Sometimes Chinese people say “yes” when they mean “no”
One German colleague shared with me his frustrations with some Chinese clients in his previous job. “I didn’t know what they were thinking. When we were presenting, they kept saying ‘dui, dui, dui’, but they also mumbled things with each other.” To explain, “dui” means “yes” in Chinese. He was confused by the mixed signals from their clients. In the same vein, an Austrian friend, who worked for a multinational firm, told me that every time he had meetings with the Chinese team, he received only positive feedback on his proposals, but the Chinese team didn’t act on anything afterward. “It took us some time, and we finally learned that we couldn’t take the face value from what they said.”
Why Chinese people say “yes” when they mean “no”? The answer to this question might be not only interesting for people who enjoy navigating through cultural dissimilarities not seriously wounded, but also for professionals who work in a diverse team or travel overseas for work.
Anthropologist Edward T. Hall explained much better how communication dynamics work differently in high-context culture from in low-context culture. In a high-context society, not only people understand the face meanings of messages, but they also tend to look for and understand meanings of what is NOT said — body language, silence, and pause. Many Asian and Latin American countries have high-context cultures. Japan and China are on top of the high-context scale. In contrast, communication dynamics are very different in low-context culture. People from low-context culture tend to communicate explicitly, and meanings are conveyed via straightforward verbal language. Germany, Austria, the US, and many other countries with western European roots fall into this group.
WHY ON EARTH do people from high-context culture expect to decipher implicit messages? Wouldn’t life be easier when everyone just said what they meant? You, who is from low-context culture, might wonder.
I can’t disagree with that, because it makes total sense. But any attempt to argue against culture would be futile. Chinese people are programmed to prioritize personal relationships over other things, because a relationship is a foundation for trust, and trust is critical for survival and success in that society. Therefore Chinese people are highly confrontation-averse. To surface the relationship appreciation, the Chinese are keen on having frequent and sometimes excessive gatherings with people. When we communicate, we think twice before we speak, and always attempt to observe others’ feelings, read deeply into messages and detect micro facial expressions to avoid any confrontation and frustration.
When I was a kid, I behaved however I wanted naturally in social gatherings. But with parents’ teaching using a mix of rewards and punishment, I gradually learned to prioritize others’ feelings, and as a result, I acquired implicit communication skills. Agreeing is expected. Therefore social contexts in China always look and feel peaceful and harmonious, because people know how to play their parts. People who don’t know the rules are considered to be blunt and lacking social etiquette.
On the other way around, many Chinese people have a hard time adjusting to communication dynamics in a low-context society. The USA is representative of a low-context society, and in most situations, people speak what they mean. My Chinese colleague once came to me saying that she couldn’t read the implicit “signals” from her American manager. “I don’t know if she actually approved my approach.” She wondered. Then I recommended, “Just take in what your manager said by face value and don’t read too much into it.” By default, we assume that people mean more than what they say even when it is not the case. Culturally programmed, most Chinese people find it difficult to not convey or read implicit messages. We already forgot about explicit communication and would need to re-learn it.
To sum up, low-context people expect communication to be clear-cut and explicit, while high-context people expect communication to be implicit and contextual. I hope that being aware and mindful of these differences can get you less frustrated next time.
