4 Typical Asian Behaviors That are Misinterpreted: A Personal Story

By Raintreeculture - Kefei

If I ask you to describe typical traits of Asian people, you probably will say they’re quiet and lacking self-promotion, not assertive and very indirect in communication. Not surprisingly, the opposite of all these traits is far more welcomed in the US. Therefore Asians can be perceived as lacking leadership potential and many of us Asian people experience the “bamboo ceiling” in corporate America. 

As the East and West tension continues to rise, I hope by revealing the nuances in Asian culture through a deep dive into some traditional deep-grained Chinese values can help both parties build better understanding and appreciation towards one another, and also help Asian people who live in the US adapt to the US cultural norm more effectively. 

What’s “quiet” is actually value harmony

Like many other Asian people, the Chinese are known as quiet and won’t rock the boat. Your Chinese colleague who pays high attention to what others say in the team meeting probably is not likely to share his/her opinions actively. Many would think that they’re not engaging in group discussions. The truth? We’re engaging in our own way. 

In fact, this particular behavior is heavily influenced by our deeply-shared value: harmony. There are so many phrases in Chinese describing how important harmony is in our society. For example: “Harmony is the most precious”, “Peace brings money” and “If a family is harmonious, everything will be flourishing”. Over our 4000 years of history, the value of harmony has an important place in our high-authoritative culture where we have a large population. 

Speaking up too much or too often in a public setting will basically disrupt the flow of a group discussion, and that’s not harmonious. Take our classroom behavioral style for an example, It’s just not practical to allow every single student to participate in the classroom discussion. Growing up, the smallest class I had was 38 and the norm is usually 60 or more. Not until I went to study in Denmark, I experienced how difficult it was to be “invisible” in class and feel bad if I don’t say anything. In one particular class, where there were only 2 more students except me! 

Another public setting that calls for harmony which nurtures our quietness is group meetings in the workplace. Unlike the US meeting where everyone speaks up when they want to, the Chinese meeting style has more structure and people only speak when it’s their turn to speak. Therefore, going against the order makes us feel uncomfortable as if we break the flow. 

Being quiet doesn’t mean we don’t voice our concerns or thoughts, it’s just we don’t like to be overly expressive in the public. 

What’s “lack of self-promoting” is actually value humility

Another stereotypical Asian trait is we’re lacking self-promoting. Overall speaking, people don’t like to brag about their talents or achievement but tend to attribute their success to diligence with humility. What’s behind advocating diligence is actually our deep value of humbleness. Therefore, humble people thrive in Asian culture where humility is highly praised and self-promoting is actually perceived as arrogant. 

Reflecting on Chinese culture, we advocate diligence and humility by educating kids “Diligent can make up the clumsy” and “Humility makes one progress, pride makes one lag behind.” Our value to humility impacts our attitude when receiving compliments. 

As a humble Chinese, it was uncomfortable to accept compliments openly in my early years in the US. When I was first told by native speakers that “your English is very good”, my default answer is “oh no no no, please don’t say that. It’s not that good’. After a while, I learned to respond in the local way, accept compliments and say “thank you!”. 

To explain how much we value humility starting as a child, I want to share a scenario I ran into a lot as a young Chinese. I remember during middle school years, my mom and I often meet my teacher on the street and the teacher would praise me in front of my mother. In our culture, I am supposed to ignore the compliments and pretend I didn’t hear it, while my mother keeps saying things like “oh, she is not that great, it’s all because of your help”. But then when it’s just the two of us, it’s totally appropriate to show how proud we’re. 

The bottom line is, we also like compliments and would promote ourselves.  But that needs to be done in a more subtle way. 

What’s “unassertive” is actually value considerately

A lot of times when asked for our opinions, the Chinese tend to devalue our thoughts or feelings by making our preference less important. Of course, you might argue this has nothing to do with cultural differences but more of a difference in personality traits. The point here is that in our culture, we’ve been taught consistently and raised in an environment where it’s critical to consider others. This results in our unassertive communication style. 

In a culture that adores collectivism, we advocate being considerate. That means we value how others feel, think, and even predict what others want. Compared to Chinese culture, the US norm is more individualistic. 

Here is a real-life example about me being unassertive in my personal life. My husband is making me a dinner plate of wings and he asks: “do you like flat or drumsticks, I don’t have any preference”. I will reply “I like them both. But if you really don’t have a preference, I actually like flat more”.  He then laughed, “I just told you I don’t have a preference”. Did I hear he told me he had no preference? Yes, I did. Did I believe he truly had no preference in the beginning? Not at all. What happened here was when he told me he didn’t have a preference, I thought he was just being considerate and trying to accommodate my preference. 

Not only value being considerate impacts how we express our own opinions, but also how we interpret others’ opinions. To us, what’s okay means not good enough. What’s good is actually just so so, and what’s great is pretty good. 

By not speaking assertively, we hope to avoid conflict of interests as we want to accommodate others’ needs at the same time of satisfying our own needs. 

What “indirect” is actually value grace

General speaking, Asians are indirect communicators. Indirect communicators tend to say things in long sentences to reveal the core message towards the end, or not revealing it at all. Especially when we need to deliver a difficult message, there are a lot of twists and turns in a message and you need to read behind the lines. However, the US communication style is way more direct. Being direct means people will say what they mean, and they mean what they say. This is probably why a lot of westerns suffer when communicating with an Indirect communicator from Asian countries. 

In traditional Asia culture, we advocate being euphemistic and implicit in communication because we don’t like to create an uncomfortable situation for others. We value grace, offer others space and save the face. We like to provide a safe place for others to say no. In China, we call it “Give others stairs to walk down”.

One of my previous clients shared with me how frustrating it was when he asked his colleagues in a Chinese manufacturer whether they can produce a smaller amount of order compared to regular order sizes so he can manage the prospects’ expectations on his end in the US. His Chinese colleague would go on and on talks about how difficult that would be and the issues they might run into, but never give a clear yes or no answer. What the Chinese actually was saying is a conditional no. Different from a hard no. He was saying “No, we don’t want a small size order if you can find a way to manage it. But if you really push it, we will do it”. 

As we’re naturally wired to speak things indirectly, we might assume others’ intentions and carry on the conversation with our own narrative. It’s not our intention to make others guess our thoughts, but we struggle with taking things literally in cross-cultural communication. 

The END

According to Professor Andy Monlinksly’s Global Dexterity research, people often know the difference among cultures but knowing the difference is not enough to adapt behaviors cross-culturally successfully. That’s why even us Asian know we need to promote ourselves more and speak up more in corporate America but still feel awkward, and it’s also why my US clients know Chinese speak more indirectly and not assertively but still find it difficult to grasp the real message. 

Oftentimes our quietness is perceived as not engaged; being humble is interpreted as not leadership material as lack of self-promoting, and being indirect and unassertive creates miscommunication. 

Building deeper and meaningful relationships cross-culturally is not easy. But I believe only with deep understanding and appreciation of something different, we can then shift the perspective and tailor our behaviors to make cross-cultural adaptation more sustainable. When noticing the bias and misalignment due to cultural differences, hopefully, we can all open up the line of communication and ask for the true intention. I’m using Chinese Premier Mr. Zhou Enlai’s famous quote in Chinese diplomatic philosophy to close out this blog: “Accepting difference, seek the common ground”