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The psychology of rhythm in China

Introduction

In this I would like to explore the concept of rhythm in China in comparison to the concept of “sense of urgency” in Western cultures. What is rhythm and how does it affect our daily lives? How is it different from our sense of urgency? Pace is the speed at which we average our daily activity in the workplace and when traveling from one place to another. A sense of urgency, on the other hand, is our concept of the importance of completing a task assigned to us at a given time, particularly in the workplace. In China, the pace of life is much slower than Western cultures in many ways and there is little sense of urgency except in the idea of ​​making money, but not in the act of making money.

rhythm in china

Ask any Westerner in China what frustrates them the most and they’ll tell you pretty quickly the pace at which they try to do anything from walking down the street to doing business. In the West we listen to the notion that time is money; this concept does not seem to have a place in the day-to-day of Chinese business. Business here is done over long lunches with little progress on the actual details, just an agreement to do business at some point in the future. Walking down the street as a Westerner, you constantly have to stray from the people wandering, picking up your own pace to get to meetings you thought you had time to get to, but find yourself blocked and often forced to cut back. speed like big crowds do. he won’t let her get by without physically pushing people. However, my own natural English courtesy will not allow me to be rude and rush others. (Perhaps the curse of my own culture). I decided that perhaps more formal observation was required to find out if this was simply my own perception or if there is some basis for this and what appears to me to be such a slow pace of existence.

Thinking the Hypothesis

My hypothesis is that the slow pace of life was often associated with the feeling of being exploited and disappointed.

You may find this conclusion strange, but a little background explanation will help you see where my point of view is coming from. First, this is a country run by the communist state where everyone is told to share life and work for the common good and a harmonious society. This means that as a Chinese, you would have the same rights, the same voice and the same power as your neighbor, regardless of their rank and authority. If you want an example of this, you need look no further than the streets. A car collides with a cyclist, discussions arise, who is to blame, who pays, who is going to apologize, then the police come, the discussions go from the accident to the interference of the police, what right do they have to tell us how to solve our argument . The police try to intervene and take an authoritarian position. Then comes the crowd, watching the spectacle of the two drivers and maybe three police officers, all arguing and yelling without listening to the other. The crown then joins in, shouting advice, insults, telling the police to leave them alone. Eventually all parties leave, the police often leaving first, exasperated at getting nowhere. Then the crowd disperses when the screaming fun has died down. Finally, the driver of the car and the bicycle leave, often without resolution. You have to witness these events to truly believe that they happen and happen on a daily basis.

The next element is the population, which is just huge and with so many people constantly looking for work, it is an employer market and therefore workers often accept poor conditions, low wages and simple housing as the norm. So how do these workers react to such exploitation by employers? This is my hypothesis about the pace of working life. Many employees are seen in the traditional role of parents here in China, where parents tell children what they are going to do in life with little or no discussion. In the workplace, this revealing management style continues, with workers simply aligning themselves with their early childhood experiences. They adapt to the situation as children of strict authoritarian parental rules, but now as employees subject to the whim of the boss.

In this atmosphere, what motivates the worker to actually work? In direct observations of office staff, I noticed that they had all logged into a chat service while supposedly working. They spent a considerable part of the day in chat rooms talking to friends or strangers. When a boss walked into the office, all of these were temporarily minimized until the boss retreated to his office or left. Many workers stayed long after the time was up, not to continue working but to continue chatting. Now some larger companies with servers have blocked all messaging services except for senior staff. However, since email is now an essential part of every business, this still allows for constant emailing to non-business contacts. In the West, of course, we recognize the disgruntled employee and also accept that they can sabotage the well-being of the company through malicious damage to property (breaking the photocopier on purpose), doing personal work instead of business work, taking longer breaks than the authorized ones and many others. activities contrary to the company, such as negative conversations with other staff members and outsiders. (Of course, in the US this can lead to deadly results with disgruntled employees using guns to get back at an employer who may have wronged them.) In China this also happens, but with more subtlety, since what matters is the rhythm. The slow and deliberate way of working to maximize time on each task with no sense of corporate responsibility or loyalty to the company’s mission (assuming the employee knows what the mission statement is or even exists).

a sense of emergency

In the West, a sense of urgency requires workers to finish a task within specific deadlines and deadlines, but I have seen very little of this in China, instead everything can be done later. Recently, at a business meeting, a Chinese lawyer told me that there was an urgent requirement that they review the company’s image to improve their market share. When I asked him when he wanted the contract to start, he said no, hurry up, let’s have lunch and talk again in a few days. I didn’t flinch at this openly, but inside my eyes I was looking up at the sky. This lack of urgency is costing many Chinese companies dearly when dealing with Western businessmen, Westerners often find that too much time is wasted and that they lose faith very quickly in the deal, as they feel that if this is how they negotiate then What will it be like getting them to meet deadlines and production schedules? Deals often never make it to the signing stage because the pace is too slow for Western businessmen who want to fly in, seal the deal and get out. In psychological terms, it’s like a type A personality (do it today) trying to do business every day with a type B personality (do it tomorrow). It just gets frustrating to continue, so many Western businessmen start looking elsewhere for suppliers.

expectations are not met

Another explanation is the problem of expectations of young people in China. After university, in particular, many leave to find a good job with a good career with the international employer. However, many experience deep disappointment as jobs are scarce and prospects for that golden career are dim. Large overseas employers often bring in dedicated staff from their own country to manage operations and simply employ Chinese workers in subsidiary positions, while career jobs are held by their own nationals who come for a mandate in China only to return to their homes. a new position after a suitable trial period. A well-known Taiwanese company in Shanghai has only Taiwanese in management positions, and Mainland Chinese workers often talk about their lack of real opportunities in the company because they are not from Taiwan. The level of job satisfaction in the company starts high until the new staff finds out about this situation and then job satisfaction plummets. When expectations are removed from the individual, the motivation to continue working with some sense of spirit quickly disappears and is replaced by apathy.

The beat gets slower

We now have multiple factors as to why the pace of life is slower and why China lacks a sense of urgency in its business and life affairs. When workers feel a lack of recognition, a lack of monetary gains, promotion opportunities, and defeated life expectancies, it all adds up to “why should I bother.” In all the research, of course, we are generalizing and that some Chinese will have a faster pace and a sense of urgency, but compared to the social attitude of the majority, this is easily overlooked, since in the West there is a lot of apathy in our society with crushed expectations of life and work. What is unique to Chinese culture is that you see it everywhere, the slow pace, the lack of urgency, and most of all, the apathy for life in general. While most young Chinese believe that China is making progress, they do not believe that anything will change much in their lifetime, as the pace of social change is not the same as rapid change in economic growth. Westerners often confuse these two things at their expense.

live observations

In observation of more than 45 Chinese companies (in four cities) and interviews with selected staff at various levels, most commentators agreed with the general hypothesis of this paper. Additional comments from Chinese workers were a sense of greed in society, a lack of empathy for others, the pace of economic change was leaving the vast majority of the previous generation behind, and the cost of living was now beyond the ability of most Chinese. own property and the comforts of life. If you go to Shanghai or Beijing, you may be confused by what you see as modern, vibrant cities full of people going about their business, but like all illusions, sometimes they’re just for show, the real story is found. in the mass of Chinese. living and working in the rest of China, at that slow pace with a sense of apathy about their lives and their future.

conclusion

Like all observations, you can’t apply the findings to everyone. Some certainly by situation, character, personality and circumstance will see reality through a different framework. This document simply reflects a Western view of pace and sense of urgency compared to that culture. Many Chinese readily admit the findings here in this paper, but feel powerless to change the situation and thus continue to feel a sense of powerlessness in general. Many Westerners would love to see their own country, culture, slow down; Take life a little easier, take the time to watch the flowers grow. However, they also see it as a dream and not a reality in fast-paced, high-urgency Western thinking. I live and work in China, I like living here but I don’t feel like adapting to the pace or the lack of urgency. I don’t want to go native so to speak. When I walk with my Chinese friends, I always stop to let them catch up with me, and I think I walk very slowly at first. I jokingly yell at them in Mandarin to hurry up. They just laugh and ask why I need to get everywhere so fast. Maybe I have more to do in my life and feel like wasting time is not in my character. They think I’m weird and tell me I have the energy of a 20 year old, well maybe they’re right because I’m 52 now.