After reading this article about corruption in China, I started to think about the corruption that I see all the time in every day life. The author, Lijia Zhang, describes a scene when his mother urged him to deliver gifts to his boss's house in order to get ahead in his career. Zhang refused, and his mother said "'You'll never go far in life if you dont know how to la guanxi!'" La guanxi is a network of connections that a Chinese family traditionally has. When I first read this I thought of many different times when my mother said something like this to me. Wether or not people are willing to admit it, I believe that connections in certain places can help you out a lot and make things a lot easier. You can get what you want through connections without having to work as hard to prove yourself, because of a preconceived idea someone has of you based on that connection.
So is this right to call it corruption? Is the fact that my sister got an internship in Paris based on my dad's connections rather than her own abilities really corruption? When you put it that way, maybe, but when we live in a world that turns a blind eye to such advantages it's hard to see this as wrong. So what would happen if we stopped using our connections to get places? I don't think that the difference in people's success would be as great as i'd like to believe, but I do think it would be much more difficult to get started in a certain industry. People are not usually hired if they are not at all qualified; however, they are not always the best choice if they are hired through connections.
Lijia Zhang goes on to talk about how the corruption is an important part of the Chinese economy. He talks about a conversation with a successful Chinese businessman, "'Your business can't survive a day if you are not corrupt,' he told me. He has to smooth every step of his business with gifts or outright bribes."If corruption is so crucial to the society of China, is it possible to get ahead without it? Some people might think it's not even worth competing with cheaters because there is no possibility of being on the same level. I think that there are benefits to being truthful when it comes to business but when everything is corrupt as Zhang suggests, i'm not sure that it is worth the clean conscience. Cheaters always have the threat of getting caught, but who is there to enforce the rules if everyone is involved?
Hi Lisi,
ReplyDeleteI think the expression you are looking for is "Cheaters Never Prosper". This is a very generative topic for a blog post, BUT it really lacks a link to America. I think you started to do that with your sister's story but overall the post focuses far too much on China. You might invoke the issues of the American belief in meritocracy or the American Dream itself.