1 - The Ps and cues of Chinese inscrutability

Summary

Introduction

The image of the inscrutable Chinese runs deep in Western imagination. The inscrutable Chinese, i.e., mysterious, unfathomable, inexplicable, is a powerful image because it represents the many aspects of Chinese culture which Westerners find unaccountable and difficult to understand. But in fact, as we shall see, inscrutability is often just another way of saying that the unstated, culturally defined expectations which Chinese and Westerners bring to their face-to-face interactions do not coincide.

One conspicuous element making up Western images of the inscrutable Chinese has been the way Chinese talk and respond in conversations. The distinctive features of Chinese speech have been commented upon many times by many people of different cultures in very different contexts. Particularly in Western writings, the Chinese approach to talk has been viewed with profound ambivalence. Many report, for example, that Chinese rely on suggestive or illustrative statements, are apt to clarify and explain by example and analogy, and do a great deal more beating around the bush than do Americans. Former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger's admiring account of his first encounter with the late Chinese leader Mao Zedong is typical: “The cumulative effect was that his key points were enveloped in so many tangential phrases that they communicated a meaning while evading a commitment. Mao's elliptical phrases were passing shadows on a wall; they reflected a reality but they did not encompass it. They indicated a direction without defining the route of march” (Kissinger 1979: 1059).