The Three “Be” Themes Used By Today's Businesses

Today's businesses operate in a fast changing world and one within which they have increased accountability to their stakeholders, such as customers, local communities, employees and the media. The days of strictly controlled corporate public relations and marketing have surely passed by and now the social media allows more scrutiny and cricitism of the biggest brands. I feel there are three "be..." Themes that have been increasingly adopted by the vast majority of corporations today all are friendly, fun or caring images to portray to these stakeholders, to make them appear more down to earth and in touch with reality.

1. Be lighthearted and use childish humorous

This is being taken to new heights in recent years. The straight forward self explanatory advertisements have gone, and in its place has come humorous brand values, and content. It seems to have largely come from new young brands that have encouraged fun in their marketing communications, such as Innocent Drinks, but it has impacted on even the most straight laced of corporations too.

Although humour in marketing is certainly nothing new but the way it is now being used in every official and unofficial communication with audiences in this rather silly "immature" fashion is something I feel has really emerged over the past few years. It seems to have seeped into the culture of company's communications almost unconsciously.

2. Be a little more culturally aware

This is another theme that is increasingly being seen. On my way back to London from Rome recently I saw a sign in the airport Cafe in Chinese only stating "hot water provided free here" a good bit of culture knowledge, as Chinese habitually choose hot drinks and food in their diet, and snub cold snacks. The selling of Halal meat is a common theme too, labelling on products in British supermarkets is increasingly common in respect to Muslims beliefs on how meat they eat is slaughtered, although it has been a controversial topic too, as some non-muslims do not approve of this method of animal slaughtering.

Cultural awareness is demanded more and more by the diverse range of customers businesses seek to satisfy and the businesses in turn who are realising the profit potential too, are more than happy to oblige.

3. Be environmentally friendly

Every business no matter it's size, whether international, national or local seem to be picking up the importance of being "seen" as environmentally friendly. I recently jested on my Facebook about WHSmiths charging a penny for a bag, then giving a generous amount of receipts and offer to each customer which has been going on for many a year! But there are some serious attempts. For instance companies using biodegradable bags in an attempt to use less paper, such as puma recently instead of using cardboard boxes for their trainers.

Starbucks came up with the idea of using their recyclable plastic cup and offering discounts for customers who brought their own cups to their stores. Although there will always be cynics who say they don't do enough, and the demand for more environmentally concepts continue. Nevertheless it is a theme which is increasingly prevalent today.

Why speaking with the correct tone is so important for foreigners in China

Foreigners coming to China, if you wish to impress the locals with some simple Chinese words and phrases, the most important factor, I would recommend is to get a basic understanding of the tones!

In my experience of meeting foreigners in China and through my process of learning Mandarin Chinese, I have commonly come across many who have a fantastic grasp of the language. Their grammar, sentence structures, all sound fantastic, but their tones and pronunciation is the only factor that prevents them effectively sounding like a native speaker.

It is a factor in my view that is very much underestimated, after working so hard to get to that level; it is sadly a little bit like painting a beautiful photo, and spending hours on every stroke, only to then choose an ugly frame to put it in. In fact, Asian languages in general are largely dependent on tones to be understood correctly, it is a fundamental part of the language, and by omitting this it is a failure to comprehend what the language is all about.

However, it is understandable why many foreigners fall into this trap unconsciously, European languages in particular do not make such strong use of tones, they have more words and more syllables than Chinese and therefore can be understood more easily in this regard, even if some words are not pronounced quite correctly. However, Mandarin Chinese has a limited number of sounds, and words are comprised in pinyin of no more than three or four letters. It actually does not take too long (roughly a year of hard study, to be able to pronounce almost all the syllables in Chinese), and therefore it actually makes the process of learning Chinese in some ways easier than European languages where we have words that can span up to 25 letters (for some of the unusual and seldom used ones).

The truth is that pronouncing the tones takes time, and it is a slow process at the beginning, as well as the fact it sounds completely alien to foreigners from the west. Mandarin Chinese consists of four tones as well as a fifth tone which is short and lacks the strength in sound of the other four tones.

l  1^st Tone: flat first tone

l  2^nd Tone: a rising low to high second tone (like when one asks a question),

l  3^rd Tone: that starts high, drops low and rises again (definitely the strangest tonal sound to westerners)

l  4^th Tone: which starts high and drops abruptly (like when you command a child to STOP misbehaving)

But as well as this, there are tones that change depending on the tone that precedes it. The common ones are two fourth tone words like 不在（buzai）or 不是 (bushi) where 不(bu) changes in both words to a second tone sound. Learning a little bit of knowledge like this at the start will take time and perhaps create an uneasy feeling, but will speed your learning up in the long term and make it easier to understand native speakers as well. All these tones are largely neglected by foreign students of Chinese.

At the start, I felt strange to be emphasising all these tones in my sentences, it was purely noise, nothing more and I felt quite uncomfortable. Only after spending time in China speaking and listening intensely that I lost that uncomfortable feeling, and began to understand that the tones were less of a noise and actually a tool for communication in my second language. Now I can unconsciously use tones in Chinese without thinking of them in an English way with embarrassment.  Just like some things we follow subconsciously, it is necessary sometimes to fight against it.

Five years of learning Mandarin has gone by already, and now my basic understanding and communicating with native speaking Chinese people is completely fine and I believe a lot of that has come from my work on my tones and pronunciation, and I believe other foreigners who use this will equally make progression towards as close to a native level (or however close you want to get to it) a more seamless process than without it.

Adam Horton 31/05/2014

How does the media’s propaganda influence your view of China?

When considering culture and the way cultural barriers impact communication and relations between China and the west, it is especially important to consider the ways in which these cultural misunderstandings are bridged, and how efficient the bridges are. Are they build of a solid foundation that is clear to comprehend or is it more of a very frail old crossing equivalent to badly informed misconceptions and stereotypes. How did we get to understand all of what we know about another country and its culture, history and language? The truth is, unless you are intimately familiar with the country in question or have an interest, your opinions and stereotypes may be influenced by propaganda delivered by television, newspapers, or the internet for instance of which make up some of the counterparts of ‘the media’.

The media is a powerful medium of communication that is able to influence the minds of young and old in such a subconscious way that it is scary to comprehend. We all need information to form opinions and those sources of information are fundamental in creating our attitudes and feelings towards something. The media in any one country can ultimately result in a country’s population with misinformed opinions and beliefs towards any issue, and especially one where language and culture make it difficult to amend by individuals themselves.

On the one hand, the influx of Chinese that have moved to study and work in the UK has allowed a better understanding and more direct opinion formation for both British and Chinese citizens towards each other based on personal experiences and thus there is now more direct communication between Chinese and British citizens than ever before. However, there is still a degree of separation of our two cultures too, that encourages the misinterpretations that have existed from days past. Moreover, there is a large amount of scaremongering that goes on from the media, to portray a negative image towards China, that as it gets more developed and more influential in the world, it will be negative for the western world, such as spying on foreign countries, concerns over national security, and the fear that they will try to force communist values onto other countries around them as they get more economic power, much in a similar way to how the Soviet Union was portrayed by the media during their heyday.

UK citizens views on the Chinese?

In the Chinese context, there have been several stereotypes that have built up and been maintained since. Although it is unsurprising that misunderstandings can occur between two countries that are geographically far apart, such as the UK and China, but even simple objective information is often not correctly understood either. Most westerners would be surprised to learn how large and diverse China is. Geographically, China experiences polar opposites in different regions of the country. The climate in the north part of China has intensely cold weather during the winter, but the South part of China never experiences any snow for instance. Other areas of difference include different builds and diets. The Chinese people in the north tend on average to be taller and enjoy saltier and spicier food than their contemporaries in the south whom also generally enjoy sweeter food than in the north. Whereas most westerners would identify rice as being a fundamental part of the Chinese diet which eaten every day, noodles and bread are just as common depending on which part of China it is, sometimes rice is not eaten at all in certain areas. Another example is, contrarily to popular belief, there is no language called Chinese. Instead, China is made up of hundreds of local dialogues; however Mandarin which is taught across all schools in China is commonly spoken across mainland China. The second most popular language in China is Cantonese which is commonly spoken in Hong Kong and the south providences of China. A lot of impressions British people have towards the Chinese language in tonal form is derived from Cantonese, which is where a large part amount of Chinese immigration emerged in the UK during the 1960’s, whereas contrarily due to the Chinese government’s encouragement of using Mandarin in schools across China since the 1960’s, Mandarin has become the most commonly spoken language in China.

Is democracy alone enough to improve understanding of cultures?

These are just some examples of an overall lack of knowledge towards China that highlights the difficulties in forming such basic stereotypes but understanding them would at least minimise basic misunderstandings.

I believe one of the benefits of living in a democratic country, is the opportunity and ability to access streams of information from a variety of sources, whether it is state organised, privately or through charitable organisations, for those who wish to seek the information, it is readily available. However, not everyone can be so active in seeking such information and processing it to understand other culture’s in such a democratic manner. The opinions of others, who are more passive towards this subject and wish to rely on news that is easier to digest, will rely on the typical mainline media to understand what is going on. So the result can often be that despite the ease of getting more accurate information and not having to rely on mainstream news, a large percentage of the population of a democratic country may still hold views that can be arguably ethnocentric, outdated and possibly dangerously controversial. It is this side of the argument that relies on accurate and fair media coverage of other cultures to improve relationships with other sovereign states.

The answer I have always felt lays in better education from the beginning of people’s lives, encouraging more understanding among different cultures and with the democracy we enjoy in the UK, ensuring that politicians that we are represented by, lead us in a way that encourages more equality and non-biased information to exist here. The consideration of better and more accurate information could focus on basic objective facts to contribute towards an improvement in international relations with China. We are not born to hold prejudice views towards others; we simply learn them as we pick them up from others around us, and that includes the media’s propaganda too.

Christmas and Chinese New Year: A Comparison

I always have enjoyed Christmas time, it is a time to relax, drink, eat and be merry! with all your family. There is no other day in the year quite like it in the west. However, in China, Chinese New year is a similar concept too. But here are some key differences.

Difference 1: Wealth vs Peace, Love and Joy

At Christmas time,  ‘Merry Christmas’ or a ‘Happy Christmas.’ are common wishes expressed. People also wish you joy, peace and harmony. In China it is different.  Gong xi fa cai (or in Cantonese, Gong Hei Fat Choi) in Chinese means to wish you success and wealth in your life. Chinese society is more fixated on money and wishing people wealth in the new year is very common. 
Its also common for Chinese people to clear old debts and rid themselves of all things bad to start the new year afresh. Buying new clothes is also very common too. For westerners at Christmas, the focus is more on resting and relaxing to enjoy the Christmas holiday and then go to clearance sales in the shops afterwards.

2) Difference 2: A relaxing Christmas vs A Bustling Chinese New Year

Christmas is generally supposed to be a relaxing festival. However, Chinese New Year is the opposite. Inviting large groups of friends and family to your house is normal during the Chinese New Year holiday. In Chinese it is called re nao which roughly translated means to be bustling with noise and an exciting environment and atmosphere. Although Christmas can be chaotic and busy, such as when preparing Christmas dinner for the family, the gatherings are no where near as large and the evenings are commonly spent relaxing with a few drinks and some cold meat sandwiches leftover from Christmas dinner.

3) Difference 3: Comparisons in Chinese New Year and Christmas gifts

The gifts given during Christmas and Chinese New year are totally different too. At Christmas, gifts can be wide ranging, from toys, sweets, or whatever the latest technology or cool thing is, to something as boring as socks! The point is the thought that counts, not the gift, or the size of the gift (as I was told as a little child!)In China, children receive hong bao, a red envelope, which is given to them by many Chinese parents during the new year. It is just as exciting for the children to receive these red envelopes however, but the focus is again on money as mentioned in the first point.The other point is that Christmas gifts are for all the family at Christmas, even grandparents, where as in China, hong bao is only for little children up to the age of about 18, after which time, it should be they who give the next generation of children their hong bao!

I'm sure there are many other good comparisons to be made, and I would love to hear some of them! I hope everyone has a great Christmas and a wonderful new year in 2014!

Why I do buy all that 'peace, love and understanding' talk!

What's so funny about peace, love and understanding, imagine all the people living life in peace and in one world. These sentiments that are branded around freely are constantly the subject of satire and cynicism from people, but I truly believe in peace, love and understanding between us all, it could happen, in fact I believe its easier to let it happen than not to, and I hold strong hopes that we as world citizens will join together increasingly in the future. After all, most if not all would like to live without fear of war's and ironically it is in all of our collective hands, whether that can happen or not.

Misunderstandings are so common between people, if we had the ability to see things from other people's perspective, it would indeed be a peaceful world, but of course we are emotional beings and naturally conflicts will happen that don't follow such rationalist lines. However, I believe that it is more a case of better exposure and more organically that can increase the likeliness of understanding conflicts and the reduction of emotional and ignorant hate between us. Stereotypes are commonly built up because we generalise behaviour among certain types of people, ethnicities and cultures that are then used to form an opinion. Nowadays, these stereotypes are fast becoming old, and the younger generation now emerging are getting exposed increasingly to different cultural artefacts. The result I believe is that it is increasingly creating more open minded and aware people. The reason why I believe it is occurring now is because world wide communication through internet is available to more people across the world and is accessible to people from a young age. Travelling is cheaper and people are more inclined to go further away from their home country and their continent to really experience something new and different. It is commonly believed that things you learn when you are younger stick with you more easily easier as you get older, so the exposure to languages, culture and the different ways of every day things around the world, could make you a more tolerant person with the ability to understand different ways of thinking about things, just subconsciously!

As I have stated in previous blogs, learning a language is a great way to identify your own culture's customs and habits and realise more about the way other cultures do things that are different. From my own experiences and culture shocks, I suddenly asked myself the question "what is the right way to do these things, how should I talk to people, what is the best etiquette in formal and informal situations?". I didn't know it was done this way in Country X, maybe that's why there is so much misunderstanding with this ethnic group in my own country? These realisations are hard to articulate in words, but as the saying goes if we listen instead of talk, we might realise and understand more. But it also goes further than just speaking foreign languages, its the exposure to foreign arts and culture that can make us more intelligent and thoughtful towards each other. As an example, English speaking music has been popular in foreign countries for many years, but increasingly foreign pop music is coming to English speaking countries, such as Korean and Chinese Pop music that increasingly opened people's minds to music being expressed through different languages and cultural norms.

(For further understanding of how the arts is contributing towards better understanding between people in the world, I would highly recommend readers to listen to the Chinese pop singer, Wang Lee Hom's, speech that he gave at Oxford University this year.)

The ways of doing business has also been influenced by foreign ways too. Whilst the industrial revolution was a concept that emerged from the west and changed the way of thinking by the east, vice versa, the efficient manufacturing and organisation methods pioneered by the east, the Japanese, has had a great influence on the west and changed the methods used there too. By connecting better with each other we can learn, grow and enjoy life far better than we could living in separation, with suspicious and contempt for each other.
It is interesting to look at the past and consider that at a  time when communication between foreign countries was poor and reliance was held on stereotypes and word of mouth, just how many of these cultural misunderstandings caused wars throughout the world, could these devastations have been prevented in today's world with the more advanced technology, communication and education we now have? Ignorance is dangerous and it continues even to this day, where there are still so many wars between countries and the minorities and majorities within. However, it is important to look at the way the world has changed and the facts that undoubtedly we now lived in a more integrated world than ever before.

In the past, there simply wasn't the same ideology towards peace and understanding that I believe is in existence in the world now. I truly believe this better understanding can create more peace and harmony than has ever existed. Thus, the catalyst for greater change is more and better education for all of us.


微信: adamhorton86

A New language means a new personality

I was recently with a British born Chinese friend at a Chinese social networking event and after meeting with  several different people, he told me something rather intriguing. He said that he felt the language, tone of voice and behaviour he expressed in English, Mandarin Chinese and Cantonese was not completely the same, even when he was essentially saying the same thing in some situations. He believed that the social perimeters are significantly different between the three languages. He learnt like myself to speak Mandarin Chinese as a second language and is now fluent, but as well as learning the simple language and phonetics, there is more to it, the behaviour and attitude needs to be learnt to really comprehend and connect with your second language. I have to say I agree, and it is a good way to feel confident in your second language.

Chinese is a language that uses tones, so the correct sound is needed to be understood, but there is a lot of emphasis on words that can enable you to show focus on certain words in a sentence or to show the listener that you are familiar with their way of talking and that you understand the between the lines meanings of what you are talking about or simply that you respect the traditions of the language that simply cannot be taught to foreigners easily.

A lot of it comes down to small details, when networking in English, the language can be more formal, but generally more small talk, certainly personal questions will be left until later on depending on the success of the exchange and modesty is normal. The language used in English therefore follows these unspoken cultural normalities. In Chinese, personal questions are easier to ask, it is not rude to ask somebody's personal salary and Chinese people are more likely to show off their personal wealth through the clothes or maybe the handbag they wear.

 The friend in question told me, it felt like a natural instinct to stick to English principals in the beginning (his native language) but after spending more time in china, he felt the ability to connect more with Chinese principles and they cam naturally to the forefront once he started speaking in Cantonese or Mandarin. It. Therefore, when speaking in mandarin he would be speaking in a more confident and sometimes slightly arrogant way, which I picked up on when hearing him speak mandarin but he adopted a more passive and modest personality once he used in English.

I have already felt this come into play in my own experiences too. Some of these topics may seem slightly sexist or disrespectful, but I simply wish to give them as an example. Having lived most of my live in the UK, I have found it quite normal to talk with both men and women regarding topics to do with history or policy is for example, when trying to introduce these topics with Chinese people (not too sensitive political topics of course!) one Chinese man simply told me quite sternly that these topics should not be discussed with women as they were not interested and would have no opinion. It certainly made me think seriously about this dual personality issue between the two languages, when my friend said that he would absolutely ignore these matters with Chinese women, but happily discuss it with European women democratically if the topic came up.

I also often find that in English I will speak quieter and resist talking over people to reserve modesty, whereas in Chinese that approach will render me simply ignored. Speaking loudly and shouting at times is quite normal to do, but for others watching, it seems aggressive and rude. Strangely enough it doesn't feel like that to me and it is difficult to explain in English why it comes to feel like that over time.

When I began learning mandarin, I hope this would be a way to bridge gaps with Chinese people but naively presumed it would not change me personally, that I would be exactly the same person, I know believe that to be truly fluent in a language, you must adopted the personality and behaviour of those speakers in you second language.

The truth is, it's not unnatural, it maybe simply that bilingual people will organically develop this second personality gradually over time as they get more and more integrated into their second environment. But from a social science point of view, it's something that is interesting to draw attention to and learn from.

Why speaking Chinese is essential in China for foreigners

In the modern world we live in today, spaces becoming smaller and worlds increasingly intertwined. Our abilities to communicate with each other allows us all to interact with some many different people from all over the world from cultures so diverse from our own. However, it is also commonly presumed especially in developed international cities throughout the world that learning foreign languages is increasingly unnecessary as more and more people around the globe learn English as a foreign language. I truly believe this is not the case and learning foreign languages is just as important now as it ever has been or ever will be in the future. I will never forget my fascination with languages from the age of 9, when I met some children the same age as me from Germany visiting Torquay in the south west of England. The children spoke perfect English with me and engaged in playing games with my sister and I, I didn't feel they were German at all, until they saw their parents again and started to speak fluent German with them, who couldn't speak much English. I felt hugely envious of their bilingual ability and began to consider learning languages as a pathway to connect with more people around the world.

It actually took me until I was 23, to get serious about it, but on my first visit to China, I found the importance speaking a foreign language. I realised while Chinese people were mostly extremely hospitable towards me, it was awkward and frustrating for me because I longed to speak to them as confidently and accurately as I could in English. My lack of ability in speaking Chinese at the time meant that the only impressions they could get of me was through my body language and through the use of common stereotypes held towards foreigners in China.

It is these stereotypes that I got to understand more clearly the second time I came to China. I had made some friends in China who couldn't speak English from my first visit, but I had been helped through another friend translating for us. When I came back, I was able to communicate much better in Chinese, but what my Chinese friend said to me was really interesting. He felt that now he had heard me speaking Chinese with him, he felt more of a connection with me as an individual with an identity and less of me being just a foreigner in China with all the stereotypical associations common in China. He told me that the majority of foreigners don't seem to feel the need to speak Chinese, and they seemed rude and aggressive in nature from his own experiences, but also mostly from what he had heard from others. As I got to speak with more and more native Chinese speakers who couldn't speak English with me, I learnt increasingly how important my actions were towards people in China. If I was only ever to use English in China, Chinese people would never have the opportunity to understand me and see me as an individual, but more importantly, the cultural differences between us would also cause more misunderstandings for other foreigners too. 

From this experience onward, I realised that I represented not only myself, but also foreigners in China too. Chinese people form a strong collective society where collectivism in large networks of families and friends is normal. People's behaviour and interaction is thus seen as being part of a group. Individualism is rarely considered. For this reason, many Chinese see foreigners from other countries in the same way too, that the behaviour of a few is representative of all or most foreigners. In some ways some foreigners have left a bad reputation in China in the big cities and my Chinese friend admitted that they felt frustrated that foreigners in China expected Chinese people to use English with them, and made no interest in learning their language. It is thus maybe for this reason that Chinese people have only been able to really form opinions based on body language, which may be why my friend considered foreigners to be rude and aggressive. It could be said that culturally, there may be differences that exacerbate these feelings.

Ultimately, language is formed from culture, history and the environment of that country. Speaking the local language gives you access to all the rich parts of that culture, history and environment than is possible from simply translating to your own language. But most importantly from my perspective, it has taught me the value of setting a good example for other people from my own culture, and to reduce negative stereotypes towards foreigners that may occur. I feel speaking Chinese in China allows me to set a better example, but also allows myself to be seen more as an individual too. 

It is this type of answer (albeit in shorter form!) that I try to explain to people, when they ask about why I have taken on the difficult challenge of learning a language so different from my own native language.