Learning the Chinese Ways, Culture and History

Let me put it this way.. I do not understand the Chinese very well.. What I am going to write comes from my personal observation and from what I hear from my friends. In addition, different provinces in China work differently. Shanghai is the fastest developing city in China and it is heavily influenced by foreign investments. Hence, it is unfair to compare Shanghai with the other provinces. Indeed I was warned that I should never use Shanghai as a gauge for China.
Strong viewpoints
Whenever there are any discussions or debates among my Chinese colleagues, I felt that they held strongly to their viewpoint. It is not that they do not consider other viewpoints... I find that they will do their best to support their arguments. Most of the time, I realize that we usually discuss and debate in the most "political" way. "This can... but the other one also can...". Well, more often than not, we find our arguments siting on the fence. I respect them for putting their stand clearly and support it with substantial reasoning. I was told that this could be because the people (in the city) travels frequently in China and they establish their thoughts from what they observe. Unlike in Singapore, they are not told "what is right" and "what is wrong"; what they say is what they see. Probably that is why it is not an uncommon sight to see Chinese quarreling along the street.

Patriotic
Every time when I talk to the Chinese people, they will discuss about history, politics, literature, business and education. Most of these topics revolve around China and they are very concern of the current affairs of China. They will openly discuss the politics of China, whether it is working or not, and put in their inputs. For instance, I am convinced by them that communism may be a good political system in governing China, which is large and developing. What I admire most is that most of them know their history at their fingertips. This could be the result of the education system focusing on history and literature. Well... it may not seem to be as useful as science and mathematics, but it gives China its unique identity.

Strong Desire to Learn
Chinese are famous of being hardworking and I can feel their strong desire to excel and learn. Every now and then, my colleagues will ask me about English, IT skills and other things that I have learned in school. I also heard of many people taking night classes in China. With the opening of the Chinese market and the Internet, I believe they will catch up with the rest of the world very fast.. I am indeed motivated by them to continue learning fast. When every Chinese knows how to write and speak English, we would no longer have this competitive advantage of English anymore. No wonder it is very important to take another language. Well, I will keep up this learning spirit with them.

Friendship and Guanxi
I have many friends who told me that the Chinese were unfriendly to them in the public. And I would usually say that this would not be the case if they get to know you better. I make a lot of Chinese friends in China and they have treated me very well during my stay. Probably this is the reason why many people say it is very important to establish good 关系with the locals. But I believe this will apply to other parts of the world. Overall, they will look after their friends very well.

Creativity
Well... Creativity can come in both good and bad ways.. It is not uncommon to find counterfeit goods in the market such as pirated DVDs (5RMB a disc!). There are also creative products produced but they will be copied immediately. I believe there are still rooms for improvements to educate the public on Intellectual Property Rights... But if such rules are enforced, how is China going to feed so many poor and hungry people?

There are other interesting observations as well. For example, they said that people in northern China are more 豪爽 and people in the southern China are more 精算. Why 江苏area can develop faster than the rest of China is because scholars were usually produced in this region from history. These are just some interesting stories that I have heard. Like what I have said earlier on, these are just my personal observations.