed western countries? :) So how to go about build guanxi in China? If you have overcome the unbearable loath on the whole matter and said to yourself, I am gonna play it all the way to fucking make it in China. My advice is, do what the Chinese do. The No.1 approach used by Chinese to build guanxi is to __inject fixed|irremovable elements into your relationship with someone__ if you want to guanxi that person. Such fixed|irremovable elements include things such as born in the same province, graduated from same school, served in the same division in the army, have worked in the same company(maybe at different time), related to each other by blood no matter how distant that is, basically anything that will not change for the rest of your life, and preferably the elements happened in the past, not recently, as history and time add a little seriousness and trustworthiness to it. In contrast, fickle things in relationships (in the eyes of the Chinese) are things such as your abilities and accomplishments, your credentials, social status, the promises made, member of the same club at this moment (this helps a bit but needed further enhancement), etc. Fire up your imagination and creativity to find out the fixed elements in guanxi, promote it, enhance it, and build from there.

ekianjo 10y ago

Guanxi　is written as 関係, and in Japanese (読み方：かんけい) this means connection/relationship in a broad sense. I don't see anything special to this word or very specific to China at all.

jpatokal 10y ago
Kankei is used rather literally in Japanese for "connection", without the heavy overloading of the Chinese term: "The build is broken, did your push break it?" "Uun, kankei nai" = no, it's unrelated. Which is not to say that Japan doesn't have its own complex web of social obligations and favors (giri, osewa, senpai/kohai etc), they just don't use the same word for it.
- ekianjo 10y ago
  It can be used as ビジネス関係 too so I am not sure what your point is. 関係 has tons of implications in Japanese. The expression 関係がよい is also very common in Japanese.
  - jpatokal 10y ago
    Simply put, if you have guanxi in China with somebody, you can call in a favour from then. But if you have 関係 with somebody in Japan, then that simply means there's some sort of relationship (vendor/customer, former schoolmates, whatever), not necessarily the kind that lets you call in favours.
    - Chathamization 10y ago
      > But if you have 関係 with somebody in Japan, then that simply means there's some sort of relationship (vendor/customer, former schoolmates, whatever), not necessarily the kind that lets you call in favours. That's the same as Chinese, though. If you want to say two people you'd use guanxi (”关系不好“ "guanxi bu hao" “have a bad relationship"). Even your above example is used in pretty much the same way guanxi is used. Here's an example from the Baidu entry on guanxi: "小王跟这件事没有关系" "Xiao Wang has no connection to that thing." From what you write, it sounds like the Japanese use of the word is fairly similar to the Chinese use of it.

hueving 10y ago

>In 2013, a CCP (Chinese Communist Party) official criticised the government officials for using public funds of over 10,000 yuan for banquets. This totals to approximately 48 billion dollars worth of banquets per year. Is it just me, or has the yuan significantly appreciated in value...?

inimino 10y ago
The meaning is throwing banquets that cost more than 10000 yuan (per banquet).

lunaru 10y ago

For anyone confused and reading into it too much, it's really just a Chinese word for what is a universal behavior across all human societies. When Elon buys SolarCity and the CEO is his cousin, that's guanxi. When your boss gives a promotion to guy who plays golf with him, that's guanxi. When you give your buddy a referral to a job because he helped you out with yours, that's guanxi. It's a necessary social lubricant that also spawns nepotism, favoritism, cronyism, corruption, etc and can be found in every business large enough, especially the government. And unlike what some posters seem to think, it's not a Chinese-only thing. It's a universal thing that has a Chinese word that nicely refers to it, and thus more recognized in Chinese society.

dmix 10y ago
It's also a useful defensive mechanism for clandestine organizations, such as mafias (Sicilian), deep states, and intelligence networks. By only allowing 'family' into the organization you can weed out the risks of informants/law enforcement/rats which might compromise your organization. So the person won't be easily bought or turned. The level of trust is much higher than just a typical self-interest business relationship. Something that goes deeper that you can depend on in the face of adversity and risks.

SZJX 10y ago

I would say this is actually not something very specific to China or East Asia. People actually act like this all around the world, this is especially true in the US, where connections and background are important for a variety of things (even more so than in China), quid pro quo is a commonality, and interest coalitions are unbreakable and control everything. This is just how the human society work more or less at the current moment.