Spend some time in China and you’ll find that the traditions and culture of absolute respect for any superior or elder - even if they tell you 2+2 = 5 - is still absolute. If anything, Mao’s Cultural Revolution reinforced the attitude of fealty to anyone or anything of power, and to not think independently or question the status quo.
I live and work about half my life in China, and this is the biggest challenge for lao wai’s to learn. If you ask for an opinion about a technical issue, you get silence. It’s not because they’re dumb, but because they simply do not have the cultural conditioning of questioning the assumptions. Of trying something different.
You want to try something different? You’re immediately told “no - cannot do that”. When you ask why, you’re told “you just can’t”. You learn it’s because it hasn’t been done before, so rather than trying it, the Chinese - Asian-wide, actually - cultural response is to simply not try it.
To succeed in China you must use your identity as a lao wai and to play your technical and intellectual superiority to the hilt. Simply state what you want, and then ram it through. Do not expect enthusiasm to try your new ideas; expect resistance! It’s not because they’re lazy or stupid, it’s because culturally they simply do not accept any change.
Mao’s revolution set China back, rather than moving it forward. Just like it took 2 generations for Japan working hand-in-hand with the US to really start working towards a culture of innovation (and they still significantly lag the US), it will take China at least that long as well.
For China, it really started in the early 90s when Deng Xiao Peng opened up the East to investment; we’re just now getting a few middle and upper management and business CEOs and owners who will dabble with a bit of innovation and freedom for their employees (meaning allowing the employees to make decisions independently). It will take another generation until the second wave of such white collar workers raise up, and really start letting the lower ranks expand.
Additionally, the breaking down of the traditional Chinese family - parents work, children raised by the grandparents - will foster this as well. As children more and more live with their parents rather than their grandparents, they will be exposed to the rough-and-tumble of daily life of working guardians, rather than the more sedate, governing life of a retiree.
Well, thank you for that reasoned and edifying post.
Your experience in China points out the shortcomings of my viewpoint I espouse from afar.
But isn’t some of that simply bureacratic reticence, something we see in large organisations everywhere......
But, even you do anticipate a change in this Confuciun/Maoist mindset.
Anyway, thanks again.