Cross-Culture

A United Europe?

The recent European elections saw a significant lurch to the far right, which took many by surprise.

From a cultural perspective this was entirely predictable.

The colours of that end of the political spectrum are those of the national flag, and the emotions it thrives on are feelings of helplessness, anger and a fear of the unknown.

In difficult times like ours, when people have lost their jobs, feel political power is out of their control (Brussels), and that the cultural landscape of their own country is changing (immigration), it is easy to cling to what we first learned – our national values and beliefs – and to reject violently anything ‘other’ which threatens that.

W.B. Yeats’ poem The Second Coming sums up the apathy (low voter turnout), which can lead to the passionately intense seizing power:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst 

Are full of passionate intensity.

The EU is based on the principle of closer and closer union, but a union of nations with widely divergent values. These divisions can be at the deepest philosophical level: compare French rationalism and German theory with British pragmatism, and you can see why the UK has never felt at home in a political construct built on Franco-German foundations.

We can live with such differences while it is ‘business as usual’, but when crisis hits, and when it hits the pockets of the citizens of Europe, those who can afford it may shrug their shoulders and not bother voting, while many of those who can’t will retreat into their national enclaves and defend their unique values to the death. 

There are no simple answers. But the EU needs to examine its first premises and consider whether closer and closer integration is the right goal, given the cultural differences within Europe. It can then either decide to scale down its ambitions, or come up with such a compelling alternative, such a message of hope – ideally embodied in an Obama-like figure – that it appeals to and unites the whole of Europe….

Hardly likely.

But something must be done to avoid a ‘Second Coming’ like that of Yeats’ poem where a ‘rough beast … slouches towards Bethlehem to be born’. It has happened before in Europe, and history has a nasty habit of repeating itself.

by Michael Gates

Finnish National Pride in an Open Society

I was reminded recently of the old anecdote about Finnish national self consciousness:

A German, a Frenchman, a Russian, and a Finn took part in a writing competition about elephants. The German came up with A Short Introduction to the Physiology of the Elephant (1,500 pages, plus appendices). The French entry was The Love Life of the Elephant. The Russian wrote Elephants in Russia, and the Finn wrote What do Elephants Think of Me?

The Finns really do care about what you think of them.

Last summer I moved from London to Helsinki for a ‘cooler’ change of scenery. This change has given me a different perspective on the country I left behind and an insider’s view of Finland. One of the notable adjustments I have had to make in my new home country is that of living in a nation that spends considerable time pondering what the rest of the world thinks of it. Speaking to my Finnish partner this week she considered the topic and summarised thus, ‘Maybe we (the Finns) do worry what they (the rest of the world) think of us. And maybe we are clumsy communicators, lack confidence and are pre-programmed with a degree of national self doubt.’

Street View

I was talking to a waiter in a Helsinki café this week. He was amazed that I lived in Finland. Partly in disbelief, and partly out of interest, he asked me, ‘How did you hear about us?’ – An amusing turn of phrase which made me feel as if he was interviewing me for a job in the café. In truth he was amazed that someone from London would move to Helsinki. He waxed lyrical about London’s rich history, its reputation as one of the world’s leading financial hubs (until recently) and, even more importantly, the 13 professional football teams based in London. He mentioned The Beatles as well, but I didn’t want to correct him because I’m English and we generally don’t do that unless we absolutely have to.

In truth, Helsinki offers everything you would expect from a great city apart from a 150 year old metro system and a highly respected royal family.  Still, the Finns remain surprisingly reticent about the merits of their capital and country.

Google Street View

For a more modern perspective, consider Google’s recent innovation Street View. The controversial mapping service provides a 360-degree view of streets and buildings including residential addresses, people and cars. Since it was launched two years ago people have complained in their thousands that their privacy and civil rights have been breached.

Take the two men who got caught out just after the UK launch. In one incriminating shot a man was seen exiting a Soho sex shop and another shot included a man vomiting outside a pub. Both images had to be removed from the application soon after the launch following strong complaints from the gentlemen in question.

The Finn’s view

It was interesting to note Finland’s reaction to Street View. As the western world raged against breaches of civil rights and privacy, the Finns were more concerned with Google’s timing to drop by with their cameras in early spring. There were widespread concerns that during this period of transition Finland would not create the right impression (trees without leaves, melting and muddied snow and the sun would be somewhere else, of course). ‘What will the world think of us!’ the Finns cried. Finland’s number one broadsheet Helsingin Sanomat highlighted the view of many Finns stating that the primary concern was to create the right impression, and hoped that the pictures ‘came out alright’.

The Brits on the other hand are more concerned with what they can edit so they don’t get caught out doing things they shouldn’t. There is an interesting juxtaposition as Britain’s leading politicians currently face their own challenges around declaring and editing the truth.

Transparency and Openness

So there we are, the Finns are committed to openness and honesty, whilst lacking self assurance about their country. I wonder if this is a consequence of being ‘up front’?

The Brits, in contrast, appear to be able to cover things up and still remain proud of their nation.

Keeping to the rules is hard and places a lot of emphasis on order. Finland enjoys a surprisingly transparent political process which most European countries would not believe.

Secretary General of The Finnish Parliament, Seppo Tiitinen, delivered a short speech two weeks ago. He spoke of parliament’s open policy towards the media and the public in Finland and asserted, ‘the best safeguard against corruption is openness’.

Is everyone else just hiding behind their national pride? 

by Nick Vertigans

One Million – and still counting…

I think that the world’s one and a half billion speakers of English have been aware for some time that the language is not only unprecedentedly widespread, but easily outstrips other tongues in terms of vocabulary. Not satisfied with its twin sources of Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman French, English has, over the centuries, ruthlessly mugged languages ranging from Sanskrit, Latin and ancient Greek to Hindi, Malay, modern French, Italian and Navajo.

One would have thought that the number of words in Global English was countless. Now, however, they have been counted. A Texan organisation going by the name of the Global Language Monitor has announced that English will acquire (invent, mug, discover?) its one-millionth word on 10 June 2009. Wow! (Is ‘wow’ a word?).

One million used to be an impressive tally in the mid-20th century, whether we were referring to dollars, galaxies or rabbits in Australia, but, used as we are to fiscal deficits of tens of billions or bail-outs of trillions, the announcement of a million-size vocabulary might now be less than a sensation. That apart, however, who is the authority here? Unlike the French, Britain and the USA have no austere academies to define linguistic or cultural norms and limits. How should we feel about this outfit in Austin, Texas? George Bush territory? Resisting the temptation to be facetious, might we yet ask, who did the counting and what criteria were used? If people disagree about the total, can we have a re-count?

Critics fall into three camps. The first says that the number is too high. Most college dictionaries list 200,000 to 300,000 words. Even the indomitable Oxford English Dictionary can only scrape together 600,000. Literary pundits in times past have counted 20,000 to 30,000 words in Shakespeare’s works and between 50,000 and 60,000 in Churchill’s tomes. Apparently no other author comes close. Most 20th century estimates of the entire language’s vocabulary clung to a figure around the 500,000 mark.

Be that as it may, the second camp of critics – the ones who say one million is too low – seems to come in with more compelling arguments. If we look at verbs and agree that ‘am’, ‘is’ and ‘are’ are different words, then so are ‘give’, ‘gives’, ‘gave’, ‘given’ and ‘giving’. This would bump up an estimated number of 50,000 verbs to 250,000, which makes quite a difference to our ultimate total. We seem to have no problems with adjectives (white, black, good, bad) and nouns sheep and deer are OK, but if we insist that cat/cats are two, that would give us another 50,000 nouns to chalk up. This problem is a minor one in English, for if we try to count the number of words in a (rich) language like Finnish, we find that nouns decline 15 ways, all with separate meanings, so that talo (house) appears as talo, talon, taloa, talolla, talolle, talolta, talossa, taloon, talosta, talotta, taloksi, taloin, taloineen and talona. This is bad enough, but these words have plural forms (talot, taloissa, etc.) which means that each noun has 28 distinct forms.

In Finnish, therefore, nouns could not be tallied at 50,000 words, but at 50,000 x 28 = 1,400,000, which would make it (when you add in a complex verb conjugation system) arguably the world’s most prolific tongue!

But let’s get back to English, for the ‘too few’ camp has more powerful arguments which might encourage them to challenge Finnish. The Oxford Dictionary lists 47,000 words which it describes as ‘obsolete’ but which nevertheless belong to English linguistic history (who decides when a word becomes obsolete?). English, as the major language of science, abounds in hundreds of thousands (at least) of scientific words.  There are apparently one million named insect species! Then, there is the hyphen dilemma. If thirty-one, thirty-two and thirty-three are separate words, then so are two-hundred-and-fifty-three, etc. So by counting in this manner one can add in another million.

We are clearly coming up against the question: what is a word? (third camp of critics). Robert Beard (PhD Linguistics) tells us for a start that there is no such thing as a word. They may appear as such written down, but when spoken they do not have separate existences (with beginnings and endings) but simply stream out as lexemes and morphemes. Lexemes are noun, verb, adjective and adverb stems (box, speak, friend) while morphemes are everything else including suffixes, prefixes, etc. In this combination, ‘run’ can become ‘runner’. Few among us would define ‘-er’ as a word, but there is nevertheless an added meaning. I often wonder, when someone says “Whaddyaknow?!” if this is a question, an interpolation or interjection or simply an utterance of surprise, but in any case, how many words is it? The third camp also debate whether we should count words like ‘welkin’ (fairly familiar as Shakespearean for ‘sky’), Lancashire dialect words such as ‘chowf’, ‘powfagged’ and ‘baggin’ (pulling a face, exhausted, and food to take down the mine) and domesticated foreign imports such as ‘spaghetti’ and ‘hors d’oeuvre’. 

Finally, do we actually need a million words? A University of Chicago professor said recently that the average American uses about 7,500 words a day. I would dispute this. Studies of British workers’ speech suggest this figure should be closer to 750. Ogden’s “Basic English” asserted that anything could be said using his list of 850 words and this seems fairly feasible if we count ‘turn’ as one word but exploit its phrasal verb facilities (turn up, turn down, turn on, turn off, turn in, etc.).

Yorkshire’s Bob Appleyard, popping in to see what his butcher has today, needs no verbs at all!

“Owt?”  

“Nowt.” 

“Reet.”

I asked a Finnish friend of mine if he could summon up 10,000 words, as an Italian businessman does in a 20-minute presentation. “Yes,” he replied, “in a lifetime.” He told me confidentially that he only needs two phrases to travel round the world, though he has learnt them in English, French, German, Spanish and Chinese. “What are they?” I asked. “I love you” and “my friend will pay.”

by Richard D. Lewis

Thailand: An Empire that would be a Country

The continuing unrest has brought into focus Thailand’s hidden diversity. Despite a strongly unifying cultural tradition, Thailand has been, for the past century, engaged in a lively and at times violent dialogue with itself and with the rest of Asia. 

When stereotypes are getting crushed, it helps to take a step back and find a new vantage point that is neither in the centre of events nor too removed from them. Thinking about the sources of Thailand’s current instability, we may well find that point in Ipoh, the capital of Peninsular Malaysia’s state of Perak, which borders Thailand’s Yala Province. The linkages and metaphors we will come across are rich and manifold.

To start with, there are remnants of the styrofoam replica of a royal Thai palace, built by the producers of the 1999 film Anna and the King, a 19th century story of English schoolteacher Anna Leonowens who joined the court of Thai King Mongkut. The historical Anna herself was no stranger to Malaya, having earned her invitation to Bangkok by teaching British officers’ children in Penang and Singapore. Although her journey was one of an itinerant expatriate, it mirrored the broader dynamics of contemporary Southeast Asia. For example, the Father of Malaysia’s Independence (Bapa Malaysia), Tunku Abdul Rahman, was born to the daughter of a Thai nobleman from Nonthaburi Province. 

  

Of course, Thailand back then was known as Siam, a multi-ethnic and multi-racial empire with a mix of indigenous Thai, Khmer, Lao and hill tribe aboriginal people. Like the rest of the region, it witnessed successive waves of immigration from China and India. The Muslim population swelled as a result of the 1909 Anglo-Siamese Treaty that transferred the control of northern Malay sultanates to Siam. 

Although Siam was never colonised, it often entered into allegiances with major powers. Its rulers were also prone to a fin-de-siècle infatuation with all things Western, an affliction they shared with Indian maharajahs and the leaders of China’s May Fourth Movement. The administrative buildings they erected in central Bangkok would certainly be more congruous with London than with their tropical setting. But loyalties to foreign powers were also fluid and swift to change, as was the case with the 1942 fall of Singapore to Japanese forces, an event described by Winston Churchill as "the worst disaster and largest capitulation in British history". What made the invasion so unexpected and ultimately devastating was that, instead of attacking from the sea, the Japanese troops arrived on bicycles, having secured the Thai King’s permission to traverse his territory. 

Just a few years earlier, inspired by the rise of formerly fragmented European powers like Italy and Germany, Siam’s rulers changed the country’s name to Thailand, meaning "Land of the Free" but also "a country of Thai people". Today, suggestions that the government grant a degree of cultural and language autonomy to the troubled South are often met with statements such as "This is a country of Thai people who speak the Thai language".

 

Perhaps this is where the seeds were planted of a country that doesn’t quite coincide with itself geographically, politically and racially. Where Singapore and Malaysia opted for accommodation, Thailand chose the opposite direction of assimilation, a process that was facilitated by the prevalence of Buddhism across the country’s ethnic groups. 

Much of this cultural – and political – homogenisation unfolded under the aegis of Thailand’s monarchy. Since World War II, most of Thailand’s neighbours have done away with kings and sultans altogether (Indonesia), or subordinated them to a largely ceremonial role (Malaysia). By contrast, Thai royalty continue to elicit a near-divine reverence and fascination. Discussions of the current King’s life, let alone the circumstances leading to his inauguration (after his older brother was found shot dead at the age of 20) are strictly off limits. Anna and the King was never screened in Thai cinemas. 

The arrival of the eclectic and iconoclastic leader Thaksin Shinawatra in 2001 strengthened the logic of homogeneity even further: the grandson of South China immigrants, and inspired by the economic rise of China, the success of majority-Chinese Singapore and the forces of financial globalisation, Mr Thaksin sought to eliminate politics as such. Instead, the country was to focus on the glory of making money, much as he and his family had done to great effect. From this perspective, the escalation of violence in the Muslim South was but a vexing distraction. Asked to comment on a 2004 incident in which 78 young Muslim protesters suffocated to death inside police trucks, Mr Thaksin famously replied "they were already weak from fasting [during the month of Ramadan]".

Thaksin’s reforms found favour with the rural masses but alienated the urban middle class. His regular radio shows poured vitriol on Bangkok’s traditional elites – academics, judges, intellectuals. Since his ousting in 2006 (at the hands of a Muslim general), both camps have been locked in an increasingly violent stand-off over the country’s resources and political process. The protests have also displayed a measure of peculiar cultural dynamics: in particular, one is reminded of the ancient Chinese notion of faxie (fa-hsieh in older romanisation systems), whereby people living in a strictly hierarchical society eventually cannot help but ‘dissipate’ an accumulated sense of hardship, often through violent means, before things revert to their natural equilibrium. Carnivals held in medieval Italian cities arguably served a similar purpose, even if only for one day at a time.

There are other, institutional considerations to the current crisis: a monarchy that won’t be reduced to a cog in the wheel of checks and balances; a religious community that may not be as keen to mediate in the social conflict as Poland’s Catholic church was in the 1980s’ clash of communism with the labour movement. But a closer look at Thailand’s history, especially in the past 70 years, and the country’s long-standing approach to diversity and fragmentation may be the best way of deciphering the social forces that drive today’s conflict. 

by Martin Králik

Indian Jugaad

As a cross-culturalist, it is fascinating to become immersed in a less familiar culture and find out something new. It tends to happen quite quickly, as you have an idea in advance of the sort of thing you are looking for. For me, it is to find qualities which are not found in quite the same form anywhere else. Defining concepts which capture in brief the essence of a culture – such as Finnish sisu, German Ordnung, or Korean kibun.

In India recently for a workshop tour to Bangalore, Mumbai and Delhi, I was about to start for the day when the organiser said there was a problem with the projection screen. It was a metre too low, so those at the back would not have been able to see the bottom of my slides. He called over the lone technician at the 5 star hotel conference centre and told him he had 10 minutes to resolve the situation. It was a huge and heavy screen with a large wooden surround with the management school’s logo on it. Impossible to lift alone. Within seconds the room was bustling with people, ranging from the conference centre manager to kitchen staff. Trestle tables, starched white cloths, various random pieces of wood, ropes, hammers and nails appeared. The screen teetered into the air precariously, just missing the rather large chandeliers. A collective effort raised it onto the now neatly-covered tables and a disorderly banging and shuffling began behind it. When the course participants began filing in, the set-up was perfect: screen one metre higher; looking as if it had always been like that. Not a workman in sight. I glanced behind it and observed that it was held up by a Heath-Robinson-style rickety wooden framework secured by long guy-ropes. It served its purpose all day. Next morning the screen was held in place invisibly and professionally.

Asking my Indian friends about this later, they said it was a perfect example of Jugaad – best described as a sort of hurried collective resourcefulness; a finding of an alternative, laterally-thought out solution - which somehow works against the odds – gaining time by acting before the proper means to carry out the job arrive, maybe using your connections, and possibly bending some rules along the way.

In concrete terms, a Jugaad is also a locally made motor vehicle used mostly in small villages as a means of low cost transportation and made by carpenters, who fit a diesel engine to their contraption. The brakes often fail – but, no worries, as a passenger will jump off and apply a manual wooden block as a brake. More Jugaad, in other words.

Jugaad can also be used in the context of management. In the West we may sometimes be hidebound by our solid structures and processes, too tied to facts and rules. Jugaad could be seen as a sort of out-of-the-box and network-style thinking that could serve us well in times of change, crisis and in extreme circumstances. It requires people to use skills outside the ones they may have been employed for, and which usually go unexploited. It requires strong collaborative skills. It means an open mind and boundless flexibility.

A recent comparative report by McKinsey on the relative strengths of India and China identified Indian flexibility as a key ‘soft competitive edge’ that India has.

Another Indian characteristic – the belief in Karma or fate – can sometimes be used as way of excusing things which go wrong. Even the most sophisticated and western-influenced Indian manager is likely to retain, at a deep level, a belief in Karma.

On the other hand, it can be a great stimulus to take the risks that may be needed to effect real change. If things turn out badly, then that was meant to happen – so you may as well take the leap of faith and be bold.

In our current global recession it is likely to be the bold, flexible and resourceful who survive.

We can learn a lot from India.

by Michael Gates

The Possessive Apostrophe

Currently there is a raging furore among academics and local politicians over the decision of Birmingham City Council to remove the possessive apostrophe from street signs. While this action raises rather serious issues concerning the preservation of unique features of the English language, I cannot help seeing the funny side of this dispute.

The fact that this initiative emanates from Birmingham (“Good old Brum”) rather than from established literary centres such as Oxford or Cambridge, may at first strike one as strange. Is it on the cards that such dignified and august bodies as The Apostrophe Protection Society, The Plain English Society and the Plain Language Commission (all of whom have leapt to defend the apostrophe) can actually be defeated by a certain Martin Mulaney, whose title is Chairman of Birmingham City Council’s Transportation Scrutiny Committee?

While the apostrophe is frequently misused, also omitted by a substantial proportion of the British public, is it not true that, to some extent, we are fond of it? For one thing, other major languages hardly have one. It might have been introduced into English from French in the 16th century (according to Crystal) but in later ceturies we have enjoyed almost exclusive use of this charming squiggle.

The phrase: “The teacher’s son’s classroom” may lack elegance, but is surely better than the roundabout “La salle de classe du fils du professeur.” Similarly “John’s sister’s programme” is more succinct than “El programa de la hermana de Juan”. Pragmatic German and Nordic languages simply add ‘s’ to denote the genitive: Deutschlands Wetter; Danmarks kong; Sveriges huvudstad; while Romance languages have to resort to a variety of forms:

French: de, de la, du, des

Spanish: de, de la, del, de las, de los

Italian: di, della, del, dello, delle, dei, degli

Portuguese: de, da, do, das, dos

The apostrophe originated from a confused past and that confusion has yet to subside. For many English people punctuation as a whole is a minefield of error and inconsistency. The “dog’s tail” seems OK, but “the table’s edge” and “the room’s corner” are forbidden. Even commas cause trouble, as we know from Lynn Truss’ lovely book “Eats, Shoots & Leaves” where inside we find that a panda eats shoots and leaves.

As a linguist, I have to take sides. Instinctively I must defend the apostrophe and avoid what John Richards describes as the “dumbing down” of our reading public. However, the characteristics of modern journalism (using writing as a medium for fleeting speech) and the pervasive influence of texting would suggest that our little squiggle has a bleak future in the 21st century and may not survive it.

by Richard D. Lewis

Culture and the Failures of our Time

Thanks to a growing adoption of training programmes aimed at fostering cross-cultural sensitization and understanding, many of today’s managers will have been exposed at some stage in their careers, at least cursorily, to the essential tools of cross-cultural analysis, such as Hofstede’s cultural dimensions. In fact, some of the senior executives who attend business school programmes on leadership and achieving organizational excellence may feel reasonably well-versed in the theory as well as the best practices of managing across cultures.

Does this mean then that cultural literacy and empathy are in good supply, and have become common attributes of good leadership? If the international events of the past few weeks are anything to go by, solid, consistent understanding of the cultural aspects, underlying assumptions and fundamental values that drive the actions and motivations of ‘the other’ continues to be conspicuous by its absence.

On the political front, Daniel C. Kurtzer and Scott B. Lasensky, authors of "Negotiating Arab-Israeli Peace: American Leadership in the Middle East”, recall the 1978 Camp David negotiations between Egypt, Israel and the United States, and how "the lack of cross-cultural negotiating skills was so acute” that in the end the US State Department had to draft its top Arabic translator. It seems that a lack of expertise on Islam and dynamics of the Arab negotiating style is as prevalent in 2009 as it was 30 years ago. Not even the new, much-heralded US administration has held out much promise of a radical departure from this trend.

In education, universities in the developing world are becoming reluctant to remain on the treadmill of emulating the top-ranked and heavily-endowed Ivy League schools, and to measure success by the size of their graduates’ paycheques. As Henry Mintzberg, management professor at McGill, commented in his paper “Developing countries? Developing leaders? Learning from another place”: “The trouble with the outside-in [development] model is that it is based on imitation, and imitations are often second-rate, because copying is a mindless activity. People don’t learn.” In a recent newspaper column, the Vice-Chancellor of one of Malaysia’s top universities, Dato’ Zulkifli Abdul Razak, noted that Asia must have its own ideas of what a university is about. Own cultural values, indigenous knowledge and historical background are different from those of the West.”

Across domains and disciplines, disillusionment has set in at the visible lack of progress. In his 2006 book “Trouble with Africa: Why Foreign Aid Isn’t Working”, author and former World Bank official Robert Calderisi points out that “the world must now deal differently with the continent.” The Financial Times’ review of the book concurred that Africa has been for decades “suffocating under a blanket of well meant concern, ineffectual at best, and harmful at worst."

Developing countries in particular are becoming more vocal in questioning the relevance of Western rubrics and metrics, many of which were defined in the early days of Europe’s industrial revolution. As the global credit crisis morphs into a full-blown economic crisis, catching Western economists off-guard, venerable concepts like GDP, for instance, are slowly falling out of favour. In addition, many in the Third World are pointing to what they call ‘the tyranny of development’ transforming their countries’ natural and cultural landscapes to make them more receptive to First-World aid, products and expertise.

Then there is the perennial issue of how to go about, once the learning tools have been gained and the goodwill established, actually building bridges across cultures and traditions. In the media as well as in academic publications, one finds lively debates on this topic. The dominant argument at the moment, as expressed by the University of Malaya Centre for Civilizational Dialogue, is that a dialogue of civilizations “allows the drawing upon of common spiritual, cultural and civilizational values.” By contrast, H. A. Hellyer, a researcher at the University of Warwick and a prominent proponent of inter-faith dialogue, suggests that “the bridges must be built between differences, not commonalities,” and references medieval Islamdom where educated Muslims “understood the West on its own terms – but they understood the Muslim world on their own terms as well.”

Without proper tools and methodologies, efforts to induce meaningful communication between cultures tend to prove mechanical and counterproductive. For instance, given its diversity, an MBA classroom at a global business school is by definition a perfect ‘microcosm’ for fostering understanding between different backgrounds and ethnicities. Yet many MBA students come away disappointed from project group work that seemingly ‘brought together’ a healthy mix of nationalities. Trying to work together without setting up a proper context and a set of cross-cultural vocabulary to guide them through the group dynamics, they feel ‘thrown’ rather than brought together. Often, the result is resentment rather than a rich and varied new perspective.

Whatever form an emerging consensus may take, one can argue that underneath most of the major themes – and major failures – that are shaping today’s business and politics, lies a profound lack of cross-cultural empathy and understanding. Therefore, building a strong edifice of cross-cultural communication will be without a doubt one of the biggest, and most challenging, projects of our century.

by Martin Králik

China joins the ranks of damaged economies

The last few months of 2008 saw most of the world, if not all of it, affected in some way by the financial crisis.

In the case of China, most of us have read that the central government is launching a plan to invest 460 billion Euros over the next two years to kick-start the economy.  This amount, representing about 15% of annual GNP and on a par with figures announced in the US, is mainly intended to cover the construction of new infrastructures including railroads, airports, highways and heavy industry. Unfortunately, this was in many ways already planned before the crisis and does not really answer many of the current concerns.

Skeptics indeed feel that the plan will not really encourage consumers to start spending again, nor help medium and small-size companies to improve their situation, which has become critical in many areas of the country, especially in the manufacturing industries. On the contrary, they argue, it would only help large state-owned enterprises. The government’s argument is that it would actually create employment for six million workers. This is in fact roughly the number of jobs lost in the last few months and it is seen as essential to create new jobs to alleviate this increase in unemployment.

Another perceived flaw in the rescue package is the very small investment portion earmarked to improve health and education services (2%). These services have become important sources of expense for families, which partly explains the high percentage of saving that Chinese have traditionally needed to maintain. Thrift, of course, is a traditional Confucian value and has long been part of Chinese culture. In fact the overall saving percentage is 25%, a level unheard of in the western world. In the current difficult economic situation, many Chinese will, without any problem, further reduce their spending.

For the last few years, China’s GDP growth rate has been hovering around 10% and this level has been critical in assuring employment for new entrants in the market and in coping to some extent with the flow of migrants from the countryside to the cities (200 million since 2001). It is forecast that the percentage of GDP growth could eventually decrease to 7.5% or even 5%, which would in Chinese terms be quite catastrophic.

Undoubtedly the Government will need to announce new measures in the near future to counter a further slowdown in the economy and in the all-important level of exports and, last but not least, to avoid possible social unrest. Such measures could include creating special banking institutions to help small and medium-size companies, decreasing various taxes, and operating further cuts in interest and lending rates. Part of the solution will also hopefully come from the economic recovery in the US and Europe.

It would be tempting to say that the slowdown in the Chinese economy is more of a problem than a relief for the West. On one hand, many western companies are deeply involved in China and a slowdown in the economy and consumer consumption can only damage these companies. On the other hand, thousands of Chinese-based companies have closed down in the last few months mainly due to the consumption slowdown in the West. These companies, Chinese and foreign-owned, have for many years provided cheaper products to Western consumers, thereby helping to keep living costs lower. The consequences of these company closures could therefore have an impact on our lives. We can hear nowadays in China that concentrating on exports was maybe a mistake and that future efforts should rather focus on developing the domestic market.

China has in its long history endured many hardships and its population has always shown a strong will to recover from them. Among the many Chinese cultural characteristics, values such as stoicism, tenacity, a strong work ethic, family closeness, loyalty and, last but not least, a dutiful adherence to Confucian precepts should again do well for them. Added to the spirit of entrepreneurship of the people, always seizing new opportunities, China will continue to progress.

The current situation should also hopefully trigger needed improvements in the social sphere, just to mention one area. The central government, while still keen to maintain strong control of its population, is aware of the situation and has introduced positive changes but with a population of 1.3 billion scattered over a huge territory, it is an unheard-of challenge. The government is also keen to improve the conditions of the people in the countryside who have been economically left behind. During the last Congress, President Hu Jintao promised to address social fissures, a degraded environment and rampant corruption. He also spoke extensively about his “scientific view of development” supporting harmonious economic, social and political development. One often hears criticism in the West of the Chinese government but one needs to realise that China is at a different stage of societal evolution and barely recovering from a very difficult political period. The overall progress made has been outstanding and is the result of hard work and dedication to traditional Chinese cultural values, which are unlikely to change for the foreseeable future. 

On January 26th, China will celebrate the New Year (Yuan Tan) and the year of the Ox will replace the year of the Rat. Following tradition, many citizens will make trips back to their hometowns to celebrate with their families. Last year, snow was a big cause of disruption in many parts of the country. Let’s hope that this will not happen again and that the current economic situation will still allow people to enjoy what is, for Chinese people, a very important cultural event. I will actually be there to witness it!

by Jacques Méon

Culture and the Credit Crunch

In Richard D. Lewis’ book, The Cultural Imperative (2003), he posited that economic determinism was perhaps not as an effective predictor of global trends as culture.

Certainly few people, not even Alan Greenspan, could have predicted how disastrously things were headed for the global economy.

Culture, however, permeates everything, and one could maintain that, in the long-term, it is a reliable predictor of how things are going to pan out.

The USA, with its risk-taking, speculation and short-termism, is always likely to tend towards boom and bust. But we should never underestimate the USA's supreme ability to bounce back. As staff started filing out of Lehman Brothers for the last time, representatives from other investment firms were filmed outside trying to recruit those leaving. A true demonstration of the American spirit.

How about China? Its march may be held up by temporary obstacles along the way, but it is an inexorable march with an unstoppable momentum. As some of the very principles of capitalism come under global scrutiny, here is a country which has always maintained strong government control, as the pendulum for the West starts to swing inevitably towards greater state intervention.

And India? Their flexibility has been praised as a ‘soft competitive edge’ over China. And one can predict that they are likely to respond flexibly to a crisis. But there are cultural fault-lines between India and Pakistan that are always at risk of overshadowing economic development with their political fall out – as we have recently seen all too tragically in Mumbai.

Russia? Their abundant natural resources should make them a good bet for investment, but for how long? Will they be as controlled as the Norwegians in how they deal with them? Or will a tendency to asset-stripping hold sway?

Finally, what future for the EU? In a crisis, will the key countries hold together? Or will German caution berate Anglo-Saxon profligacy and French pride be hurt by German frankness? Anyone who followed Minister Steinbruck’s comments about Gordon Brown’s recent policies and President Sarkozy’s remarks about ‘never having being spoken to so directly before’ by the same Minister, must concede that arguments are being played out on largely predictable cultural lines.

by Michael Gates

Georgian on their mind

US, French and other western political leaders who have expressed sympathy or support for Georgia in its recent conflict with Russia may not be aware of certain linguistic factors which complicate the dispute. Language is often a root of strife in the Caucasus – an area home to 40-50 indigenous tongues.

No other region of comparable size has such a dense collection of ethnic groups, apart from Papua New Guinea and certain parts of the Amazon where jungles are so thick that small but nearby tribes rarely encounter one another. In the Caucasus, big mountains serve the same purpose, offering small ethnicities a natural refuge against more powerful or aggressive ones.

Painstaking research has enabled scholars to divide the Caucasian languages into three broad categories, though hardly any of them are mutually intelligible. Moreover, they seem to be unrelated to any other languages on earth, though a few linguists, in some desperation, have suggested that Georgian has some links with Basque. While the Basque intelligentsia have shown little enthusiasm to embrace this hypothesis, there is even less liking for the Georgian tongue among the immediate neighbours, particularly South Ossetia. Although Georgians and South Ossetians have co-existed in the valley around Tskhinvali for many centuries, the language divide between the two groups is a source of perpetual friction. Both sides claim to have arrived there first. South Ossetians regard it as their country and the home of the Ossetian language, which is related to Farsi (Iranian). The Georgians who live in South Ossetia speak of course Georgian, but until the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1990 both sides had a common lingua franca in Russian.

After 1990 Georgians stopped using Russian and expected the South Ossetians to learn Georgian for the purpose of communication. Here comes the rub: Georgian is one of the most difficult tongues to learn in the world, with a fearsome array of diabolically irregular verbs, ridiculous consonant clusters such as “gvprtskvni,” an archaic base-20 counting system and an alphabet differing from any other on earth. South Ossetians hate learning Georgian just as English schoolchildren would revolt against Chinese. How they envied North Ossetians, who could go on being comfortable in Russian with the Russians who live among them!

Political commentators may not realise to what extent the visceral tug of one’s mother tongue will affect the choice of regional political allegiance. While many ex-Soviet satellite states are relieved to be free of the Russian Bear, South Ossetians, on the other hand, may instinctively wish to assert their national identity and culture through their Indo-European language rather than mingle with surrounding tongues such as Svan, Ubykh, Udi, Tsova-Tush, Bzyb and, yes, Georgian.

by Richard D. Lewis