Abstract
A historical review of foreigners in the employ of Chinese is worthwhile undertaking because it is a source of lessons and cases that foreigners employed by a Chinese firm today can turn to for insight and apply in meeting the challenges they are likely to encounter in the workplace. It also provides context for the most recent developments in the story of foreigners in the employ of Chinese and an understanding of the extent to which the present time marks a departure from the past. The positions that foreigners in the employ of Chinese hold today are, in many cases, of a commercial nature, quite different from the largely bureaucratic or imperial-related profiles that characterized the employment of those who preceded them. Moreover, they very likely have not made the journey all the way to China to seek employment, but have been hired by Chinese companies in the cities, towns and countries where they live.
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Notes
- 1.
Feldman in his consideration of the case of an intermediary between two parties of different cultures notes that the role of the intermediary very often is to “absorb cultural conflict” which often involves doing something inconsistent with one or both cultures behind the scenes. In: Feldman, Steven, Trouble in the Middle: American-Chinese Business Relations, Culture, Conflict, and Ethics, Routledge, London and New York, 2013.
- 2.
In fact, he was reputedly half-Sogdian and half Turkic.
- 3.
The name appears in different renderings; “Gautama Siddha” corresponding to the original Indian and “Qutan (Qudan) Xita” its sinified version. In fact, Siddha/Xita was one of a long line of Indian astronomers who, according to sources, was born in the Tang capital, Chang’An (Deshpande 2015, pages 218–219).
- 4.
A tael is worth approximately $30 in today’s currency based on the assumption that its value was equivalent to that of a 35 kg of rice at the time.
- 5.
This statement made during an interview with NPR in 2002 and referenced in: Purnell Forest, “Joan Hinton ’42: Traversing the 20th Century,” The Bennington Free Press, May 17, 2013.
- 6.
The “Five Have Nots”: Physical labor, Thought reform, Engagement with workers and peasants, Class struggle, Production struggle.
- 7.
cf. the case of Venetian painter, Michele Arailza, who was expelled from the Qing court in 1723 for not having “enough skill in painting to satisfy His Majesty” (Musillo 2008, page 56).
- 8.
Tang Jianjun, an expert from the China Academy of Chinese Poetry, Calligraphy, and Painting.
- 9.
Musillo notes that a posthumous biography of Castiglione—Memoria Posthuma Fratris Josephi Castiglione—highlights the role that “prudence” and “obedience” played in enabling Castiglione to gain the Emperor’s trust (referenced in: Musillo, Marco, “Reconciling Two Careers: The Jesuit Memoir of Giuseppe Castiglione, Lay Brother and Qing Imperial Painter” (2008, page 56).
- 10.
It was Stilwell who first referred to Chiang Kai-Shek disrespectfully as “Peanut” in his correspondence.
- 11.
In fact, Rittenberg had a reprise (reincarnation) of sorts in the 1980s at the beginning of the economic reforms when he became a consultant to Western companies eager to get a foothold in the nascent Chinese market and desperate to establish relationships with government officials on whom their success depended and with whom Rittenberg was on a first name basis.
- 12.
Rittenberg’s comment in the documentary “The Revolutionary” (2012)—Stoutwater Pictures.
- 13.
Even the rebel general, An Lushan, who purportedly was fluent in six languages, served as an interpreter in one of the outlying garrisons to which he was assigned in the early part of his military career.
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Ross, P. (2020). History Lessons. In: Barriers to Entry. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-32-9566-7_2
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