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Chinese cultural insight

GeneH

Stainless
Joined
Apr 11, 2006
Location
Pennsylvania
I had heard the term "Eat Bitter" bandied about for years. I decided to talk to my Chinese born coworker about it.

Took a while because the idea was hard to convey in English. When I wrote it down he started chuckling and said, "Yes! Yes! Eat Bitter!"

Apparently Chinese medicines are bitter tasting. If you want to feel better you have to eat bitter medicine.

The term has a deeper meaning. Children are told by their parents to "Eat Bitter", to work hard and grow strong.

He said, "Eat Bitter" means "Work Hard".

My coworker than told me about how some kids will take their hair, tie it to a rope and then tie the rope to a beam. "That way when they fall asleep studying the pain in their hair will wake them up".

Other kids will prick their fingers with needles, hoping that the pain keeps them awake, so that they can study.

He said something about "Tieing the hair to a beam" and "Pricking the fingers" as expressions of one's devotion to better themselves, work hard and make a better future for oneself.

In the past one studied hard to take a test so that one could join the Goverment as a Mandarin. Today kids still study hard, some go on to "Good Jobs" as my coworker put it.

There are three hundred million Chinese who work in high tech jobs, in industry or who do business in China. As many as there are Americans in the US. I wonder how many of them "Ate Bitter"?

Gene
 
Good observations, Gene.

I wonder how many American parents would try to teach their kids that kind of discipline. The do-gooders would have them thrown in jail for child cruelty.
 
Some of us "ate bitter", some of us are still "eating bitter".

Some of us threw our lives at the machine trade and have little to show for it.

Some pimply-faced cheese ball with his face in a screen and his hand on a mouse is steaming full speed toward his first million dollars.

After almost forty years of eating bitter it has finally occurred to me that I have Bit the Big One.
 
Some pimply-faced cheese ball with his face in a screen and his hand on a mouse is steaming full speed toward his first million dollars.

For the very same reasons, Jim, that you're not doing well so are many American programmers. It's too easy today to get some PhD from the former Eastern Bloc or Asian country to do your coding for you - over the Internet.

I admire this "Eat Bitter" idea. Wish it was practiced more over here.

Gene
 
Some people have to eat bitter just like our parents because of their living condition at that time.

Some people need to eat bitter just like our sons or daughters for getting abilities to overcome their difficulties in the future.

"Tieing the hair to a beam and Pricking the fingers" is from "three character primer". If you are interested in the primer, refer to:
http://bbs.am800.cn/dispbbs.asp?boardid=19&ID=25312
 
There is a second verse to the "eat bitter" paradigm and it loosely translates to something like "endure labor/exhaustion." Bitter can also mean hardship so the whole phrase translates to "Eat Hardship, Endure Exhaustion."

Regarding the anecdotal stories of how people tied their hair to the beam to prevent themselves from falling asleep and other stories like those, I think they are mostly fictional accounts designed to motivate people. However, is that really the story you want to motivate your kids with. Seriously, if you need to physically mutilate yourself to study, perhaps your interest lies somewhere else.
 
Some of us "ate bitter", some of us are still "eating bitter".

Some of us threw our lives at the machine trade and have little to show for it.
Sounds like the story of my life... I always thought that a nice tool shop, all paid for, would be a ticket to make a nice living.. The same customers that I worked myself to death for over the last 14 years, have almost all defected to getting their tooling built in China. Yet, they still expect a sense of "Loyalty" from me, when it comes to trying to get the junk molds to run... I have decided to just sell out, & let them find some other idiot to cater to them.. I figure I can make as much as I do now , just bumming around, buying, selling & swapping stuff.. I will try to start me a new shop, but it will only be for work I want to do..
 
Things change...

Spending your life, work, and time on making things for all types of people can be a prelude to doing something you really like.

It can also mean raising prices (seriously - you are becoming a consultant when you "fix" other people's molds....) and charging a lot more...

It's not out of line to raise your consulting price a lot... and letting that whittle you work time down - and then using the time go focus what you are interested in...

Kind of like changing a garage from general work to race car specific work and turning your own types of custom products. Seen it work for people. Am impressed by some people's results...

--jerry
 
Knowlege updates in China

More and more people now in China are choosing the career training rather than the teriery education, as the industry need more skilled worker rather than expensive even arrogant college students.

Is anyone here know hydraulic stuff, like hydraulic ram, hydraulic power station. I would like to know some people who do or like that, as I have a company in China doing that kind of business.

If anybody could help, just email me, many thanks.

[email protected] or visit www.nathydro.com
 
sam shen:

You should post your inquiries about anyone interested in hydraulics or in your company over in Manufacturing Resources.

This is an opinions and debate forum, Manufacturing Resources is a commercial forum, we try to keep things separate and organized in two categories.
 
I admire this "Eat Bitter" idea. Wish it was practiced more over here.
For at least 300 years, people have been coming here for a better life that promises a future WITHOUT eating bitter.

Every generation of immigrants had its own version of a better life: from religious freedom to roads paved with gold to the gold rush itself, to today's illegal Mexican immigrants doing work the rest of us supposedly don't want (I don't want it, anyway).

America is filled with people who came here, or whose ancestors came here specifically so they don't have to eat bitter.

In business, we're constantly trying to build a better mousetrap, find the silver bullet, shift the paradigm and transcend business-as-usual.

Our culture is telling us that the objective is to find the shorter path. It's amazing how many years people will work and how many sacrifices they'll make in an effort to find the right get-rich-quick idea.

And it's not a bad thing. That's how we got tobacco, the cotton gin, the transcontinental railroad, personal computers, the internet and cheese in a can (OK, it's not ALL bad).

But in China and other parts of Asia, the culture is about steady, incremental improvement. What is any U.S. manufacturer's biggest gripe with Chinese competition? It's not the labor cost; it's the reverse engineering.

The problem isn't that intellectual property laws aren't enforced in China; it's that the Chinese don't understand the concept. Tearing something apart, rebuilding it yourself, and then finding your own way to make incremental improvements is a perfectly legitimate way to do business there. That's eating bitter, because it promises only small, hard-won gains in the marketplace.

The two philosophies are compatible as long as they remain half a world apart. But two things happened: China decided to play ball with the rest of the world, and the Internet made it much easier for far more companies to operate on a truly global basis.

So now you have these two cultures going after the same money. One culture sees its job as invention; the other sees its job as imitation.

Needless to say, we resent it. They don't realize it.

The point: In China, eating bitter is apparently part of the culture. Students who tie their hair (that's got to be metaphorical) to a beam aren't fanatics; they're behaving as expected.

But my grandparents came to America specifically so I wouldn't have to eat bitter. I'm guessing I'm not alone in that.
 
There were a lot of Chinese and Vietnamese at Watkins Johnson in Gaithersburg, Maryland.

Some of them just raced back and forth, grabbing this, and getting that. They looked like such hard workers, but really they didn't get much done.

Once a week or so the maintainence crew would come around and change a few light tubes. Then one week while the head of maintainence was on vacation, Peter Pao hired this little Vietnamese guy, and boy did he change light bulbs! Everyday about 4pm, he would hit with a ladder and a few boxes of tubes, and go to work. I don't think they needed to be changed that often; I just think that that was all he knew how to do.
 
Bob:

I haven't been here for 300 years, nor has any of my family. Maybe that is how I miss your point.

People who come here without anything eat bitter. I watched members of my family do it because "bitter" here was better than sweet in Czechoslovakia.

But bitter is still bitter, nothing comes easy.

"In business we're constantly trying to build a better mousetrap, find the silver bullet, shift the paradigm and transcend business as usual".

Hogwash!

Inventions and processes come one at a time, they are hard fought and they are hard won. Time and again in America the one who came up with the inspiration and put out the perspiration involved in an invention was not the one who got the reward.

Make no mistake about it, those who are looking for the silver bullet or are trying to shift a papadigm or transcend business as usual are most likely the rat's asses who have stolen their way to the top and caused many people to eat bitter who didn't have to.

Now the Chinese or whoever are doing the same thing in reverse and all the Saints of Business don't like it.

When I think about "eating bitter" I don't think about masochism or needless sacrifice. I think in terms of doing without in the short term while working for the best in the long term.

A lot of Americans used to do that. Now, nobody wants to. We want paradise, already installed, hand us the key, please.

And-

Just how bad is the epidemic of Chinese reverse engineering anyway??

Did the Chinese have to reverse engineer the shirt or the trouser? How about the average plastic toy or the work boot? No, but they sure make the majority of them now. Did we drop a silver bullet? Did the Chinese manage to shift the manufacturing paradigm into overdrive? Did the Chinese transcend business as usual?

They did. For a culture accustomed to steady incremental improvements, they sure know how to make big steady increments!

Now comes the good part.

Just let the Chinese put the ol'e reverse engineering on an electronic thingy and hear the moans from the better mousetrap building, silver bullet finding, paradigm shifting, business as usual transcending No Good Sonza-Beaches who just got done doing the very same thing to someone else!!

Ummmmm, Cletus, If ya didn't want your thingy copied, then why did ya send it halfway around the world to get it made?

Thought you'd get ahead, but you got snookered anyway.

If it wasn't so disgusting, I would find it amusing.

What does a low down, dishonest, rotten to the core American businessman deserve?

A low down, dishonest, rotten to the core Chinese businessman.
 
Bob -- AM Publisher
But in China and other parts of Asia, the culture is about steady, incremental improvement. What is any U.S. manufacturer's biggest gripe with Chinese competition? It's not the labor cost; it's the reverse engineering.
You would be wrong about that, all you have to do is look around at what is now NOT made in the USA and ONLY made in China. But I dont expect fellows like you to worry to much untill it's YOUR mag that is published by the Chineee at 1/10 the cost and you are out looking for another gig. For cryin out loud your in Cleveland, wake up. But maybe you have not lived in Cleveland very long?
 
I just read an article ten minutes ago about China:

"China is very concerned that there are two China's emerging after their economic reformation since 1990. There are now about 200 million wealthier Chinese and about 1 billion poor Chinese who are angry that their lands in the country are being expropriated by the wealthy and corrupt officials.

Last year, China had over 50,000 public demonstrations about these inequities, and China is very afraid of the chaos that can happen there. China cannot tolerate an economic collapse of the West."

321gold

"Even if China becomes the new manufacturing Boss Hoss of the 21st century, it will not wield the same economic heft as America did in the 20th or Britain did in the 19th. There are too many competitors for that now. To the degree that China's power comes as a cheap manufacturing destination, it will always be one price cut away from noncompetitiveness with India or the rest of the Asian nations, and eventually the Middle East, South America, Africa, etc....economy of scale is simply no longer the powerhouse edge that it used to be. The agglomeration of industrial and political power seen in the 20th century will likely vanish into the pages of history. The concept of 'world reserve currency' may well vanish with it."

Dollar's collapse will lead to gold standard
 
The concept of 'world reserve currency' may well vanish with it."
It could be interesting to speculate on what could replace it..

Two? The dollar & Euro.. Three? More? Will there ever be just one?

If/when no longer the dollar, we will lose a LOT of leverage.
 
After May Day Holiday, I went out to work as a purchase man of a company. Perhaps I begin to "eat bitter", but from today to Sunday, I need not to "eat bitter", because my manager (an Italian) does not "eat bitter". He had gone to another city to spend his weekend. Others in my office had gone to other places for business. Only me left here. Very happy.
 
Interesting...

As a refugee from Silicon Valley, ;) I can tell you that tech just isn't what it used to be. The dot-com-meltdown has reduced the number of "cheese-ball face-in-a-screen millionaires" dramatically (also, do remember that during the bubble, much of that wealth was "virtual"... as in stock options for companies that tanked before they matured).

Coffee is bitter... but, if you like coffee, is it really "eating bitter"? That's my situation... I'm spending long hours building up my tools and skills (the source code for DiamondBack is open in a window behind Safari... yup, still tinkering with it; spindle encoder interrupt handler tonight... :D ) yet I find that I like what I'm doing, and the path that it leads to...




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BTW - Sam - in english, "hydraulic ram" and "hydraulic power station" tend to mean very different things... a hydraulic ram would be commonly found on earth-moving equipment; but a hydraulic power station would be commonly found inside of a large dam (such as the Three Gorges Dam), and makes electricity from the flow of water over the dam.

Perhaps instead of power station, you meant hydraulic power pack, or hydraulic pump? :confused:
 








 
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