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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 mea

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.
  - jonathankoren 10y ago
    Please explain.
    - mc32 10y ago
      When non native companies initially wanted to go into China and failed it wasn't because they could not speak Chinese or because they didn't know the laws or didn't have connections or contacts --it's because they didn't have guanxi. It's something you develop over time, you typically don't buy into it, it's a paternalistic system which heavily favors males into the system of relationships and expectations --which may differ based on many different things (like family, age, power, tally, connections, party affiliation, military connections, acceptance, etc). It's like saying beet sugar is sweet and aspartame is sweet and they are both used as sweeteners, so they are the same thing. It's a very western take on the concept.
      - dilemma 10y ago
        You completely failed to substantiate your initial claim. This has no content whatsoever.
      - faitswulff 10y ago
        I remain skeptical. All the examples you listed have Western analogues, not to mention that the West still also highly favors men. But again, my point was not about the shape of the social graph (men, family, age, organizational affiliations) or the characteristics of the relationships between them, because those will all have Western analogues. From the Wikipedia page, the most useful paragraph in describing the differences is probably the second paragraph under "Western vs. Eastern social business relations": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guanxi#Western_vs._Eastern_social_business_relations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guanxi#Western_vs._Eastern_soc... It's useful because it uses a framework for understanding relationships in either culture: trust, bonding, reciprocity, and empathy. Western guanxi and Chinese guanxi can be understood through this framework. While I'm open to the idea that it's a flawed framework, it proves my point that Western culture has analogous social expectations. Less like beet sugar and aspartame and more like bat wings and bird wings - both shaped differently, both used differently, but for the same function. I am interested in the differences, but there will be a fair amount of structural similarities. I also disagree with your characterization of this perspective as being "very western." Considering guanxi as something fundamentally different from how Western culture works is Eurocentric - very Western, as you had said. Stepping back and analyzing how informal Western reputation systems work in the same light as how guanxi works in China is a way of de-centering the Western perspective and removing the exoticism from Chinese culture.
- Chathamization 10y ago
  Yeah, it always kind of bugs me when "guanxi" and "face" get treated as uniquely Chinese concepts. Sure, things like utilitarian relationships and public image are going to differ from culture to culture, but that's true for everything (friendships, birthday parties, etc.). And even within one macro-culture, these concepts are going to be different depending on the region, class, age, background etc.
  - lloeki 10y ago
    > it always kind of bugs me when "guanxi" and "face" get treated as uniquely Chinese concepts Although behaviours, expectations and social constructs vary, we're all human so most probably those of course are not unique to China, but they have a word for it. Like "zeitgeist", "amok", "bon vivant", "maelstrom" or "karma", some things are just untranslatable and warrant bringing the word-concept to other languages as is, crystallising something that certainly existed prior into something that suddenly acquires a more precise (or at the very least less diffuse) shape in the mind, that we can tie nuances to.
foobarian 10y ago
Hmm, that's interesting. I was always puzzled when my Dad would suggest that the reason my PhD is taking so long is that we didn't do some thing that the advisor is maybe expecting in the way of guanxi. It was preposterous of course but maybe in this context it made sense to him.
zer0gravity 10y ago
I guess people from ex-communist countries understand this phenomenon better, where almost everything is obtained as a favor from somebody in a privileged position, to whom you will have to return the favor. It has a lot in common with corruption but in a communist state it is the norm. Because communism fails at selecting performance, nothing really works and the state institutions are the first affected, but it spreads eventually in the whole society. Thus, the only way to get something is as a favor from someone. You don't go to the institution but you go to someone who "works" there. So another way to describe these guanxi is : networks of influence with favors as money.
- smallnamespace 10y ago
  > I guess people from ex-communist countries understand this phenomenon better I'm always amused when people project a Western-centric viewpoint when talking about China. This has very little to do with Communism and everything to do with China's own history and cultural development. Chinese culture has always placed a strong emphasis on interpersonal relationships because institutions besides the state have always been relatively weak, and the agents of the state formed a close-knit, elite class that interacted with one another personally. For over two thousand years, the state bureaucracy has been the strongest institution in China at the local levels. Even during the Nationalist period and in pre-modern times, you'd better believe the average person would a good relationship with their local official if they wanted to get anything done effectively. Controlling nepotism and corruption within the bureaucracy has been a perennial concern during every single dynasty of China, going all the way to the Qin dynasty in 200 B.C. Also, you definitely need good interpersonal networks to do business effectively in Singapore, Hong Kong, or Taiwan, despite the fact that none of those polities have experienced direct Communist rule.
  - radu_floricica 10y ago
    I was born in communist Romania, and what he said is spot on. We called it "relations" (not in a familial sense), and you literally used them to do everything, including getting a passport or going to the hospital. Even basic shopping was a function of "relations". For example as a kid I was surprised to find out that the bakery occasionally gave people half-breads (half a bread or a bread and a half and so on), because we always got as much as we needed, never portions. Because relations.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

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.
- jonathankoren 10y ago
  Please explain.
  - mc32 10y ago
    When non native companies initially wanted to go into China and failed it wasn't because they could not speak Chinese or because they didn't know the laws or didn't have connections or contacts --it's because they didn't have guanxi. It's something you develop over time, you typically don't buy into it, it's a paternalistic system which heavily favors males into the system of relationships and expectations --which may differ based on many different things (like family, age, power, tally, connections, party affiliation, military connections, acceptance, etc). It's like saying beet sugar is sweet and aspartame is sweet and they are both used as sweeteners, so they are the same thing. It's a very western take on the concept.
    - dilemma 10y ago
      You completely failed to substantiate your initial claim. This has no content whatsoever.
    - faitswulff 10y ago
      I remain skeptical. All the examples you listed have Western analogues, not to mention that the West still also highly favors men. But again, my point was not about the shape of the social graph (men, family, age, organizational affiliations) or the characteristics of the relationships between them, because those will all have Western analogues. From the Wikipedia page, the most useful paragraph in describing the differences is probably the second paragraph under "Western vs. Eastern social business relations": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guanxi#Western_vs._Eastern_social_business_relations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guanxi#Western_vs._Eastern_soc... It's useful because it uses a framework for understanding relationships in either culture: trust, bonding, reciprocity, and empathy. Western guanxi and Chinese guanxi can be understood through this framework. While I'm open to the idea that it's a flawed framework, it proves my point that Western culture has analogous social expectations. Less like beet sugar and aspartame and more like bat wings and bird wings - both shaped differently, both used differently, but for the same function. I am interested in the differences, but there will be a fair amount of structural similarities. I also disagree with your characterization of this perspective as being "very western." Considering guanxi as something fundamentally different from how Western culture works is Eurocentric - very Western, as you had said. Stepping back and analyzing how informal Western reputation systems work in the same light as how guanxi works in China is a way of de-centering the Western perspective and removing the exoticism from Chinese culture.
Chathamization 10y ago
Yeah, it always kind of bugs me when "guanxi" and "face" get treated as uniquely Chinese concepts. Sure, things like utilitarian relationships and public image are going to differ from culture to culture, but that's true for everything (friendships, birthday parties, etc.). And even within one macro-culture, these concepts are going to be different depending on the region, class, age, background etc.
- lloeki 10y ago
  > it always kind of bugs me when "guanxi" and "face" get treated as uniquely Chinese concepts Although behaviours, expectations and social constructs vary, we're all human so most probably those of course are not unique to China, but they have a word for it. Like "zeitgeist", "amok", "bon vivant", "maelstrom" or "karma", some things are just untranslatable and warrant bringing the word-concept to other languages as is, crystallising something that certainly existed prior into something that suddenly acquires a more precise (or at the very least less diffuse) shape in the mind, that we can tie nuances to.

foobarian 10y ago

Hmm, that's interesting. I was always puzzled when my Dad would suggest that the reason my PhD is taking so long is that we didn't do some thing that the advisor is maybe expecting in the way of guanxi. It was preposterous of course but maybe in this context it made sense to him.

zer0gravity 10y ago

I guess people from ex-communist countries understand this phenomenon better, where almost everything is obtained as a favor from somebody in a privileged position, to whom you will have to return the favor. It has a lot in common with corruption but in a communist state it is the norm. Because communism fails at selecting performance, nothing really works and the state institutions are the first affected, but it spreads eventually in the whole society. Thus, the only way to get something is as a favor from someone. You don't go to the institution but you go to someone who "works" there. So another way to describe these guanxi is : networks of influence with favors as money.

smallnamespace 10y ago
> I guess people from ex-communist countries understand this phenomenon better I'm always amused when people project a Western-centric viewpoint when talking about China. This has very little to do with Communism and everything to do with China's own history and cultural development. Chinese culture has always placed a strong emphasis on interpersonal relationships because institutions besides the state have always been relatively weak, and the agents of the state formed a close-knit, elite class that interacted with one another personally. For over two thousand years, the state bureaucracy has been the strongest institution in China at the local levels. Even during the Nationalist period and in pre-modern times, you'd better believe the average person would a good relationship with their local official if they wanted to get anything done effectively. Controlling nepotism and corruption within the bureaucracy has been a perennial concern during every single dynasty of China, going all the way to the Qin dynasty in 200 B.C. Also, you definitely need good interpersonal networks to do business effectively in Singapore, Hong Kong, or Taiwan, despite the fact that none of those polities have experienced direct Communist rule.
- radu_floricica 10y ago
  I was born in communist Romania, and what he said is spot on. We called it "relations" (not in a familial sense), and you literally used them to do everything, including getting a passport or going to the hospital. Even basic shopping was a function of "relations". For example as a kid I was surprised to find out that the bakery occasionally gave people half-breads (half a bread or a bread and a half and so on), because we always got as much as we needed, never portions. Because relations.