China Chapter One
By Ernie Tadla
What happened to me while I was writing this book.
“Oh, East is East, and West is West,
and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at
God’s great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West,
border, nor breed, nor birth,
When two strong men stand face to face,
though they come from the ends of the earth!”
Rudyard Kipling, 1889
When I went to China, I had a negative, self-righteous view of all things Chinese. It was a communistic, godless dictatorship. We, on the other hand, were a capitalistic, democratic, Christian society.
So after seven years, frustration, pain followed by some serious inner conversations, I changed my paradigm and allowed myself to discover many positive things about the Chinese way.
I returned to Canada and wrote this book from my fresh, new Chinese perspective. My editor, Ross Freake, brought to my attention that I was now bashing the Western way as I had earlier bashed the Chinese way. I had been infected with the Stockholm syndrome. You are now reading a complete revision with a change in attitude and paradigm, but not back to what it was before; there would be no gain in that.
Through synchronicity, I received a major epiphany.
It is the concept of whole-brain integration.
Following are the differences between the two brain hemispheres.
| The left hemisphere | The right hemisphere |
| uses logic/reason | uses intuition/emotions |
| thinks in words | thinks in pictures and stories |
| deals in parts/specifics | deals in wholes/relationships |
| will analyze/break apart | will synthesize/put together |
| thinks sequentially | thinks holistically |
| is time bound | is time free |
| is extroverted | is introverted |
| is characterized as male | is characterized as female |
| identifies with the individual | identifies with the group |
| is ordered/controlled | is spontaneous/free |
While our Western society and our education system emphasizes the left brain approach, it is important to learn how to create balance and peace with both sides of the brain.
analysis and synthesis
reasoning and intuition
extroversion and introversion
outer and inner
male and female
friend and enemy
capitalism and communism
My a-ha! The West is left-brain and the East is right brain!
Our actual brain structure includes the corpus callosum, a band of nerve fibers that bridges the two hemispheres. Interestingly, the female corpus callosum has 33 per cent more neurons than the male. That leads us to suppose that the female integrates both sides better than the male. Maybe that is why women can multi-task better than us guys.
East, West, left, right, wrong, right: which is best, which is right?
“..and never the twain shall meet,” or is it possible to meet?
This book is my story about how they did meet for me!
I believe the right way for humanity is to balance, to integrate the best parts of both. Instead of yes-but, it is yes-and.
Might this kind of thinking help us in our desperate search for world peace? Let us build bridges of balance to harmony, prosperity and peace.
Ernie Tadla, www.odysseychina.net
Next week: Chapter Two: Apprehension and Trepidation.
How we got to go to China.
| From the book: How to Live and Do Business in China: Eight Lessons I Learned from the Communists. Ranked #4 on Amazon’s China business books category of over 570 titles. The first eight chapters of the book explain my personal experiences in settling into living in Shanghai. The second eight chapters are the Lessons I learned about how to do successful business in China. I have just completed sharing these lessons on this blog and they can be referenced through the archives. The last six chapters consist of the case histories of Microsoft, Wal Mart, VW, DMG, an example of one expat who didn’t make the transition and a summary chapter. |
November 22nd, 2007 at 6:41 pm
I think this article over-idiomizes the difference between eastern and western culture as some biological brain function difference, which is weird and not very scientifically valid. I also am sure that not all people work that way … for example, I am a male (checked this morning!) and multitask way better than my ex (a female, of course, otherwise I’d have no basis for this comment). With this counterexample, it’s easy to see that gender generalizations are silly. Do you really know how females are? Have you ever been a female? And can you really have world peace with resource contention that comes from having a limited finite set of natural resources?