Chinese Business Etiquette

Another book to be disposed from my collection is Chinese Business Etiquette - A Guide to Protocol, Manners, And Culture in the People's Republic of China by Scott D. Seligman.

As is common with books about China, some information in the book have become outdated as soon as they are published.

Such as claiming that "many people still do not have their own phones at home" and that a "dang'an" (档案, or personal file) is needed to apply for a passport.

The book also suggested that cut flowers should never be given to Chinese as a gift, which does not gel in with what I have seen during my past several years in China.

But there are other information that are still relevant.

Such as pointing out that there is a certain schizophrenia involved in the Chinese view of westerners.

As Seligman wrote: "Senses of inferiority and superiority ... curiously exist side by side. Lu Xun (鲁迅), a great twentieth-century Chinese writer, once quipped that through the ages the Chinese have either looked down on foreigners as brutes, or up to them as saints, but have never actually been able to call them friends or speak of them as equals."

And ...

"The Chinese are fond of giving objects of art and handicrafts produced in China. These may range from the sublime to the hideous." Sure. Haha.