There have been many articles scholarly and otherwise written about what the working conditions are like in the workplace in China. While my experience is not based on a scholarly framework or testing a hypothesis, there are certain things I've learned/observed. There is a serious debate within Chinese society about the value of 1) finishing work quickly 2) excelling in what you do. Being from the States, my experience with Chinese people is based on my interactions with Chinese-Americans or Chinese expats. Most, if not all, of these Chinese in America that I know are significant over-achievers. They work tirelessly and really strive to do well. Now granted, in terms of Chinese expats, in order to get approval to come to the States you have to be super super smart and driven. I, therefore, assumed that all Chinese were this industrious. 5000 years of Chinese history would also indicate as such. For example, there is the Great Wall, paper, gun powder, and a whole host of other things. Unfortunately, what I've seen in the workplace has been different.
Speed and efficiency are not necessarily valued. I know the reasoning behind this. After the Communists took over and implemented their policies, it wasn't always considered positive to be the "best" or work the hardest as it might be construed as you being better than someone else (which you are but thinking/being that might be bourgeious). Everyone is supposed to be equal. One of the fundamental flaws in Communist thought is that everyone is equal when clearly people are not. There will always be someone smarter, faster, stronger. However, if you deny such a fundamental true and punish it, you end up creating a society of under-achievers. Maybe not under-achievers, but a generation of status quo mediocrity is established.
Now, without a doubt, most Chinese are certainly NOT this way. Otherwise, how could you achieve a constant 10+ percent growth in the economy year over year for twenty years? Obviously, there are a bunch of people working harder than the rest and keeping all of us afloat. I think with a population a large as China has that more people can afford to be subpar. If 500 million work super super hard, then the rest of the 1.3 billion are able to not work quite as hard.
I think in many ways America is facing the same type of dilemna, but we don't have the numbers of people to support it. With the ever-growing community of parents that want everyone to win and everyone to get a trophy and the inability to fail children because it might hurt their feelings, aren't we creating the same sort of try to be "equal" society? If children don't learn from the start that there are winners and losers and that hard work is the only way to succeed, then what happens to them when they grow up?
A friend of mine in China and I were talking about values and similar types of issues. He posed a retorical question, "The Chinese believed in Confucianism, value of your elders, and hierarchy for close to 5000 years. Then we believed in Communism. Now, we don't have anything to believe in--what do we believe in?." The Confucian ideals were demonized after the CCP took over and for some obvious reasons. A feudal society in the 20th and 21st century just was no longer going to work. The question, however, still lingers: with what belief system can you govern the world's largest population which is culturally based on mutual interdependence?
