Purposive Communication

Mahinay, Joe Marvin

BMMA – 203
03 Activity 01
Chinese Culture

China has the most people in terms of population in the world and has the second
largest land area. Its cultural influence has spread throughout Asia region and has
impacted the world on a large scale through arts, production and trade, cuisine, science
and etc. In the present China has when through a lot of change, one can appreciate the
people being open to the outside world for only the past 40 years. Since radical
transformation of cities being commercialized and corporatized. The Chinese people
now enjoy the freedom to travel. China’s government recognizes 56 ethnic groups
within the country, with the vast majority identified as ethnically Han Chinese.

The Chinese communication heavily depends on indirect communication. They

rely less on words and are more attentive to posture, expression and tones of voice to
draw meaning. Meaning their speech is often to be ambiguous and they may understate
their point. This is to maintain harmony throughout their conversation and to prevent a
loss of face on either end of the exchange. The Chinese regard communication as an
integral aspect of building and maintaining long-term relationships.

Wealth is measured in terms of connectedness according to the Chinese. In this way,

social networks are business resources and vice-versa. When introductions are made
the Chinese want to know how a person fits into context that they recognize and to
which they relate. The Chinese expect people to situate themselves immediately in a
conversation both professionally and social. And Westerners might try to find mutual
acquaintances or ties through schools or professional organization.

The Chinese also rely on non-verbal cues as well, for example pointing with an index
finger is common amongst the locals, direct eye contact is generally favored over
indirect eye contact. It is considered a sign of politeness. When conversing with an
unfamiliar elder, one may lower their head to lower their gaze this is a sign of respect
and Whistling is considered to be rude.
 Purposive Communication

In conclusion, the way communication is portrayed in China is quite different to

westerners as they honor creating relationships both professionally and socially.
Generally, China is one of the most influential countries in Asia and it does prove as
some of the manners Filipinos use can be seen comparably to Chinese people as well.
In this manner Chinese people have encounter unfortunate situations where westerners
would degrade their accent as this is mocked among the westerners to be funny
sounding and hilarious. Taking this aside inferiority complex begin to develop among
Chinese men / women as some Chinese people wished to be born into another country
due to their language being different and this can be seen more in the commercial side
of the country as corporation from western country continue to overtake the markets of
China and similarly to Japan being a commercialized country because of corporations.
Although China is seen throughout the world to be wealthy and the second largest
country this doesn’t remove the fact that the country is trying to replicate other culture
from other countries through structures. In my opinion China is gradually losing its
culture after the 21st century.