Customer Reviews

Culture Shock! China: A Guide to Customs & Etiquette

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

This guide offers useful tips on how western business people and visitors should behave around Chinese clients/hosts, but irritatingly leaves out any and all difficult information about Chinese habits and customs that the average vistor (including business people) may be bewildered by, due to their strangeness or initial unpleasantness, but which to know about will help them both cope with and understand China better (and ultimately, appreciate it more positively). When I lived in Hong Kong and was visiting China frequently (1990's), I (like other expats) supplemented books like Culture Shock China with Taiwanese writer Bo Yang's "The Ugly Chinaman and the Crisis in Chinese Culture." This book helped me to understand the underbelly of Chinese society that I was constantly running into (rude public actions and behaviour, personal habits I did not understand), aspects of China any westerner is bound to run into but which Kevin Sinclair shies away from dealing with.

I also agree with the other reviewers who wish Sinclair would stop going about how long he has lived in Hong Kong propping up the bar at the Better 'Ole or Foreign Correspondent's Club - being a long-term western resident in my day was a fact more to hide than to to shout about, and perhaps the author will, in future editions, use the valuable space lost to address the side of things westerners will be unprepared for with his book.

In addition to Bo Yang's useful book, I recommend a couple of others. Timothy Mo's The Monkey King, though a novel, gave insight into Chinese attitudes and actions that I found extremely helpful and accurate - I felt I met the characters in Mo's book repeatedly during my time in China. Another novel, Paul Theroux's Kowloon Tong, gives valuable insight into the mentality of long-term western residents of China/Hong Kong - like that of the author of this book, Culture Shock China.

I purchased this Culture Shock book when I moved to China for a year to teach English. It was my first exposure to the Culture Shock series. I found this book to have a very discouraging view of China and the book gave me all sorts of false impressions of what to expect. Granted, I found the book was geared more towards the business traveler than others, but I found most of the advice to be useless or out of date. In fact, I found most of the impressions which the book created to be false after only a short time in China. If you are planning on going to China, I would recommend that you purchase a book such as the Lonely Planet or Rough Guide series instead. These books give a better feel for the history and culture than the Culture Shock book.

The author does not seem to be able to talk about modern China without dwelling upon his past experiences in China. It would be acceptable if not for the fact that most of the portions I read seem to be a poorly written memoir of him, and not a useful guide on how to get by in China. Also, his advice is mostly outdated and he doesn't seem to be able to give good, useful advice that actually pertains to situations one might encounter.

What a waste of time! The book did not deliver as promised. Instead it reads like an account of an ethno-centric, priviledged British man talking about how it USED to be and very little about how it is. This book offers little insight and almost NO concrete tips for understanding customs and etiquette. His intended audience is obviously very limited, businessmen to be exact. He does not take into account that women also travel to China (the only time he refers to women traveling/living in China is when he refers to housewives who tag along with their husbands). I found it rather disturbing that he continually refers to prostitution in China, as well as sexual mores, even when it is not relevant. I can understand touching upon these subjects, but they appear over and over, again for no reason other than he finds it necessary to warn businessmen of "exotic" Chinese women and their ways. This book is nothing more than an excuse to reconfirm how "strange and exotic" China is, instead of providing real insight to Chinese culture for travelers and businesspeople alike. Reading this book was a complete waste of time and money!

I like the Culture Shock Series. They give me the information I most want when I am going to visit a culture that is substantially different than my own. I think the Culture Shock editors need to find a new writer for their China book-or at least a new edition should be released with a better editing job. The author repeats himself over and over--which is annoying to say the least. But, more than that there is an arrogance in the presentation that is really grating. Nobody can really understand China like him and his buddies -- we are made to endure descriptions of them at bars together drinking and talking about the old days...who care?? He is so, so in-the-know that he gets to be hard to take. I guess if I were a businessperson going to China I might have found this book a little more useful. The author aims his discussions at business practices and attitudes toward trade. But he doesn't seem to understand that travelers might want a more full picture of the people and their culture-not just how to make a deal with the folks. I was really disappointed by things like in a chapter called "Tips for Survival" the author spends pages talking about how lonely the (sic) "wives" of all the western business people can get. And as a strategy he says these lonely women ought to go to a tourist hotel and use the gym there to find someone to talk to. Now that doesn't tell me much about the Chinese. Which is what I am looking for in the book. And, he says over and over that the Chinese are super friendly, etc. SO if they are friendly why not tell the lonely "wives" pointers on how to meet some of the locals to end their loneliness with some Chinese friends. That is just one example of a number of rather strange things in the book. There are plenty more. I gave it 2 stars instead of one because, if you were going to China to do business you might find it useful. I am going there on vacation and I didn't find what I was looking for.

I don't usually make impulse buys of books; usually I at least skim reviews on Amazon before buying to get an idea of what others have said. However, I'm traveling to China for the first time in summer and saw this book in the bookstore ... it looked interesting and I've seen this Culture Shock! series around so I thought I'd give it a shot. While I can't say the book was a complete waste of money, as Sinclair does have good insights amongst some completely bizarre and mystifying statements, I'd say this book is better read as a library copy (i.e. for free) or not at all. Why? Here's why:

First and foremost, the author has a severe case of Terminal Expatriate. He comments condescendingly on fellow foreigners in and out of China (especially those who dare to criticize the Party line) all the while adding worthless commentary on his own personal experiences. While sometimes interesting, many are simply pointless. The example that sticks out in my mind the best was an entire subsection devoted to one mere paragraph about the fact that "some people" find it hard to make Chinese friends while the author of course has never had this problem. In general, the author's "been there, done that ... and better than anyone else could hope to do!" attitude grows irritating before long. As does his infatuation with the Communist way of doing things. It's one thing to support their policies, if it's done in a balanced manner, but Sinclair basically says that anyone who dares to disagree is an ignorant and stupid outsider. He, as an Old China Hand is given full reign to criticize, of course. He is also often self-righteous and hypocritical (always a dangerous, if not slightly amusing, combination), especially when it comes to the world's oldest profession. Sex clearly weighs on Sinclair's mind quite a bit as he talks about it frequently, often incoherently. Pimps should be shot, johns should be jailed (except Sinclair, he prefers to choose women rather than be "chosen"), and despite the rampant adult prostitution thank goodness for the one-child law or China would be crawling with child prostitutes too! Sinclair sounds like he's swallowed whole a little bit too much of the Party propaganda.

Also, as someone who simply plans to visit China (not live there long term) I was disappointed at the very little space devoted to very practical matters (ordering at restaurants, picking a place to stay, riding taxis and trains, etc.). To me it felt like a disproportionate amount of space was used to talk about the modern history of China and interesting but far from practical commentary on modern cultural mores. While interesting, many of these have little or no impact for the casual tourist, even one interested in the culture and history of China. For a guide that claims to be a guide to "customs and etiquette" remarkably little of either is discussed. One wonders if this Terminal Expatriate has been in China too long to relate with the casual tourist or resident and speak to him or her in practical and relevant terms.

Perhaps most of all, I finished the book wondering what if anything I'd learned that I couldn't have learned from reading the notes in my Lonely Planet tour guide, or found on the internet by simply Google-ing "China" or looking in Wikipedia. The trivial information, plethora of typos, and opinionated and flat-out judgmental commentary grew tiresome after a while. I cannot honestly say I'd re-read this book, let alone recommend it to others. Not an awful book, but it left me feeling slightly nauseous and dirty, as if I'd just left one of the smoke-filled parties Sinclair likes to talk about after downing one too many mao tais.

First off, there is a big difference between the Chinese in Hong Kong (were much of this author's experience comes from) and the Chinese from Beijing. It's like the difference between Italy and Sweden. Grouping all Chinese cultures together is just plain ignorant and down right misleading and it hurts your understanding of that region of the world. It also makes the outside traveler appear a little stupid when they arrive in China. This book seems to group all Chinese as one culture.

Culture Shock! China: is just bad book on so many levels that I have a headache reliving them all! I'd find better material to read about China; books that were written within the past 2 years are best! China has changed so much and so fast that it's hard to keep up with all the changes. Even the Chinese themselves are stunned at the rapid pace of change.

(Additional observation) It's very odd how this book received so many of its highest star ratings right after its re-release years ago. This makes me suspect that maybe some employees from the publisher, (and/or friends of the author) might have been used to falsely rate this book with those great reviews and high stars, especially when it was more beneficial to sales back then. (look at the dates of the earlier high reviews with today's low star reviews. ...hmmmm).

The idea of this book is excellent; however, because it's 5 years old it is not as up-to-date as it could be. China is changing rapidly and some of the customs and other information presented is already out-dated. It should be up-dated more freaquently.

I've worked in China for some time, and also worked at a Chinese company in my home country. I read this book before I left for China. It helped me a lot in a way that I knew a bit about their customs in advance... it would have taken me a longer time, and surely some painfull moments if had not read it. Especially every word about doing business and related customs were true (especialy the note on the 'special friend relations').

I bought this book to help prepare for our move to China in June. I have read and enjoyed other Culture Shock books before (Culture Shock Malaysia is wonderful and very helpful) but I was blown away by this book's awfulness. It should have been called, "Out-dated Personal Ramblings of a Typo-prone Journalist in China." Sarcasm is rampant, the author refers to the reader as "pal" and frequently admonishes him (as in, "too bad, pal. China isn't going to change for you.") and the vast majority of the so-called advice is terribly outdated.

The Culture Shock people should take this book off the market before it seriously damages their name.