Chapitre un de la Chine
Par Ernie Tadla
Ce qui est arrivé à moi tandis que j'écrivais ce livre.
Le « OH, est est est, et l'ouest est occidental,
et le twain ne se réunira jamais,
Jusqu'à ce que la terre et le ciel se tiennent actuellement à
Grand siège du jugement de Dieu ;
Mais il n'y a ni est ni d'occidental,
frontière, ni race, ni naissance,
Quand deux hommes forts se tiennent tête à tête,
bien qu'ils viennent des extrémités de la terre ! »
Rudyard Kipling, 1889
Quand je suis allé en Chine, j'ai eu une vue négative et pharisaïque de toutes les choses chinoises. C'était une dictature communisante et athée. Nous, d'une part, étions une société capitaliste, démocratique, chrétienne.
Ainsi après sept ans, l'anéantissement, douleur a suivi de quelques conversations intérieures sérieuses, j'ai changé mon paradigme et me suis permis de découvrir beaucoup de choses positives au sujet de la manière chinoise.
Je suis revenu au Canada et ai écrit ce livre de ma perspective chinoise fraîche et nouvelle. Mon rédacteur, Ross Freake, porté à ma connaissance que je frappais maintenant la manière occidentale car je plus tôt avais frappé la manière chinoise. J'avais été atteint du syndrome de Stockholm. Vous lisez maintenant une révision complète avec un changement d'attitude et de paradigme, mais pas de nouveau à ce qu'était avant il ; il n'y aurait aucun gain dans cela.
Par le synchronicity, j'ai reçu une épiphanie importante.
C'est le concept de l'intégration d'entier-cerveau.
Suivre les différences entre les deux hémisphères de cerveau.
| L'hémisphère gauche | Le bon hémisphère |
| emploie la logique/raison | emploie l'intuition/émotions |
| pense dans les mots | pense dans les images et les histoires |
| affaires dans les pièces/détails | affaires dans les wholes/rapports |
| 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?