Prof. Yang Ganfu
I must, first of all, frankly admit that the title of the opinion piece by Peter Schellshmidt published in New Era on 3 August 2007, “The Struggle with gifts and favours”, really encouraged me to respond to him simply because it is quite misleading, if not provocative.
In order not to let Peter Schellshmidt confuse himself, I changed my Chinese style of writing and applied Peter Schellshmidt’s western communication style by directly and one by one coming right to his issue of contention which, I suddenly realized, tried to prove that I and Chinese at large are breaking Namibian laws.
According to his opinion, Peter Schellshmidt has serious doubts that principles like “mutuality and reciprocity” can be simply transferred from private to business relations. And he still considers that gifts and favours have no place in sound business relations.
To comment, I must say he is right if we take his German culture or western culture into consideration.
Secondly, I say he is right because he has the right to give his opinion no matter whether it is correct or wrong.
To defend my opinion, I would like to support myself by simply applying intercultural communication theories. Wierzbicka (2003) claims that what makes Japan a nation of Japanese, or Russia a nation of Russians is reflected “more clearly than anywhere else” in the ways the Japanese or the Russians speak.
She further agrees that different ways of speaking, different communicative styles, can be explained and made sense of, in terms of independently established different cultural values and cultural priorities.
Thus, it should not be confusing, according to my understanding, that a culture determines how its communicators behave no matter it concerns private life or public life.
In addition, I venture to say that at least it has not yet been evidenced in intercultural communication that a communicator with two cultural traits performs his/her private life in one culture and his/her business life in another culture. Such subject might be the future hypothesis for intercultural communication.
Peter Schellshmidt deserves credit for teaching me Namibian law that “clearly makes the acceptance of a gift or a favour by a member of the public service in relation to an administrative matter or a business order a criminal offence”.
In his previous letter, he also made similar remarks, indicating that Chinese are crossing the line of corruption.
By now, I only come to realize what intensions Peter Schellshmidt’s letters harbour. I see the light that Peter Schellshmidt (please understand my assumption) tried to prove that the Chinese cultural practice of mutuality and reciprocity is against the Namibian law.
And it seems to me that Peter Schellshmidt has long cherished such brainstorming (maybe because of the growing number of Chinese immigrants and business).
However, I would like to be told: Did I want Namibians to practise Chinese culture?
As a Chinese, I must fully abide by the Namibian law. Yet, please be reminded, Peter Schellshmidt, my articles convey no message to mislead you to jump to the conclusion that Chinese cultural practice of mutuality and reciprocity requires a gift or favour before an administrative decision. Neither did I hold that a favour should be arranged because a gift was given.
In this sense, your struggle with gifts and favours is really misleading to the public. To clarify, it might be helpful to repeat my idea hereby for better reference: the local company was supposed, according to Chinese culture, to repay the favour they received from the Chinese company since the Chinese company had given them the big order.
It is very clearly stated that the Chinese company had given the order before the local company “repaid” the favour they received. (In fact, the local company did not do anything to repay the Chinese company, which resulted in complaints from the Chinese side.)
Peter Schellshmidt still fails to understand the logic that the placement of an order to a given company can be termed as a “favour” that needs to be reciprocated. However, I must honestly admit that I 100% understand his logic. This is because I am aware that he, grown up in German/Western culture (please again understand my assumption) has carried that cultural identity.
Mutuality and reciprocity does not exist in that culture which on the contrary declares it as illegal according to my understanding of him.
His opinion is still, however, understandable in that different cultures are often different from each other in how much importance they attach to one function of language over the other and how much importance they attach to one’s cultural values and cultural priorities over others.
Mutuality and reciprocity is the product of Chinese culture. It is therefore also understandable that Chinese are applying such cultural practice.
It is genuinely meaningful to give the public some information on different cultural values and practices. This is because it widens people’s views and enriches people’s lives to some extent.
Most importantly, it helps the communicators to avoid unnecessary miscommunication and creates a healthy and constructive communication, which is even more critical in our global village. In view of this, I fail to understand why Peter Schellshmidt sticks to his opinion as exposed above.
Finally, let me come to his last doubt. Peter Schellshmidt really questioned my “example of a Namibian company which was supposed to repay, according to Chinese culture, the favour they received from the Chinese company since the Chinese company had given them the big order”.
His assumption is that by this statement, I wanted Namibians to “familiarize themselves with Chinese business practice and culture”. He argued, if his assumption is wrong, then, why did I give such an example? Hereafter is my answer: Exemplification is a normal approach to prove right or explain better one’s idea or hypothesis.
I have stated in my article that the miscommunication between Chinese and Namibians I observed in some areas encouraged me to publish some cultural knowledge to avoid unnecessary miscommunication between these two groups. Must I exemplify my statement by using cultural miscommunication between German and Chinese?
Don’t you think that would be ridiculous?
Furthermore, I have clearly stated that the Namibian company was supposed to repay, according to Chinese culture, the favour they received from the Chinese company since the Chinese company had given them the big order. By this “according to Chinese culture”, I tried to explain that just because of Chinese culture, the Chinese company was not happy with the local company which did nothing to repay the favour from the Chinese company.
Also, by this “according to Chinese culture”, I tried to picture the difference in cultural practice between Namibians and Chinese and conclude that different cultural values are the root causes contributing to miscommunication.
The example I repeated above is seen as my best one to explain the miscommunication that arose out of different cultural practices. “According to Chinese culture” does not mean that Namibian companies should follow Chinese culture.
To sum up, opinion exchange is not a bad issue but a healthy and meaningful approach to a sound and constructive communication. The global village needs this approach. But in doing this, we must be careful not to force one group to accept another group’s culture as Americans always do, which is evidenced and will continue to evidence its failure.
I would be more than happy to exchange ideas face to face with Peter Schellshmidt if what I have stated above still does not convince him.