Shanghai Daily - Scope

A book has just been published in Chinese to remedy the lack of understanding of the struggles Westerners have to endure in trying to cope with everyday life in China, writes Zhao Feifei.

Although there are plenty of books in English on the culture shock foreigners have encountered when living in China, most Chinese are still not fully aware of the difficul­ties their overseas guests face in overcoming the cross cultural barrier.

To bridge the gap, Catarina Lilliehook, a "China Hand" from Sweden who speaks fluent Mandarin, drew on the first-hand experiences from her four-year residence in China to write a book in Chinese, entitled "Rediscovering China."

"There is no good just telling one side about this problem (the cultural gap);" says the 40 ­year-old former journalist. "As the country will be host to more international events, such as the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing and the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai, and be accommodating more foreign­ers, failure to identify cultural issues and take action can lead to serious misunderstandings. I hope Chinese who read my book will try to see the world from a different angle."

That sounds like a book with a high purpose but "Rediscov­ering China" is set in a humorous tone. It is a sincere attempt to build a bridge that will end the pain that cultural differences can bring into a person's life. It contains short, personal stories about Lilliehook's life in Beijing, such as taking classes to learn Chinese, how to be a guest at a Chinese friend's home and a variety of tidbits of information about settling down and making yourself happy and comfortable in China. With the help of her Chinese teacher, the text is delightful.

Of course, cultural clashes crop up on every page. However, Lilliehook always takes them well and views them from an optimistic, positive perspective – all because she's fallen in love with Chinese culture. She has even given herself an ordinary Chinese name – Li Lin.

Like any average visitor to China, Lilliehook was bewil­dered at first by Chinese habits and customs – they were strange at first and sometimes seemed unpleasant.

"Sometimes Chinese people don't like to give a clear-cut answer like `Yes' or `No' to a question. Instead they will say, `cha bu duo' (almost), or `should be OK';' she says. "Sometimes they don't directly refuse to answer. They will say, `Well; OK' but nothing happens in the end. You'll get angry if you don't understand that it's just a difference in the ways of thinking and of doing things”.

Her book gives a lot of concrete examples of some "funny" situations that a foreigner might run into and how to overcome them.

Once she ventured into a Chinese hospital to take acupuncture. "In my country, or other Western countries, you are alone with your doctor. It's private. When I walked into the hospital, it was like a wall of people sitting there, staring at me. When the doctor called my Chinese name, everybody repeated it to their own amusement. I felt intimidated and nervous;" says Lilliehook, who still can't shake off this early feeling of embarrassment.

"But you have to bear it and laugh it off. People didn't mean to be unkind – they were just curious:" she hastens to add.

Always interested in Oriental cultures and traditions, Lilliehook had taken Chinese classes at the Stockholm Univer­sity for six months. At the same time, she was a freelancer for newspapers and magazines writing travel, health and lifestyle stories.

"Every Chinese character is like a painting, intricately beautiful," she says. So, she decided to come to China to learn the language at first hand at Beijing University.

After three years of intensive study, Lilliehook is now able to speak, read and write like a native Chinese. Her book was published in September and she moved to Shanghai as the recruitment and training director at English First, an English-training center.

Recognizing that cultural differences exist is the first step towards understanding one another and establishing a positive working environment, she says.

No wonder many of Lilliehook's Chinese staff love thumbing through her funny anecdotes and discussing her book.

Lilliehook was happy about readers' responses when she was doing a book-signing in Beijing.

"The readers are relatively young people who are living in the big cities and have already had experiences of a foreign environment, like having foreign friends, working for a foreign company or studying abroad," she says. "They find my stories entertaining and helpful. It makes them realize a lot of things that they previ­ously had no idea about. They'll say, `Oh, so that's how you think about this or that. It's an eye opener'."

As the book presents such a good insight into Chinese attitudes and behavior, a publisher in Sweden plans to put out a Swedish version in the near future.

"Rediscovering China" (China Literature Association Publish­ing House, in Chinese, 18 yuan)