Review of: The Asian Mind Game

Review of, "The Asian Mind Game: Unlocking The Hidden Agenda of The Asian Business Culture - A Westerner's Survival Manual"
Chin-Ning Chu (Scribner: 1991)

First, credit goes to Chin-Ning Chu's Asian mind and her willingness to elucidate the minds of western readers by immersing them in her thoughts upon what westerners might need to know about the Asian Mind. First off, do some comparison shopping my dear westerners. Alibris had a perfectly decent copy of this title for the entire cost of a $1.99, a whole $ 16.99 cheaper than the discounted price of $18.98 on Amazon where Ms. Chu's webpage link for this title quickly led. Black faced indeed!

I grabbed for this title because it has a really couched assumption that westerners really need to be spoon fed on Asian negotiation patterns. For me, communalist megotiation patterns or collective requirements for assent or a majority of "nays" versus "yays" always seems to involve a pattern of shuffling and passing of the buck, usually my buck. In addition, I am often confused to assume I could learn anything about the Asian mind. I continue to insist that Matt Ngui was correct that, "One may never know what an Asian is thinking." I have mulled over this point and come to some sort of peace with it.

According to social attribution theories and psychological principles which comprise human understanding of implicit cognitive knowledge no one of us is ever actually able to know what any other one of us is ever actually thinking. So understanding one's own mind is forever the point of attempting to make some general understanding of what others are thinking regardless of their ethnic or cultural background. So in attempting even to think about one's own mind in terms of similarities or differences to the thoughts of others one is making attributions on a cognitive level which originate, again, within one's own mind. So here are my thoughts on Chu's book.

"We need to get through the ignorance." Kang Jeong Hwan (on stereotypes)

Is it dated? Well, things have changed as some critics contend the Japanese miracle has resulted in a lot of bridges and tunnels to nowhere with the most recent long term leader Koizumi having seemingly ruffled few feathers at the Postal Bank where the vast majority of those seeming-Samurais of the early nineties have been burying their savings out of the glint or glare of the swords of international investment risk. Furthermore, it often appears that Japan's long-term future as a leader of the Asian world economically relies as heavily or more heavily on public debt than American public debt does with a rapidly aging collection of Samurai seemingly guarding their economic borders with similar however more successful zeal.

"We need to get through the ignorance." Kang Jeong Hwan (on stereotypes)

Chu appears to rely heavily upon the precepts of The Art of War in describing what is felt every Asian already knows and every westerner is obviously in need of; more Sun Tsu. Perhaps all of us really only need more Lao Tsu to understand each his own mind better. While I would suggest a re-evaluation of Sun Tsu as a formation of business planning and strategy tools for modern economic warriors, it allseems rather tired at this point. Even a brief comparison of titles on the topic of Sun Tsu seems to suggest that a host and variety of interpretations exist, enough, perhaps, to contend in some ways with the cognitive principles of implicit knowledge earlier mentioned. Perhaps Asians interact with Sun Tsu precepts in the same ways that Muslims contend with God? That is upon individual and at times imdependent levels, therefore, perhaps in highly individualistic ways? When may one expect an interpretation of the ageless art of carpets weavings and its relevance ot business and understanding the Asian mind? I mention this as it is another ageless Asian legacy. For example, I was reminded I live in a city founded in 375 according to latest estimates and proudly emblazoned on the side of a rickety bus.

However tiresome a rehashing of Sun Tsu's precepts might appear in Chu's book, I do actually appreciate his writings among others such as Montaigne. Highly enjoyable is Chu's depiction of the stratified layers of economic man in terms of the Asian business hierarchy. Black-faced indeed are base peddlars, especially those with hi-fi systems and loud-speakers, ringing bells and gongs in the wee hours of the morning in Korean streets and alleyways seeking out the rare customer willing to submit to such horrendous sales tactics. Again, the baubble or bit seller weaving about on the subway platforms, stations and carriages blistering the creaking and rattling of mass transport with some other monotonous tirade of sound to make spare change and perhaps boredom turn into big money.

Chu's haunting descriptions of even greater barbarities, notably the blood-marked paths to Japanese Police Stations in colonial Korea only remind one that the disparities of thought whatever thought reigns supreme in the oriental sphere merely appears to have as many diversities as it does similarities and the fact that the continent of Asia in its vastness tends to remain quite unique in its myriad of corners and reaches contends towards a local rather than global mindset at times perceived to be more global than it might actually be. Chu provides a text of conjecture and anecdotal evidence of a mainstream Asia with several Asian tributaries and an implicitness of knowledge with wholely local influences. Did this book convince me how to survive Asia? Absolutely not. I am consistently and constantly lost here. Was I overly offended by Chu or her depicitions of Asian cultural mindsets which remind me of curmudegeonly smug fairly loquacious grandmothers of western extraction?

No, no more than I am by anyone who might think they could know what I am thinking. Address the individual in all cases perhaps the connections and relationships between cultures does not grow or develop out of generalisations. In negotiation, if it is not the strong who win as John Wayne might contend, but the fair, or those who share winnings and losses, then a business grows between two negotiators and is likely to be renewed. I am still waiting to see when the largest of Asia's great economic miracles becomes a free market-based consumer driven economy. How many more companies are there willing to plunge in to stake a position with seemingly indeterminant future promised profits? It would appear there are westerners who really need to read Chu's book sinking shareholders interests into China and a few other Asian neighbourhoods. The streets of Asia are paved with something other than gold. Is some part of that paving a collective hubris? How many of today's generation of westerners really embodies the John Wayne depiction of them? I would say that part of Chu's book is dated. The rest is a bargain really worth reading especially at a $1.99.