How much money do you make? How much did you pay for your apartment? These are just a few of the typical questions that you may be asked the first time you meet a new Chinese friend or coworker. Why then would that same person be hesitant to be equally direct when it comes to their interpersonal relationships?
Text messaging (SMS) and instant messaging (IM) provide a platform for “indirect directness,†in other words, a way for someone to say explicitly what is on his or her mind in real-time without the pressure of face-to-face confrontation. I admit, whether it’s contacting the woman who gave you her number at the café last week, or asking your friend for the money he owes you, we all employ these indirect channels of communication to a certain extent regardless of our cultural background. However, many Chinese people have incorporated these tools into their everyday lives as a means to avoid one-on-one direct confrontation.
Here is one example from the other day at work. I was collaborating with a colleague on a presentation for one of our clients. She has years of experience creating presentations identical to this one, but she put me in charge because she thought I could add an extra creative touch.
After I finished a draft I asked if she could check over my work since it was the first time I had put together that type of presentation. She came over to my desk and clicked through the presentation. She only pointed out a handful of minor errors like inappropriate formatting and image usage, but I could tell by noticing her forehead deeply wrinkled in a scowl that there were other more important issues that she did not correct.
She calmly walked two desks over from me, sat down in her chair and started frantically typing. The next thing I knew, an MSN messenger box popped up on my screen and two paragraphs of text explained very explicitly everything that was wrong with my presentation. Before I could even type a response, she sent another message with the file “template.doc†and the phrase “just follow the template.â€
I spoke to a former colleague about this topic the other day while out to dinner and this is the story he told me:
“Every time my wife and I get into a fight it usually leads to one of us leaving the apartment. For the next two hours we have a painfully long drawn out SMS conversation. During our “conversation†she tells me what I did wrong and why she is upset. After the two hours the problem is fixed. I return to the apartment and am greeted with a loving hug, and it is back to life as usual.â€
While it would be foolish to say that these two cases prove that all Chinese people use IM/SMS to avoid confrontation, they do serve as examples of how many Chinese people have incorporated these indirect communication tools into their everyday lives.
Is this MSN conversation not making any sense? Check out this edition of Observer ABC…
