It was thus commented that the most important element of guanxi was one‘s personal connections, that is, the people one knew and were able to offer help to under certain circumstances. It was widely seen that deeply connected guanxi was often established through classmates and friends in universities and colleges. One teacher100 commented from this perspective that the students he came to know would often have a group of friends from the university and last for their entire lives, to whom they would reach out to for help later on in their lives, whether for personal situations, career paths or business setups. Another respondent had similar understandings:
100
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I just heard yesterday from someone that a lot of the ‗guanxi‘ is linked to your university class—people who are in your class at the university tend to be lifelong friends, people that you‘d contact when you need help.
(Peter, October 2011)
This is understandable as university life is the first adulthood experience away from the environment determined by the parents for many students and directly precedes entrance into the job market and careers for which social contacts are quite important in any country (Mayer and Puller, 2007).
Almost all respondents nonetheless mentioned that guanxi or similar forms of social relations were not unique to China and Chinese people, and certainly not always negative. One respondent from Australia101 commented that finding a job in Australia was also dependent on the connections people had. He noted that most of the jobs he had got were because he knew the right people at the right time and he was recommended to the positions before anybody else was. Montgomery‘s (1991) reviews the studies on the importance of social connections in labour market in various countries and notes that approximately 50% of all workers employed at that time found their jobs through friends and relatives. Bayer, Ross and Topa (2004) observe that individuals residing in the same block in Boston, US are significantly more likely to work together, suggesting a strong neighborhood referral effect, which illustrate the important role of social connections in the job market. Existing literature as such points to a trend that social connections are used in many countries to achieve personal advantages, especially in terms of employment. One teacher102 from Britain commented that the Chinese system of guanxi was simply similar to the ‗old boy network‘ or the ‗old school tie‘ in Britain. It refers to an exclusive group or class whose membership is governed by personal connections (Taylor, 2000), which can be seen as similar to the university networks of Chinese students mentioned above. In my own interview here, the same respondent103 commented that ‗there is a Western perception that guanxi sometimes can be corruption, which is not necessarily true‘. Certainly, guanxi is used in different ways and to different degrees from the social connections in the West in terms of employment,104 and some elements of guanxi could be interpreted as foul play or even corruption from a Western perspective. One respondent narrated his experience of
101
Peter, October 2011. 102 RB, October 2011. 103 Peter, October 2011.
104 See, for example, Yang‘s (2002) anthropological analysis of how guanxi was used in obtaining employment, job transfers and promotions during the period of state job allocation system.
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renewing his visa in China through certain guanxi and indicated that it was done in a preferential way and certain regulations might have just been circumvented:
I had to get my visa renewed and somebody at the university might know somebody in the government, and they can quickly talk to that person and let that person make sure everything goes smoothly.
(Peter, October 2011)
Nonetheless, some elements of guanxi were also shared amongst other cultures such as in Britain but indeed it might have been more organised and widely practiced in China.
7.5 Summary
This study finds that even though only half a dozen participants referred specifically to the ‗inscrutable Chinese‘ as a major image they had about Chinese people, there was a strong indication that almost all of them had such ideas before and almost all had encountered culture shock which was generated by experiences related to them. In public places, such as on public transportation and on the streets, Chinese people were seen as very loud and sometimes rude in manners; while in more private social settings, such as meetings, there was a tendency amongst their Chinese colleagues to keep quiet and not to express their opinions and feelings. This is also the case for their Chinese students in class as there was a lack of initiative amongst the students to be actively engaged in interacting with the teachers.
In this respect, this study finds that the Chinese concept of mianzi was at the center of the perceived passive behaviour of the students in class. Answering the teacher‘s question, when nobody else did, could be considered as showing off. While if the answer is incorrect, it may be seen as losing mianzi. As maintaining mianzi is essential to the Chinese people, most students were thus less likely to interact with the teachers than Western students. There are three aspects of mianzi that were revealed in participants‘ comments: losing
mianzi, keeping mianzi and giving mianzi. This study argues that while losing face and
keeping face is an important part of every culture, giving face was considered as an essential element of Chinese cultural framework in particular. This was revealed by
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participants who were in China for a relatively long time and who were married to a Chinese person. This aspect of mianzi often involves the person who is lower in the social hierarchy showing respect to the person who is higher up in the structure. This was commented on more by the participants who were married into a Chinese family because the closer a Western teacher established relationships with a Chinese family, the more ritual and customs were to be applied on him/her.
The Chinese concept of guanxi was also at the core of the sampled Western expatriates‘ social interactions in China. For participants who had been involved in management positions in China, the importance of guanxi was seen as essential in terms of business operations. For the practices of guanxi in general, participants who had been in China for relatively long period of time (usually more than 5 years) were more likely to understand the complex nature of it and even manipulate it through receiving and returning renqing. In addition, although guanxi was seen as a particularly significant element of China, it was noted by almost all participants that similar forms of social connections also existed in their home countries. British respondents made particular reference to the ‗old boy network‘ in Britain as an example. Nonetheless, the perceived centrality of guanxi and the ways in which guanxi is practiced by Chinese people are unique and quite different from what exists in Western societies. Such practices and understandings of them are believed to be an essential part of Western expatriate teachers‘ social life in China: how well they could utilise them might well indicate how well they could integrate into the Chinese society.