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Q: Do Chinese working in foreign companies take on more 'Western' traits?
I heard this from a Chinese friend of mine, who is in most respects pretty 'traditional', especially when it comes to relationships, marriage, face, etc.
She was telling me how most other employees she worked with in a British company had actually adopted Western attitudes. For instance, not one of them wanted to get married or have kids before the age of thirty, etc.
Is there any truth to this? Does working in a foreign firm really have the capacity to drastically alter your life choices like this? Seems a bit extreme to me...
While changing of life choices may seem extreme to you, I have no doubts that it is really happening at many places.
The life long ambition of many Chinese is to live abroad, to leave China. Second best to that is to work for a foreign company here, and when doing so, adopt many customs from the foreigners working there, thinking that in doing so, will gain "face" with their piers. Their willingness to copy form others behavioral patterns and codes of conduct, to me is only surpassed by their ever present "greed".
Yes.
Certain aspects are forced on them like seeing past the short-term, thinking outside the box, not accepting lies and bad excuses because of "face."
Other aspects, like waiting to start a family, are more adopted by choice trying to copy the choices "successful" people in the company.
I can agree partially Chinese are adopted western attitudes in a foreign enviroment. But the main reason is the fast developing enviroment which has changed some traditional ways in Chinese life. and deep inside of every Chinese here the traditional roots won't change at all.
My Chinese friends who work for Western companies decidedly have a different mindset. The question is, however, whether or not they had the different mindset before they joined their Western company or whether it came afterwards.
Most of friends who work for Western companies now have the ability to understand Western business concepts and ways of thinking and Chinese business concepts and ways of thinking. These are very positive attributes for sure for a businessperson to have.
