Beyond the Chinese Face: Insights from Psychology (Paperback)

by Michael Harris Bond (Author) "A COLLEAGUE at the Chinese University recently observed that there are 'hundreds of books like yours, purporting to explain the Chinese'..." (more)
Key Phrases: Hong Kong, United States, Yang Kuo-shu (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Clever and persuasive....As an initial reference book it is invaluable." --The Times Literary Supplement
"A highly readable, engaging book that is full of practical insights into the Chinese people. It reveals the author's extensive experience and wisdom. He has distilled the best empirical research into relevant and useful information about the Chinese. It should be noted that he has accomplished this with an unusual balance between methodological rigor and common sense....I found [it] to be a very practical and useful book. I highly recommend it to scholars and individuals interested in understanding the Chinese psyche. In providing insight into the psychology of the Chinese, it will go a long way to making obsolete the stereotype of them as a very `inscrutable' people." --China Review International


Product Description
Are the Chinese people unique? How can we compare the Chinese with other groups? Are the Chinese more concerned with "face" than other people? How can we explain the relative academic success of immigrant Chinese students? What is the impact of learning an ideographic script on the Chinese people's way of thinking and perceiving? Are the Chinese more or less family centered than other national groups? How can we understand Chinese negotiating techniques? Questions such as these have long fascinated people with an interest in China. In this book Michael Bond, a western psychologist, draws on nearly twenty years' experience of studying the Chinese people to provide insights which will be valuable to westerners and Chinese alike. Clear, concise, and free from jargon or technical language, this is the book for anyone who wants to understand Chinese people, whether for day-to-day social interaction, teaching, counseling, or for business dealings.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 140 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA; Later Printing edition (January 16, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195851161
• ISBN-13: 978-0195851168
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.6 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #237,363 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's the best book of its type., September 22, 1999

By A Customer

This book is written by a scientific psychologist for the intelligent layperson "who wants to understand how and why Chinese people behave and think as they do." The facts and conclusions about Chinese behavior and thought - the "how" part of the preceding sentence - and the facts and conclusions about Chinese society - the "why" part - are gleaned from scientific studies of the Chinese people. The author, Michael Harris Bond, Ph.D., has taught at the Chinese University in Hong Kong for 25 years and is presently president of the International Association for Cross Cultural Psychology. He is also one of the best writers in psychology, and he has done a masterful job "translating" scientific jargon into words we all can understand. As one reviewer put it, "It's one of the best such books I have ever had the pleasure to read, a skillful blend of hard data and warm human insights. I was captured from the first sentence to the final quote." Now, it must be said that certain readers are going to be disappointed with this excellent book. It is not a Fodor's-type travel guide to social interactions in China, and it's too complex and humble to be of much use to businesspeople eager to exploit the Chinese market. Flakes "into" weird Chinese philosophies and medicines will find nothing of interest here. But for the thoughtful reader who wants to learn about Chinese psychology, this book has no peer. It's the best.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Making sense of a new environment, May 7, 2002

By	Carmel McNaught (Hong Kong) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I have now been working in Hong Kong for nearly four months. A colleague lent me `Beyond the Chinese Face' in my first week here in Hong Kong. I have lived in several different countries and cultures, and so have at least an intellectual understanding of different perspectives and ways of seeing the world. But it is amazing how unhelpful one's intellectual awarenesses are when faced with understanding actual events or situations in a new cultural setting. What `Beyond the Chinese Face' managed to do for me was to assist me in building a framework in which to understand what I observed on a daily basis. By enabling me to feel that I understood more about the context I was in, I felt more relaxed, and so was able to engage with different customs and rules more easily. Even Hong Kong bureaucracy became more comprehensible! I liked the fact that the book made it clear that many of the existing research studies are flawed, but the overall patterns emerging from research were clearly laid out. It was refreshing also to read a book that was based on academic research but was written in a style that was accessible and easy to read. If only more academic writing were like this! This is a valuable resource for all newcomers to Hong Kong. Thanks, Michael.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very good introduction if you know how to use it, September 13, 2001

By A Customer

I think the reader from Victoria, BC, Canada was probably most right here in this forum. You have to know what you can expect and what you cannot. What you cannot expect here, is a guide to the thinking of around 1,5 billion people, because that is the number of people we're talking about.

And they are very very different, I would dare to say more different than any other ethnic (can we say so?) group worldwide: you have ABCs (American born Chinese), their parents and certainly CBCs, Aussie BCs and so on. There are Singapore-Chinese and overseas Chinese in other Asian countries. Taiwan Chinese and Hong Kong Chinese. And then there is this huge mainland area with around 1.3 billion Chinese, where the living conditions differ so greatly that it's hard to imagine for anyone who hasn't been there.

All those people are Chinese, but the all have different backgrounds: capitalistic system or planned economy (though even the mainland is shifting very quickly towards capitalism, stronger than outsiders usually see), freedom of speech or getting killed for speaking out the truth, diversity or open hate from other societal groups (e.g. Indonesia) and so on and so on. And then there is the fact that people differ even within a society, with the result that you could very easily meet Chinese people from, say Beijing, who are very open sexual and have more sexual experience than, say, an American 30 year old who never had a girlfriend. Nevertheless it's a fact that most Chinese are not like that but instead having less sexual experience than their western counterparts (I'm not judging this, just stating the fact as the book says it and also as my own experience supports it).

Now, one could say (and 3 other readers did so) that this book is therefore useless. I strongly disagree. First of all the author states exactly this fact at the beginning and warns about generalisations (as every psychological book should do so). Second the information he gives is in around 95 % of the cases supported by my own experience (nationality: German; 8 months living in Hong Kong, studying Business and Chinese and working, travelling on the mainland to Shanghai/ Beijing/ Guangzhou/ Shenzhen, also having lived in the US for 6 months meeting quite a few ABCs,).

So use this guide as a background information but not as a "now I know everything about Chinese"- guidebook. Nobody will ever know everything about the Chinese, simply because there are no "Chinese" as such. But this is the general problem of all social sciences where there is no 1+1=2 like in maths. Knowing that, this book helps you a bit and gives you quite a few "I see!"s on your journey into the fascinating Chinese culture (which is indeed possible for a non-Chinese although the reader from San Francisco obviously doesn't think so). Therefore I rate the book 5 star because it delivers what it promises and this is how I define quality.