The ART of the DEAL: Chinese and Western Approaches

I think that Chinese, however, do have a different mindset, an approach that encourages gamesmanship in negotiation, one that relishes it. Negotiation is to business what sex is to reproduction. Negotiation, in fact is the fun part. In trying to get a deal done, the Chinese way involves feigning, indeed a measure of misdirection. The Chinese way might involve a lowball offer, just to get things warmed up, or indeed, just to tip the other party off balance. There might be an agreement on the price, in lightning speed, but with a twist, that the terms have to be heavily modified, i.e. “I’ll agree to $500,000,000. But, I have to be able to pay you in eight quarterly instalments over four years. Oh yeah, and my nephew needs a job.”

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Ethnicity as Laundry List

Sure, most people don’t think that by naming 5 ethnicities they have claims to 5 different club memberships. But then again some people are that vain. The warming notion that there is something hip about being a child of the world, by being born into this world love of multi-ethnicities, well, I guess people decide, shucks “it’s kinda cool; I’ll just play along.”

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Understanding ISIS: What is Clan-like behavior?

You could get a darn good idea of ISIS from what it is NOT, but then again, as my 10th grade English teacher, Mr. Smith always said- "if your thesis statement is against something, there are still an infinite number of things you could be for." Well, there isn't that much wiggle room for ISIS, given the pigeonhole it has carved for itself- I can't imagine they are donating much of the seized gold taels to Orbis, or Breast Cancer Awareness, or the Girl Scouts of Lebanon

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Rebuttal to Eric Liu's 8/29 Piece in WSJ

I was browsing the WSJ, on its very capable iOS app, and came across the headline: “Why I Can’t Just Become Chinese” by Eric Liu. A headline like that jumps out at you, especially if you are writing an upcoming book on Chinese and Western culture as I am. So, naturally I clicked on it. 

I didn’t know what to expect, really, but I think Mr. Liu gets it wrong. I think he gets both China and the U.S. wrong.

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