Capítulo uno de China
Por Ernie Tadla
Qué me sucedió mientras que escribía este libro.
El “Oh, este está del este, y el oeste es del oeste,
y nunca el twain satisfará,
Hasta que la tierra y el cielo están parada actualmente en
Gran asiento del juicio del dios;
Pero hay ni este ni del oeste,
frontera, ni casta, ni nacimiento,
Cuando dos hombres fuertes están parados cara a cara,
aunque vienen de los extremos de la tierra!”
Rudyard Kipling, 1889
Cuando fui a China, tenía una vista negativa, autosuficiente de todas las cosas chinas. Era una dictadura comunista, atea. , Por otra parte, éramos una sociedad capitalistic, democrática, cristiana.
Tan después de siete años, frustración, dolor seguido por algunas conversaciones internas serias, cambié mi paradigma y me permití que descubriera muchas cosas positivas sobre la manera china.
Volví a Canadá y escribí este libro de mi perspectiva china fresca, nueva. Mi redactor, Ross Freake, traído a mi atención que ahora golpeaba la manera occidental pues había golpeado anterior la manera china. Me habían infectado con el síndrome de Estocolmo. Usted ahora está leyendo una revisión completa con un cambio en actitud y paradigma, pero no de nuevo a cuáles era antes; no habría aumento en eso.
Con synchronicity, recibí un epiphany importante.
Es el concepto de la integración del entero-cerebro.
Los siguientes son las diferencias entre los dos hemisferios del cerebro.
| El hemisferio izquierdo | El hemisferio derecho |
| utiliza lógica/razón | utiliza la intuición/emociones |
| piensa en palabras | piensa en cuadros e historias |
| repartos en piezas/específicos | repartos en wholes/relaciones |
| analizar/rotura aparte | la voluntad sintetiza/juntado |
| piensa secuencialmente | 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?