A Tale of Two Cultures

A friend from Africa told me a story. He was waiting in a long line at a fast food store. He found there was another line with no people at all. He went to the other line and bought his Hamburg.
“American is so stupid!” my friend said.
I heard a lot of this kind of opinion from Chinese. But they use”simple” instead of “stupid”. But the opinion underneath is the same: American are stick to rigid rules and never flexible.
Besides the rigid enforcement of the rule, Chinese also don’t understand why there are so many rules in routine life.
For example, one of my friends complained that she has to write “-”between the regional code when she writes down phone number. “In Chinese we just write down all the numbers with no -,” she said: “only these stupid Americans can not remember all the numbers.”
Another example is the PowerPoint. Americans always like to use PowerPoint to show their idea during presentation and emphasize the simple way of delivering idea.
In China, people are not used to PowerPoint. When they use it, they put all the stuff onto the PowerPoint, not to explain to audience, but to help themselves to remember the lines.
Chinese culture adores sophistication. If a speech sounds confusing and complicated to understand, audience may not blame the speaker but attribute to their own problem. Like, maybe I lack knowledge so that I cannot catch up with him. Thus, to show off his “sophistication” a speaker may put all the stuff together to make it more complicated.
Is it an effective speech? Absolutely not.
Yes. Many presentations with PowerPoint are boring. Typing “-”between phone numbers is annoying. Waiting in line is annoying. But these rules are not wasting of time but help to save a lot of time. Actually I think Americans are very good at inventing rules to improve efficiency.
What is more, if all the people in a country stick to routine rules waiting in line or waiting for green light to go, they will also respect other laws.
Why don’t Chinese stick to routine rules? I don’t have the comprehensive answer. However, I guess it maybe related to the central planned economic system in China. Under that system, there was no competition and it is not necessary for people to work hard.
I remember there was often quarrel on the street when I was a child. A tiny conflict like bumping into each other might ignite frenzy. The two parties could had a huge debate for one hour and even beat each other. Usually they would be surrounded by a circle of people passing by.
I always wondered why people would stop to stand there for one hour and just watched two people firing dirty language to each other.
Now I know the answer. They have plenty of time and not much entertainment. Why not watch the live show on the street?
Of course now China is changing. Go from South China to Northern China. Go to the Street and observe the way people walk. You will find the speed of pacing is much higher in South China where economy is more thriving than in Northern China.
Chinese are learning fast how to work efficiently though it is hard to change the culture.
I remember I attended a conference last year. There was technique problem when an American speaker began his presentation with PowerPoint. The American speaker had to wait until they fixed the machine.
A Chinese speaker made a speech first and he began with: We are not like Americans. We are flexible and can make speech everywhere without PowerPoint.
Then came the American speaker . He began with :
How can we provide more flexibility to people when you can not even show your PowerPoint in a conference on technology?