Getting Along with the Chinese: For Fun and Profit (Travel/China)

By Fred Schneiter

Book Overview

Listed on the South China Morning Post best-seller list for over a year and now in its eighth printing, Getting Along With the Chinese delves into the lighter side of Chinese psychology, and in doing... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 9627160199
• ISBN13: 9789627160199
• Release Date: December 2003
• Publisher: Asia 2000
• Length: 206 Pages
• Weight: 0.56 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.0" x 0.5" x 5.8"

Customer Reviews

The Best Antidote to Chinese Culture Shock

I have conducted college-sponsored tours of China for eighteen years. For most of that time, this little classic has had my highest recommendation as a guide to interaction with the Chinese. The author spent decades as a businessman in Taiwan, Hong Kong and China proper, and he writes with insight and humor. Though the book was produced with the businessperson in mind, for any Western visitor to China it is an excellent, amusing and effective antidote to misunderstanding and culture shock. If you are going to China, be sure to read it.

A Superb Resource in an Entertaining Form

I came to China with a university group to teach English. I am now starting an MBA program in Global Management. The first course is Cross-Cultural Communications. This book should be the book for that course. It can't be because it is too entertaining and practical, not the dry "analytical" stuff. It is too good! I bought it before coming to China and it got left behind when I came. At first, I thought I had memorized it because time after time I recognized something from the book in what I saw in China. Then I realized that it was the accuracy of the book that made it so memorable. Buy it!

timelessly wise advice universally applicable

It was my first time traveling to Hong Kong and to China. I have no business there and I have no intercourse with the Chinese outside of personal relations. I picked this book up to read on the plane. But, man! This is a very good book! Mr. Schneiter seems to have become something of a Chinese himself during the course of 30 some years in the Far East. Clearly written, with fast wit: Universally applicable advice on how to get along with the Chinese, but not only the Chinese. I would think all people who exchange one thing for another while trying to leverage the situation to one's benefit could all be "Chinese". That is, what the author has to say, would apply just as well in Washington DC, or in Moscow, or in New York. BE SMOOTH and CIVILIZED. By that he means, observe, observe, and observe the flow of things before you take calculated action. AND, always leave room for graceful improvisation. The author warns that it is always practice which will get you the art of looking gracefully impromptu. The author himself gives many examples of how he used his own advice to undo many a tight situation he found himself in. I suppose only those who have to do business with the Chinese will continue to pick this one up in Hong Kong. But this book really deserves to be read by more people. A real pleasure. I couldn't put it down.

One of the best, with nice humour, and humanity

In my own meager experience in Asia countries three key things had dawned on me before I found Fred Schneiter's book. They were (1) It's their country and they make the rules, (2) What I saw on the surface was never how it really worked, and (3) The more I learnt the less I knew. Schneiter's book explained all these feelings for me, in a Chinese context, and vastly more. And all with a clever sense of humour, which helps the reader remember the anecdotes and the lessons. The chapters are almost self-contained, and are easy to read, and the insights reveal a wisdom about getting on in China that most of us will never attain. I think that anyone doing business in China would enjoy this book. For neophytes, like me, you would be simply silly not to buy it. Having read and browsed many such books this is one of the best. I've enjoyed re-reading it many times over.

An insightful and humorous look at China and the West

This book taught me a lot about how differently the Chinese view the world and how normal Western concepts do not apply to them. The black-and-white illustrations match the generally light-hearted and humorous tone of the book. Expecially useful for anyone planning a trip to China or planning to stay there