>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

>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. People find it impossible to play at China's "extreme level" not because the level is extreme, but simply because of cultural differences. All you have to do is to look at how Chinese friends and American friends treat each other. The Chinese are much more generous in lending money to their friends, or sharing food, or wtv, something that simply doesn't happen in the West. This, of course, also has nothing to do with extreme lack of trust, or attempting to build guanxi for other purposes. >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? There no need in the West for this simply because the health system is multi-tiered. Rich people will just pay more money for better healthcare, thus no need for the whole backdoor stuff. Anyways, I have yet to seen someone rebuke my argument I wrote previously about how joining a frat and finally getting a job through it is just as "guanxi" as anything else in China. People mostly get their jobs through recommendations anyways. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/28/business/employers-increasingly-rely-on-internal-referrals-in-hiring.html http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/28/business/employers-increas...