Wanneer het over etiquette en manieren om dingen te doen komt, zijn er sommige zeer belangrijke verschillen tussen hoe de Chinezen werken tegenover hoe de Westerlingen dit doen. In de laatstgenoemde wereld, maakt beleefd zijn u van de menigte duidelijk uitkomen. In de Chinese wereld, maakt de beleefdheid deel uit van een basisreeks principes die door allen moet worden gevolgd. Om het even welke afwijking van deze principes maakt u op een negatieve manier duidelijk uitkomen. U kunt dit zien wanneer u een keus van drank vóór een vergadering wordt aangeboden of wanneer bezoekend het huis van iemand. Zelfs als u politely daalt, zult u nog aangeboden worden thee als gebrek. Als gast, mag u door het volledige bezoek zitten zonder zelfs wat betreft de kop, aangezien de gastheer enkel zijn plicht door het aan u, ondanks uw persoonlijke voorkeur aan te bieden om te dalen deed.

Tijdens groepsvergaderingen, zal een Westerling eerder om argumenten ter sprake te brengen of met het dichtbije onderwerp niet akkoord te gaan. De Chinese waarden zouden de persoon vereisen om zijn adviezen aan zich te houden in zulk een milieu's. Om het even welke meningsverschillen hij met een spreker kan hebben zouden later in een meer privé forum kunnen worden ter sprake gebracht, dat de spreker geeft gezicht in het proces. Het begrip van deze aard binnen Chinese mensen is belangrijk, aangezien het gemakkelijk is anders om te veronderstellen dat hun stilte op overeenkomst wijst. In sommige gevallen, kan een derde worden gebruikt om negatief nieuws van één kant aan een andere te vervoeren om confrontaties te vermijden.

Deze zelfde situatie kan ook in persoonlijk verband tussen een Westerling en een Chinees worden waargenomen, waar de stilte van de laatstgenoemden inzake kwesties en de tendens niet om te confronteren, konden verkeerd voorstellen aan de eerstgenoemden dat allen goed in de verhouding is, toen dat niet het geval zou kunnen zijn. (Persoonlijke nota: Ik heb dit uit de eerste hand ervaren, toen een vroeger meisje met me uit het blauw verdeelde, toen dacht ik goed was allen. Toen ik om meer details vroeg, kwam zij met een lijst van kwesties op de proppen die zij nooit tijdens de verhouding, allen uit een wens had vermeld confrontatie) niet om te veroorzaken. Not being up front with your opinions and ideas might be considered rude in Western culture, whereas in Chinese culture it is considered polite, since by doing so they are allowing you to save face.

Another big difference in thinking between Chinese and Western societies is the difference between “friends” and “strangers.” Assistance between Chinese parties is only given to those in the “inner circle” which is why the concept of guanxi is so important. This is also why it is so important to keep making contacts in order to enter the circles of others. The flip side of this, is that help is rarely given to strangers or people without any relationship. You rarely see beggars on the streets in Chinese communities, and those you do see are usually seen approaching foreigners, whome they are more likely to get assistance from. It is also common for people to not stop and help others during vehicle accidents, so as not to get involved with people they don’t know.

Where a Chinese person does assist one of his friends (whether directly or indirectly), this assistance is noted by both sides. An equivalent payback of some sorts is then expected in the future. During weddings and occasions where red envelopes are exchanged, the amounts of money given and the donors are duly noted since the same amount would be expected to be paid back at future events. Chinese New Year (which is coming up soon) is useful for clearing “debts” among friends in this manner.

The conclusion from all of this, when comparing Chinese versus their Western counterparts, is that the former are more likely to go out of their way to help friends and people in their circle of influence, whereas the latter are more likely to go out and help strangers. Understanding this culture is very valuable in determining where assistance should be given to others, as well as what is expected of you if you receive it. When rejecting others’ offers or requests of help, it is best to do so with a polite excuse rather than a flat out refusal, in order to maintain the dignity of the relationship.

When I first came to Taiwan, I assumed I would pick up Chinese without much effort. After all, I was constantly exposed to it everywhere I went, so even if I didn’t want to, I would automatically learn, right? A year later, feeling like I hadn’t learned much, I realized that things didn’t quite work this way. I actually had to put in effort to learn the language. To make things easier on myself, I decided to focus on listening and speaking only. Learning to read and write characters just seemed like too much for me.

Three years later, while I don’t consider myself fluent by any means, I have learned a lot about the learning process, especially through creating the CLO course and communicating with listeners. Through this process, I have tried to create the tools that would have helped me the most, were I to start learning again from the start. Like anything else you want to accomplish in life, it can be highly beneficial to set goals for yourself when you have a long, arduous task in front of you. When you begin, it may look like a long road ahead from the start to the day you consider yourself fluent. However, with some due diligence you can find that the goal isn’t as far off as you think.

Many people “want” to learn Chinese, but give up early when they realize how many characters they would have to learn to be literate. Constantly being bombarded with new vocabulary, while easily forgetting old words can also make it easy to give up. What I have found is that having a system of learning greatly reduces the complexity of this process. This system can be broken down into 4 steps.

1. Determine where you are
2. Determine where you want to be
3. Set a time frame to reach your goals
4. Allocate the time necessary to reach your goals

So for example, if your goal is to be able to write characters, set a goal of how many characters you want to know. Looking at our course, you need to know about 500 characters to get through level 1 and level 2. A moderate pace would take you a year to finish two levels (you can adjust this pace for yourself). This means you would need to learn 1.36 characters a day to achieve your goal. All of a sudden that doesn’t sound so hard, does it?

Learning to write characters usually involves writing it over and over again. You can practice using the worksheets we’ve created for you here along with our new character introductions. For me personally, I have a habit of writing 50 characters (half the worksheet) each day. This is a combination of new characters and reviewing old characters.

It is important to note that this process is MUCH harder up front. Of those 500 characters, over a hundred are introduced in the first ten lessons. This means a lot of time will be spent up front where it seems like you aren’t making progress. However, once you’ve made it past those ten lessons, all of a sudden things become much easier. New characters will be easier to learn since they will mostly be based on characters or elements you already know. Plus you will find yourself spending less time on stroke order since it will now be more natural to you. A similar process can be used for learning new words with the new memorization mode on our flashcard program. Choose a range of lessons and learn the vocabulary associated with them by logging in once a day.

By dividing up the chore of learning into daily, manageable steps, you will find the process much easier, as you will actually be learning something new each day. The above steps add about 30 minutes to my daily routine, but the results have been much better than the haphazard, plan-less program I was using previously. The way I look at it, another year will pass whether I put in daily effort or not. This way though, I know exactly where I will be a year from now, rather than just hoping I have improved.