In Which There Is Unexpected Bounty
Trip Start
Sep 23, 2011
1
13
15
Trip End
Ongoing
Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China
Sunday, February 12, 2012
The term "guanxi" (sounds like gwahn shee) is very difficult to define in English, because our culture doesn't have it. We have things like it, but there is no exact translation for it. Guanxi is most often translated as "relationship," but that's just the tip of the iceberg for this word. You have guanxi with any person related to you by blood, with your friends, and, to a lesser degree, with any person that has guanxi with any person that you know. But guanxi is also a debt. It is the debt that you owe in return for a favor, and the bigger the favor, the more you owe. But it is also a line of credit. The more guanxi you have with someone, in other words the deeper your relationship, the more you can ask of that person. Guanxi is earned along with trust and lost with dishonesty. It can be bartered but never bought. Most importantly, you can never refuse a guanxi debt, which must be paid back threefold.
Here is an example (you might need to diagram this relationship):
I have guanxi with all of my students, and with my fellow teachers at school. Today one of the local teachers, Zoe, came to me with a request on behalf of the cousin of one of her students. This cousin needed to interview a foreigner for a homework assignment, so she asked her aunt (the mother of Zoe's student) for help. The mother of Zoe's student does not have guanxi with most of the foreigners at the school, but Zoe does, so she asked Zoe for help. Zoe in turn came into the back office where all the foreigners were, and asked if any of us would be willing to give an interview for the assignment.
Now if I really couldn't do it, I could have refused, but if my refusing would have made Zoe look bad, which would not have been good for her guanxi with her student's mom. I asked a few questions just to make sure that it would not be during my class time, or too inconvenient to be reasonable, then I accepted happily. One of the other foreign teachers, Charlie, said that the girl who needed to do the interview should ask us herself. I said "This is China, you have to use guanxi." To which he replied, "Yeah, but she's dealing with foreigners, shouldn't she learn the foreign way?" I can't entirely disagree, but I also know enough about Chinese people to know that they won't change things like guanxi for foreigners. It never even occurs to them, usually.
So my response followed the guanxi chain back to the source, and this afternoon, between classes, I was interviewed (in English) by a fourteen year old Chinese girl. The interview was filmed by her mother and only lasted about ten minutes. In return for ten minutes of my time and answers to some easy questions, I received a box of sixteen oranges, and three boxes of some kind of nut. I haven't figured out what kind they are yet, but the local teachers commented that they are expensive.
Why such bounty for just ten minutes? Because that is the power of guanxi. That girl did not have direct guanxi with me, or even with Zoe, so not repaying the guanxi would have lost her some guanxi with everyone on the chain. She also had to pay me back right away, because she probably won't see me again.
Charlie insisted on the American way, directly talking to someone, but I have learned the system over here. I followed the guanxi path, and thus, I got the reward. Have I mentioned that I like living in China?
I then had to drag my very heavy unexpected bounty to the restaurant where we had a goodbye party for one of the other foreign teachers who is getting married. I was then able to enjoy even more bounty (though I was expecting this one) in the form of delicious hot pot (for those of you who haven't visited me, hot pot is a dish where you order lots of bite sized pieces of raw meat, seafood, tofu, vegetables, and so on, and drop them into a pot of boiling broth. When they are cooked, you pull them out and dip them in your choice of condiments. My personal favorite is sesame sauce with cilantro and garlic.) I was able to stuff myself with relatively healthy, delicious food, and interrogate the local teachers about Chinese phrases.
Important Cultural Note: When in China, don't talk about eating other people's tofu. Apparently this is slang for inappropriate touching/molesting.
Comments
Theresa, what an interesting story. Every culture has so many intriguing dimensions to it. Unless we are immersed in it, we would never know. Thanks for sharing the guanxi - I guess I owe you threefold. And thanks for the tofu heads up - that explains my problem in ordering it in Kunming :-)