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A good start to a busy day

Today’s lecture has been the most interesting thus far. Dr. Qi Anbang discussed Chinese Management philosophy and methodology; it blew me away. The idea that their philosophy behind business could be so different then our own was extremely interesting. The use the ying and yang to guide them through the decisions they make and account for the results. In the beginning he reminded me of the Greek Father from the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding. He went into the meaning behind the word management and it sounded a lot like "the word arachnophobia come from the Greek root word arachnid meaning spider..." He was very detailed in explaining the meaning behind the Chinese characters that make up management.

Lets see if I can explain this correctly. There are 2 main characters that create the word "management" one character means officer or governor, the other means the work of the governor or officer. Then those two characters are broken down. The first character governor or officer has three meanings (upper, middle, lower). The upper=motivation, the middle=power, the lower=decision and communication. For the second character there are only two parts (left and right). The left=jade and the right=inside. Dr. Qi explained this to mean to find the jade you must look inside, to do this you must break the rock that holds the jade to see it. Its much more complex then the English meaning, but it is fascinating to look at business through another culture.

The ying yang was very cool. I have only learned about it once before in high school in a world's religion class, but here they don’t consider it a religion, it just is that way. It is basically a belief in dichotomies and everything has an equal resistance, the sun and the moon, male and female, good and bad. For Chinese people, they try to remain in the middle and stay as neutral as possible to balance the two sides. I wont go into much more detail on how the 2 sides can be broken down because that needs visuals to explain anything.

Today will be busy, but full of fun! We are going to a battery factory at 2pm and as soon as we get back we are playing soccer with the Chinese students. I am especially excited because I am a fan of the sport and have played all of my life. I am also excited to play because the Chinese boys never play with girls (they have only played with one other, but she was also foreign). Girls here don't play soccer they play badminton or table tennis. It should be interesting.

More Later!