The power of “friends”
By Nathan Green June 10th, 2006I experienced the true power of guanxi today for the first time since arriving in China.
Having managed to put my neck seriously out of joint through a misguided attempt to start a fitness regime, I managed to compound my misery by getting a piece of glass stuck in my foot.
Unable to bend my neck to get it out, I succeeded only in driving it deeper. My friendly neighbor came to my assistance, but instead of reaching for the tweezers, she reached for the phone and called her friend at the local hospital.
Twenty minutes later I had bypassed the queue in the CT ward and a highly trained doctor, more accustomed to operating million-dollar scanning equipment than a 10 RMB pair of hospital tweezers, was bent over my foot, extracting the piece of glass.
It’s probably not the best way to use scarce resources, but I wasn’t complaining. As they say, “when in Rome”.
Now, if I can only find the right contact for that million-dollar business venture I have in the pipeline.
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June 12th, 2006 at 4:27 pm
How long you been in China? Most hospitals ALWAYS allow foreigners in past the queue. You were maybe charged a bit more than Chinese for that honor. And if you didn’t pay, then that is “guanxi”… but it’s actually just your neighbor building guanxi with you, so that you will provide a bigger gift next time…
June 12th, 2006 at 5:34 pm
Well, if I had paid I would have called it a visit to the hospital, not the power of guanxi. The fact I did not pay and had a tiny piece of glass taken out of my foot by a highly trained specialist made me think it was more than just a case of the usual preferential treatment reserved for us foreignerds. And what do you mean bigger gift? I have never given them a gift at all. Typical foreignerd ?take take take.
June 15th, 2006 at 5:52 pm
I do not think that there is not humanity in China. During my 4 years of posting, I find that there are many helpers out there to give you a helping hand if you run into problems. I feel the foreigners are not really worst off.
June 16th, 2006 at 10:47 am
friendship is a western concept with no real equivalent to non-westernized chinese. there are only family, people who can help, and people who cannot help.
June 19th, 2006 at 10:10 am
Shamoer is very correct which is why very good friends in China will refer to you as family or brother or sister. The word “friend” in China is used very loosely and generally - i.e., “foreign friend.” Ever notice how some Chinese will meet someone for the first time and perhaps only for 5 minutes but will then refer to that person as a friend? That is friendship in China.
There is “family” and then there are those that can help you and those that cannot. Your neighbor helped you perhaps because they are decent people but also probably because they perceive you may have something to offer them - no matter how trivial it may end up being.
June 20th, 2006 at 12:55 pm
You guys are really starting to get me down.
My neighbours have tried to help me recover the 5000RMB deposit my former landlady stole from me (If you are reading this Ms Gong of Feng Yang Lu, I want my money back); organized me an ayi after being appalled at the condition of my apartment; helped me arrange a locksmith after I was locked out; cut a spare key for me in case I was ever locked out again, and paid for it; and tell me off every day for not learning Chinese, drinking too much and eating poorly.
I haven’t been in China long, but all this talk of guanxi makes me feel like maybe they are just scamming me.
But instead, I will just hold on to the hope that rather than trying to rip me off like almost everyone else I have met in China (why do I want to buy an umbrella, you can see I already have an umbrella; of course it’s a summer fabric, it’s very light; best price for you, etc) they are just bloody good neighbours.
I think this guanxi thing is oversold. Rather than being unique to China, it is just the local version of what we in the rest of the world know by a bunch of names - friendship, networking, collusion, nepotism - depending on whether we are on the good or bad side of the exchange.
We just like to kid ourselves that the Western way of doing things is transparent and rational, while the Chinese way is constrained by tradition and leaves a lot to be desired.
The names may be different, but the end result is the same.
June 29th, 2006 at 11:34 am
uhhh… if they really helped you that much, you honestly owe them A LOT!! Really, in all the years I have been in China, there is only a downside to relying on people so much. Yes, it’s great to have ppl help you, but you need to be able to say “NO, I can handle it”. Sorry to break it to you, but need to figure out how to do all this on your own… if they paid for the key, that really really really is going too far on their part and you really in over your head. I hazard to say that if you are taking so much from your neighbors, you need to be careful in your other relationships…