Fascinating question.
Having lived in China for several years, and being married to a Chinese wife, I think my first impulse is to say, “don’t expect to ever fully understand Chinese culture.”
Not because they are so hard to understand, but because that thing we call China is a huge place, with a long history, and it would be wrong to expect to ever fully grasp what it means to be Chinese, or do things the Chinese way.
All that hedging aside, I do think you could be pragmatic about it.
Presuming you are simply trying to get on in modern day China’s culture, I would give you the following list of tips:
- Know your place; in China, family always come first. Then come relatives and old friends. New friends are welcome, but won’t be prioritized.
- Food is China’s unofficial religion. You will be asked “have you eaten?” in the same way you will be asked “how are you doing?” in the anglosphere, and they mean it. Never downplay the importance of a meal. They dedicate an amazing amount of time, resources, and energy to making, eating, and procuring meals. If you’re French, you’ll understand.
- “Saving Face” is everything. There are a hundred ways in which the Chinese can acknowledge or humiliate you, and it all boils down to small details like who sits where, when do you get to speak, what sort of dishes are served… if you can read that code, you know your place with them.
- Negotiation; the Chinese will offer you a choice even when it is clear what you want. It’s one of the prime directives of China. The other person must always have a choice. That way, you may find yourself playing cat and mouse with other pedestrians many more times than you would in the western world, because one indication of intended direction just isn’t enough; no, you will have to swerve around fellow pedestrians in the last moment, because they will keep offering you options till the last second. Whenever I sit in a restaurant with my wife, she drives me crazy with the question “… or would you like THAT dish instead?” To which my retort tends to be, “no, goddammit! I want the thing I said I wanted the first time!”
- Final agreements are not final. How many times did we put a final signature under something, only to find ourselves reconvening over a lavish meal for a complete re-negotiation.
- Change your spokesperson, and you start from scratch. The Chinese build relations with a company or institution based on a personal, individual relationship. Take that person away, and you are back to zero.
- Wastefulness is a sign of idiocy. I have yet to see a respected Chinese person with a wasteful attitude. Economy and efficiency are the pillars of Chinese success, and those who are successful there will possess them.
- Nature is beautiful – but only few have a realistic understanding of nature. Instead, there is a highly domesticated image of nature in China, sporting talking, vegetarian cats, highly polished flower arrangements, and so on. The Chinese romanticize nature, but don’t understand it.
- Outlooks are strangely short term and long term at the same time. The business world expects fast turnarounds and quick growth, while politics and others allow for long time spans for things to develop.
On the whole, I like Chinese culture. When you are there, you feel a new mellowness, surrounded by abundance and the dynamics of an old culture that is mercifully pragmatic and philosophical.