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Type of bind: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 658.8480951
EAN num: 9780892563524
ISBN number: 0892563524
Label: Scribner
Manufacturer: Scribner
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 288
Printing Date: January 30, 1991
Publishing house: Scribner
Sale Popularity Level: 172749
Studio: Scribner
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
This book, by East-West marketing consultant Chin-ning Chu, is must reading for any Westerner in business, government, or academia who negotiates in the Orient or wants to.
It is the very first to reveal to Westerners the deep secrets of the Asian psyche that influence Asian behavior in business, politics, lifestyle, and battle.
Ms. Chu points out that Asian mind games have become so finely tuned over the centuries that Americans seldom realize that Asians view the marketplace (and by extension, the world) as a battlefield, and act accordingly.
She has extracted the principles of successful negotiations from centuries-old Chinese texts that have influenced all of Asia, and provides her readers with examples of their application in the modern world.
In the Western world, the ability to formulate cunning and subtle strategies for getting your own way in business, politics, and everyday life is regarded as a matter of intuition. In Asia, however, strategic thinking is a formal discipline studied by people from all walks of life. Amazing as it may seem, contemporary Asians base their outlook and behavior on the teachings of the ancients. In China, even children are familiar with the '36 Strategies,' formulated by Sun Tzu, a famous military strategist, in the fourth century B.C.
Throughout Asia today, business people as well as political figures study Sun Tzu's Art of War and apply its strategies to all their activities, while Americans read The One-Minute Manager and All I Really Need to Know I Learned In Kindergarten. No wonder, Ms. Chu comments, that when it comes to business and political negotiations, the Chinese refer to Americans with a word that means 'innocent children.'
Ms. Chu brilliantly analyses how Chinese thought and culture have affected Japan, Korea, and Taiwan, and how Japanese conquest and culture have had their effect on the rest of Asia.
With United States trade and political alliances shifting increasingly to the Pacific rim, it becomes ever more urgent to understand the Asian mind. Ms. Chu, born in China and educated in Taiwan, spells out the makeup of the Asian psyche as no Westerner could.
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers -
I just got back from China as an English teacher, granted I taught in a small city which automatically gave me the celebrity status, but after reading this book all I can say is I wish I picked this up before I went to China in the very first place.
For those who want to understand the "Art of War" and the "36 Strategies" this is a good book to learn how it applies not only to war and business, but also to other aspects of working in China. It explained many inner workings about how things are done.
As for the "stereotypes", of course they are not 100% true. But it's a good idea to read her views on the Chinese mind set to understand some of the cultural and historical influences that are shaping China of today. Being there, I met many people older than me who still have been influenced by the Cold War and Mao's "anti-imperialist" propoganda. Many of the youths I met still hate the Japanese with a passion.
Of course, I've only read the 1988 publication of the book, so it doesn't factor in many huge changes in Chinese hisotry, such as the reutrn of Hong Kong and Macau to China or even the alliance with the Communist party and the Nationalist party in Taiwan. You will find no references to the 50 year plan of one country, two systems they use to ease Hong Kong and Macau back into Mainland territory.
My only problem with this book is that even though she writes about the many cultural problems that Westerners will face going in these countries, she doesn't give many good suggestions as to how to surmount them. To tell you the truth, if I ever go back to China, this book does sometimes make me feel paranoid not knowing who is friend or foe.
Rated by buyers 
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A very informative and helpful book to understand cultures and the way business is conducted
Rated by buyers -
Without question this is one of the most incisive books written about living and working with Asians, especially the Chinese and Japanese. Put this together with some knowledge of Group Dynamics and you will have two very powerful tools to engage in business with Asians.
Rated by buyers -
Yes, the book is unsubtle, as some reviewers have complained. And the stereotypes are exaggerated. They're also a bit dated, since the book was written in 1991 -- before China's private economy had blossomed, before Taiwan and Korea had become such important high-tech centers, and before Japan went bust.
The book also sensationalizes the degree to which people may be trying to deceive you, and the degree to which this deceit is based on your being a Westerner. Often the deceit, when it happens, is just a cultural way of dealing with embarrassment.
But when I was a beginner with Asia, I found this book a helpful eye-opener. I'd never heard of "The 36 Stratagems", which another reviewer calls tedious (this was before Asian video games based on Chinese military classics became popular here). It turned out that just about all educated East Asian people I met, men and women, knew them to some degree. The book also describes some relevant differences among East Asian cultures - a cure for the usual Western point of view that lumps Japanese, Koreans, Chinese and others all into one "Asian" category.
By now, most of my time in the past 9-10 years has been spent involved with East Asia and East Asian people. This has been at both a business and personal level, including through marriage and working for a Japanese company. From that perspective, I can also say the book's lack of political correctness and its hype about military strategy are kind of virtues.
How? On its surface, the book is about Asian-Western interactions. But underneath, the book illustrates a lot about how people from different Asian cultures regard each other, both cross-culturally and intraculturally.
Chairman Mao may have used the phrase "politically correct" from time to time, but in its current form it's a Western concept, and a recent one at that. It's also something that comes easier to the lips than to the heart or mind. My friends from Asian countries are usually more direct -- they often express quite stereotypical (and negative) views about people from neighboring countries, even when they make exceptions for individuals. More than once has some really balanced or sweet person mentioned to me after a pause, "But you know, I really can't stand people from X."
Business practices and politics often can be pretty manipulative even against colleagues within the same company. (Watch just about any Japanese TV drama about office life, if you don't have a chance to experience the real thing.) And I've run into plenty of East Asian managers and executives who think they're great strategists in the style of the Chinese classics, even though in fact they're about as clumsy as you or I would be.
Read this book with a grain of salt. But you can definitely benefit from having read it.
Rated by buyers -
This is a frank discusion of the Oriental mind-set by an Oriental living in the US. I found the historic context quite fascinating. I had heard about the "The Art of War" and it was nice to get some background as well as a summary. I particulary liked the historic illustrations of use of the strategies.
Insights into business etiquette, social hierarchy and what to be aware of in each of the regions is given.
Since the book was written (1990) the economic miracle of Japan has stalled, so it would be interesting to get an update as to how the attitudes of workers may have changed in the intervening period where job security is no longer assured.
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