China Rapidly Becomes Another Japan

The first census in a decade shows that Chinese population is rapidly aging, people over the age of 60 now account for 13.3% of the population, up nearly 3% since 2000. Nearly one in six people in China is over 60 years old.

Although in terms of percentage of aging population, China is still far behind Japan, the pace of aging in China has been alarmingly similar to that of Japan.

Merely twenty years ago, only 11.6% of the population in Japan was 65 years or older. Now, the ratio stand at 21%, the highest proportion of elderly citizens in the world.

In China, the aging trend is accelerating, according to Ma Jiantang, head of the National Bureau of Statistics. The 3% increase in a decade could seen a significance booster from now on.

One the other hand, the proportion of mainland Chinese people aged 14 or younger was 16.6%, down by 6.29 percentage points from 2000.

The quickly aging trend could bring many issues, such as an increased demand for care facilities, care services and personnel, heavy burden on young workers, and anxiety over post-retirement care.

Japan Nuclear Mess, What does it mean to China?

Japanese Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear plant is going through what Chernobyl has down, which is to seal off the whole unit and officially called it quit. The seemingly unavoidable fate and chilling fact to other aspiring nuclear energy developing giants such as China will be closely watched.

According to a New Yorker blog entry by Evan Osnos, who made a point linking a life sentence to Kang Rixin, the head of China’s nuclear-power program and a senior Party apparatchik convicted of taking bribes and abusing his position to enrich others. China is experiencing the most aggressive nuclear-power expansion in the world.

One important thing pointed by Osnos' interviewee is, that Japanese nuclear facility is old and aging, while Chinese ones are all newly imported from nuclear energy leaders such as France. Besides, the Chinese designers and plant management are also receptive to other input such as Americans.

Would it so-called nuclear binge could be happening? It is up to anyone's guess. Who could have thought Japan, a leading nation in energy technology, will have to seal off its nuclear plant, just like what Ukraine did.

Japan Goes Beyond Yasukuni? Kan Forgos a Visit

At the August 15th ceremony marking the 65th anniversary of the end of World War II, Japan has stepped out of its war shadow, at least for now.

The Democratic Party of Japan government led by Prime Minister Naoto Kan has decided not to visit Yasukuni shrine, his whole Ministers also got the message, no one from his 17-member cabinet went to Yasukuni. The first time in 25 years.

"We feel deep regret, and we offer our sincere feelings of condolence to those who suffered and their families," PM Kan said at a commemoration ceremony attended by the Japanese Emperor Akihito.

The conservative Liberal Democratic Party has strong words for Kan. Shintaro Ishihara, the outspoken Tokyo Governor criticized Kan following other countries' order. Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe thought it violated the freedom of religion.

The road for Japan to move beyond Yasukuni is certainly not easy. Just on the same day, a right-wing member in his 20s weaved a Japanese knife on the streets near Japanese Diet and severely wounded a police security force.

Kan's decision has also won support from neighboring Korea. Korean president Lee Min Pak praised the move as one step forward. The usual critical Chinese government has not put out a formal response.

Hillary Clinton In Asia

Chinese online portal Sina has a piece highlighting that U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton schedule on three-nation Asian trip. The story, titled Clinton's Asian Trip is Trip To China, emphasized complaints from Japanese saying Clinton only spent 3 hours in Tokyo, while spending 5 days in China and 1 day in Korea.

Another piece on Sina highlighted the size of 200 delegates in the Clinton entourage, including 15-18 cabinet level officials. In one word, Beijing feels Clinton has given good face to China.

As the second round US-China Strategy session opens tomorrow, more eyes will be on how much of the good will transferred to concessions from Beijing on North Korea, Iran sanctions, RMB revaluation and trade barrier issues.

Six Keys To Effectively Work With Chinese

The other day, I was told that a Chinese businesswoman had a quarrel with her Ghanaian business partner. The Ghanaian complained that the Chinese was disrespectful and yelling at people and the Chinese said she was simply trying to explain the situation.

As a cross-culture trainer, I think that, “Conflict is not always a personal clash, but a clash in value and perception.” When working with people from different cultural backgrounds, preservation is everything.

To overcome cultural bias and stereotypes, I created a simple model to work with clients, the model of UNIQUE. It stands for:

Understand, before being understood.

No Presumption. Even with good intention

Inquire. ASK

Quote back and confirm

Use humor

Empathy

To elaborate the model, I developed the following six keys to guide you through the maze of working with Chinese:

1. Understand what the Chinese culture values:

· Trust

· Face and Harmony

· Long term relationships -- “guanxi”

· Reciprocity: mutually beneficial

· Loyalty. An old Chinese saying goes like this, “Dogs don’t leave poor owners; You don’t complain about your mom’s looks”

· Achievement: Fame and Profit. There are five criteria to judge the success of a Chinese man: Money, House, Wife, Son, and Car.

2. Identify characters of Chinese people:

· Pragmatism, “whatever works”

· Materialism, Money is God

· Relationship oriented, network is the way to success. Who you know is more important than what you know

· Distinguish between an insider and an outsider. Foreigners are called “lao wai” (“senior outsider”)

· Collectivist culture

· Hard working: save hard for rainy days

3. Pay attention to Chinese cultural aspects:

· Hierarchy, highly structured and everyone aware of own position

· Respect and obey the old and superiors

· Privacy is still an imported luxury, and people are inquisitive

· Education is the way to get better future

· Too flexible, “rules are set to break”

4. Communicate with Chinese:

Chinese communication style: High Context Culture

· Indirect way of communication. From A to C then B

· Informal environment is preferred

· Non-verbal communication, use a lot of body language

· Volume: speak loud, you can’t tell whether it is a talk or a quarrel

· Don’t listen well, presume

· Tolerance for ambiguity

· Avoid saying NO. Thousand ways of saying No, without actually saying it

· No is also a Yes………with a little work

5. Respect Face Factor

• Face (mianzi, pride) needs to be saved by all means. No face, no pride. Everyone needs to look good

• Harmony is maintained to keep a long term relationship

• Due to a rapid economic growth, Chinese are particularly proud of themselves

• Saving face is universally applicable. Chinese are who they are, not where they are.

6. Seek Common Ground

• Make an effort and show your understanding for the culture and the values. Appreciate what Chinese culture has to offer. Biggest complaint – “Foreigners don’t understand China”

• Seek things of common interests, not you vs. us

• Be prepare to read between the lines, understand nuance and body language

• Be humble and persistent

• Listen well. Ask a lot of good questions, then listen.

Finally, Use humor:

Chinese have a natural inclination to be afraid of black people. Why?

They think you are taller and know better Kung Fu

You are welcome to quote freely from this article once you give proper attribution. (A link to letterfromghana.blogspot.com and author: Brian Yang would be appreciated.) You are also welcome to republish this article in full once you give the proper attribution .

If you enjoyed this article, please be sure to use RSS feed for get more such cross-culture pieces.

Hello From Accra

It has been one full month before I finally have a feel of settling down in Africa.

The coldest month here is August, with daily temperature around 25C (85F)so I am grateful for the pleasant change from sizzling hot DC. Now is also the cigar butt end of a raining season, so the sky is mostly overcast with only one short rain fall during the whole month.

Due to limited manufacturing factors in Ghana, most stuff are imported from Europe, China, Mideast and the U.S., the prices are quiet high considering the national average income is around $510. However, local produce are very reasonable, for example, 1 cedi ($1=1.46 cedis) can buy you a big bunch of fresh bananas, and locally grown vegetables are also inexpensive.

Billed the friendliest people in Africa, Ghanaian I met are hardworking, warm and ready to help. According to a local media who did a study on how friendly the people really are, there is a price you pay for the friendliness. They found that when one person entered a supermarket and asked for something in a nice way, no immediate services were tended. However, when asked for the same thing in a more bitchy way, the service was fast and professional.

I certainly can relate that to getting my internet service installed. After three weeks of back and forth, almost daily telephone calls to many different people who all seemed to be in charge but couldn't answer my questions, one trip matching down to the phone company and paying the service upfront, I got a fully functional internet access Today.

I can't help but comparing China with Ghana, I wonder, are there more to the development models that put China ahead?

More to come, stay tuned.

China Japan In Africa

Dear Readers and Friends,

As many of you know, I am off to Africa to spend 2 years in Ghana and leave on August 3rd. The last few weeks have been a stressful whirl of activities --I just finished packing out and saw the giant 20 foot moving track pulling away from the house this evening.

It has been a great learning experience writing and covering about Sino-Japan relations and I plan to continue to do so with my ultimate efforts. It is something I desire to do more and more.

Even more exciting is a new angle will be added to the topic, an African angle. I intend to see how China and Japan are spreading love in this continent, how locals view the two cultures, and whether the foregin aids and youth volenteers from the coutries are winning hearts and minds in Africa?

You are invited to onboard this journal, and I will update and share information on this blog, as I have been doing. However, I encourage you to be a part of it, any questions on your mind that you'd like to ask, anything you'd like to know about Beijing and Tokyo Policies are impacting African people's lives, and whatever in you mind?

However, as it is always has been, this blog has taken a chunck of time from me. I have every intention and will make every effort to update it on a regular basis, hopefully on a daily basis if I have something worthly to share. I appreciate your understanging and encouragment.


I look forward to the new adventure along with you


Brian Yang

Sports and Politics

Looking back to 2008, one of the biggest event to China would be the Beijing Olympics. During the seven years leading to August 8, 2008, Beijing went through a facelift. And looking forward, many years later, people will possibly still attribute some big impacts to China to the 14 days.

Indeed, the relationship between sports and politics like water and milk. Dr. Victor Cha, former U.S. National Security Council Asian Director, explained in today's briefing to introduce his new book on sports and politics in Asia.

Why Asia?

According to Dr. Cha, Sports are particularly politicized in Asia for the reasons:
1. frequency, such events as BJ Olympics are truly big and significant events to not be politicized
2. So many resolved historic issues in the region
3. developments associated with big sports events

Regarding BJ Olympics, Cha pointed that there are four benchmarks: first being perform well, which China leads with the most gold medals, second being host well, Atlanta is not good, Sydney is good, BJ is good, too. Third being Clean Air, which had made such a huge issue before the games and the expect ion was so low that no one cared too much any more during the games. Fourth being marginalized demonstrations, which China effectively avoided and controlled.

Cha also pointed out that on 08/08/08, the opening day, Russia invaded Georgia, which was godsend good news to BJ Olympics, as all in a sudden a news cycle start that people turn attention away from Beijing, all the bad news such as Tibet issue activists, underaged gymnasts, lip sync,etc are not on the top news worldwide any more.

Even like many people, he thinks the BJ games were just too perfect, not organic. Next games in London will certainly turn the games back to real games, However, Cha did point out that the profound impacts to China are probably yet to play out.