Tips on reporting in China
Tips for foreign journalists on negotiating Chinese culture
China Daily is the biggest English language newspaper in China with an audience made up of foreigners and English-speaking Chinese people in and outside China. Kærup was attached to the features department covering stories relating to the lives of foreigners in China and with a background in cultural studies, she found hersef in a prime position to study the differences between Western and Chinese culture and how they are expressed when it comes to the daily practice of reporting.
In this interview, she distills some of the key concepts in the way the Chinese interact with each other and gives concrete advice on do's and don'ts for foreign journalists who want to interview Chinese people - although she stresses that Chinese culture is much more complex than what can be described in one article.
Guanxi - how things get done in China
Loosely translated guanxi means network although it has slightly different connotations in China. As a culture, the Chinese focus on the collective rather than the individual, and your position in society is determined by the groups you belong to and have guanxi with.
To have guanxi with someone means that you exchange favours with them based on a sense of obligation. The most important groups are your extended family, people from your school and people in your work place. But you can also have guanxi with people you have never met - for instance if they come from the same village as you.
The Chinese focus on people in the groups they belong to and will do anything for them, but they will do nothing for those they consider strangers because they do not owe them anything.
What guanxi means for foreign journalists
Finding the right source for a story is often dependent on guanxi. In the West, we are able to call on authority officials and get the answers we want without knowing people beforehand. But that is not necessarily the case in China. Here you often need somebody who has the right guanxi to open the doors for you.
The best way for foreign journalists to handle guanxi is to hire a Chinese assistant who speaks Chinese and understands Chinese culture. It is important to understand that the best way to a story goes through networks, and therefore journalists should find good assistants and make the most of them.
Working through guanxi also means that it takes longer from you get an idea until you have produced an article, because you need to think carefully about what people you would like to talk to and how you can get access to them.
What group focus means for foreign journalists
In China, the invidual is not as important as the group. Therefore it can be relatively difficult to find people who want to step forward and be quoted as named sources. You can get answers to your questions but not necessarily in the form of a quote you can attribute to a specific invidual.
In many societies, people want to be in the media but that is not the case in China. It is very difficult to make a vox pop because the vox pop is based on the premise that all people have individual opinions they would like to share. But it is not like that in China - not even with noncontroversial questions.Therefore it is impossible to go into the street and find people for a vox pop but it can sometimes be done through guanxi.
However, some people are more willing to talk. Many teenagers and young people - especially university students and those discussing and blogging on the Internet - are happy to talk to the media. The generation around 30 has grown up during the era of the one-child policy and has experienced much more focus on the invidual, and they are also easier to get talking. And some experts you can approach just as you would in the West.
Outside these groups, it is better to contact people with the help of a Chinese assistant.
Mianzi - losing facing, giving face and having face
In China you have face, you can give face and you can lose face. Your face is expressed in your social status - what kind of house you live in, what you drive, what you wear and what you can afford to eat. It can also be expressed in your guanxi and the people you socialise with.
You can give face to somebody by turning up to events they have organised, and foreign journalists are giving China face when they are coming to the country to cover the Olympic games, just as I gave face to my colleagues at China Daily by working with them as a foreigner.
You can make others lose face by being rude to them, confronting them in public or not respecting them properly. Maintaining harmony and balance is the ultimate goal of all Chinese, and therefore they will often suppress their true feelings on a matter even if there is a problem.
What mianzi means to foreign journalists
As a journalist, you have to understand that the desire to maintain harmony means that sources will not always express their real feelings or opinions but that does not mean they are lying.
Asking Chinese sources criticial questions in a confrontational manner is also unlikely to produce results. If you want a good story, you need to be more flexible in your approach.
Solving concrete problems can be particularly difficult for Western journalists. For the Chinese, a problem is really bad because it represents an imbalance. In the name of harmony, most of them will therefore let the problem slide and see what happens without intervention.
If you can not wait for that, I have had some success by telling my Chinese counterparts up front that I know I am not going about this in the right way, but I need to solve this problem and what I suggest is this and this. How would you do it? Usually it has led to good results as we have negotiated our different social rules for handling problems.