The concept of Power Distance in the Chinese Culture

Oct. 25, 2010 - PRLog -- This is the 3rd installment of Communicaid’s 10-part “Chinese Red Envelopes” web series. We will examine the “high power distance” side of the Chinese culture in this episode to understand the structure behind Chinese communication, which is similar to Japanese and Korean.

The Chinese culture measures high on the “power distance” scale compared to countries such as the United States but not as high as countries such as Japan and Korea. High power distance means conformity to hierarchy and authority while low power distance equates to the belief that power should be distributed evenly. Please note that although this tradition has been engrained into the mentality of the older generation, the culture of the younger generation is gradually migrating toward a westernized society under the influence of globalization.[1]

The modern Chinese language does not have different sets of tones to use depending on the social status of the speaker and receiver that Japanese and Korean do. However, social status is still a central theme to Chinese society; most Chinese refer to each other by their title and last name, such as manager Li or secretary Zhang. Close friends may drop the title and substitute by their age difference. Such as old Li or young Zhang.

The high power distance nature of the Chinese culture is also reflected by the frequent use of spokespersons or models in Chinese marketing to promote ownership appeal of a particular product. The perceived success and influence of a celebrity has tremendous effect on the Chinese audience. Organizations that target the older generations will often display pictures of company founders and leaders to appeal to this social value as well.

Please follow this link to view the entire “red envelopes” series: http://www.communicaidinc.com/a-23-redenvelope2.php.

[1]Singh, Nitish and Pereira, Arun. The Culturally Customized Website. Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann, 2005. 0-7506-7849-6

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Communicaid, Inc. helps clients from a multitude of industries cross the language barrier with professional translation, localization and interpretation services in 80+ languages. Communicaid is founded in 1993 and located in Silicon Valley, CA.