Reviews for China

The average rating for China based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2017-06-13 00:00:00 Vero Joubert I probably should rate this book lower, but I think the author did a good job with his research and the text is actually written reasonably well. I found it fascinating that a Canadian author should mostly use American statistics to compare data with Chinese society, but then... our northern brethren do largely share our culture, history and heritage - whether they are all always all that comfortable with that fact or not. In any case, I think the book was written with very good intentions and may have even arisen out of the same sense of frustration I often felt while interacting (as an English teacher) with the Chinese in Taiwan for five and half years (and later, the Mainland Chinese of Shanghai for six months). "Why is it," I seemed to constantly be asking myself in those days (and still, to this very day in South Korea sometimes, really), "that these people don't ever seem to say what they mean, much less mean what they say?" The book begins well enough by very politely and safely outlining various aspects of this subject, but therein lies the rub. In the end, the author simply doesn't take any chances. He doesn't really answer any of the questions he posits, and inevitably, one is left feeling that he should have asked some tougher questions. In other words, he brings the subject up, but fails to really explain or make any truly challenging suppositions about it. Instead, he comes off as not being bold enough to come out and say what the book is really all about. Which is (arguably), 'What's behind this whole "lying to save face" thing?' But then, I think I totally understand how this book ended up feeling so inconclusive, unsatisfying, and just plain pathetically politically correct. For, how does one write about an extremely large, "homogeneous" group of people, and a very obvious behavioral aspect of their society... WITHOUT coming off as "racist" at worst, or at the very best, culturally intolerant? In other words, the author handles the whole subject with kid gloves, and quietly and carefully at times, even pretty much whines about it. You can feel his sense of frustration, having lived and worked in Hong Kong, yet having been born and raised in a nice, clean country with a small population like Canada. But he still fails to take any real chances here. Plain and simple, he skirts the issue he himself brings up, and the book therefore ends up seeming all too brief. Perhaps even lame and terribly impotent with its halfhearted devil's advocacy, often used to rationalize the Chinese concept of Face. Believe it or not, I read the book twice (and even began a third reading), looking for answers... or any sort of consolation, really. But none that I could readily discern was forthcoming. I do think the author should be commended however, for making a solid effort to address the issue of this often mysterious Chinese (and greater East Asian) sense of "Face." And who knows? Maybe the final published manuscript was over-edited (aka CENSORED) by... who knows? My guess, however, is that he was more self censored than anything. I honestly do not know. What I do know is that the book just sort of limps along, quoting facts and figures (again, mostly from American studies, with just a precious few Canadian studies thrown in for good measure) and ultimately almost entirely skirts the issue that it calls attention to in the first place! And that, I'm afraid, makes Michael Harris Bond's 'Beyond the Chinese Face: Insights From Psychology' a more frustrating read than anything else. In fact, it's almost like reading about military strategy in the Vietnam War. Sort of like, "Well, we're here in force. But... we don't really wanna upset the Chinese people, since... they might just enter the war in large numbers, the way they did during the Korean War, when they really, really, REALLY upset the balance.... So... we're just gonna kinda... be here for a while... and just... slowly bleed out." Ultimately, 'Beyond the Chinese Face' is just like that really; a little, hemming and hawing undeclared war of scholarly attrition that leaves one feeling more frustrated and unfulfilled than anything else.

Review # 2 was written on 2009-11-27 00:00:00 Andre Marrow Broad, nuanced and evidence-based beginning to an understanding of some psychological underpinnings of culture.