I am using this book to plan my drive through France. It's ideal if you plan to rent a car and drive the countryside. He tells you routes to take and suggests the most scenis ones. He also gives good, brief history of the areas and makes restaurant, hotel and site-seeing information, including telephone numbers which is incredibly helpful. My only complaint...and the reason I give four instead of five stars...is that in giving driving directions he does not tell you which way to head: north, south, east, west. So in mapping out my journey ahead of time, I am finding myself frustrated trying to figure out which direction he recommends and then looking for the villages on my map.

Useful, interesting and easy reading. Interestingly, quite a number of entries are classical wisdom from the Book of Changes (I King/Yi Jing) although not always indicated. A note of caution : romanization is based on pinyin but not always accurate, with entries not quite in alphabetical order. A number of the Chinese characters described are plain wrong (though homonyms). Still, enjoyable and worth buying.

there can be no doubt that language is a major component of culture. but what is the relationship of language to thought? especially to subconscious thought? this is no academic introduction to the complexities of chinese thought.culture.language but rather a few pages dedicated to explanation of some meaningful and common chinese idioms, both single words and phrases. a must read for any student of china, even for a traveler there who might hear and remember the book on a few key words like quanxi. thought provoking, a little political and pointed at times. i wouldnt show it to just any english speaking chinese i talked to, it is not flattering to either the political culture or to the herd mentality that we westerners often see displayed in china. but it shows remarkable taste and scholarship from someone who genuinely likes the chinese and their 5000 year old complex culture as mirrored in a very interested language.

We bought many books on China before we traveled there for pleasure and a bit of official business. By far this was the most insightful and helpful book that we purchased. We got a good look at their culture by learning about the phrases and words(that are listed alphabetically) AND the book gives you the English pronounciation as well as the Chinese character. The depth of explanation of the Chinese sayings was perfect. Friends on the trip were borrowing the book to better understand phrases as well as cultural issues about the people we were visiting.

I work in the New Orleans French Quarter and we get a lot of guest from all walks of life and most times i pick up a book like this to learn a few words to help them out and most times, by the end of the book i can put together sentences and speak to my customers better, but because of the confuisng japanese sentence structure i found that hard after this and the book wasn't much help on that. I did, however, learn to say most of the things that i need to to speak japanese to them and get an idea across

There is a wealth of useful information here. This book has helped me to better understand the Korean culture. The explanations seem complete. I knew about many of the ideas before reading them here. The book accurately describes the ideas I am familiar with and gives me confidence that those I am not familiar with are also accurate.

Great book but the SAME EXACT BOOK with a different cover can be bought !!! "There's a Word for It in Mexico" by the same author!!! I was the idiot who bought both!!!

I'm a mexican who after reading some of the captions on the site bought this book for my dutch boyfriend and another dutch friend who is living in Mexico now, It has been very helpful for them to understand why we mexicans behave in a certain way. I don't find it insulting or dimishing the mexican culture. It is funny to see how others see us.

I have lived in Mexico for 2 years. Although some seem insulted by this book, I have found it extremely helpful in aiding my family and I to understand how Mexican's think. It differs from our cultural view of things. It contains an excellent history of Cortez and the influence of the Catholic church which still plays a major role in the daily culture of the people. I am purchasing a second copy today. It's worth every penny. I also have NYC's Dictionary of China's Cultural Code Words. Mr. De Mente does an excellent job of capturing the flavor of a culture.

This book is filled with translations of business-related English phrases. While the quantity of terms and the quality of the translations are good, there are two fundamental flaws with this book.
1. All the Japanese terms are written in Romaji, or alphabetic characters. While this may be adequate for those who are just learning the language, it is very limiting for advanced speakers, who are probably more likely to use the high-level expressions contained in this book. I realize that the first edition of this book was published in 1991, but would it have been too much to ask to include the Japanese? Even for a beginning user it can be quite helpful to have the Japanese text to show to a native speaker when communication breaks down. Sometimes Romaji can't cut it.
2. It's only English-Japanese. If you want to go the other way, you're pretty much out of luck.
This dictionary is [inexpensive], but in this case you get what you pay for.

This book is really great if you are wanting to learn Japanese words that are used in everyday business. I have had a few year of Japanese classes in college, and they really did not prepare me for interacting in the Japanese's business enviroment. They never taught me the vocab. necessary to do business in Japan, but this book did the trick.

On the plus side, the pronunciation guide at the front of the book is excellent.

On the minus side; no tonal marks, many errors in the examples.

I have shown this book to several native speakers in China and they said 'we don't say that'. In many of the examples the words appear to have been taken from a dictionary without consideration of use in context. The words are correct but the sentence has no meaning.

I removed the pronunciation guide and tossed the book.

This book attempts to be a shortcut for people who don't want to learn the pinyin system. This creates some fundamental problems. First, the romanization system it uses is subjective. While the author's choice of letters may seem logical for one accent, it does not make sense for all. Second, while the introduction gives lip service to the importance of tones, the entries fail to denote them in any way. I would not recommend this book to anyone. There are much better alternatives for a casual learner, and it is completely unsuitable for a serious student.

I use this book in conjunction with classroom instruction and a CD set (Instant Imersion Chinese) and find it very useful. It matches the structure of the classroom instruction and CDs well, and I haven't noticed any inconsistencies in the content.

One shortcoming is that it does not use the pinyin tonal inflection marks. However, when used with other learning resources, that is not much of an issue. I find it very useful for basic vocabulary building and memorization drills; you really need to hear the language to learn the accent and cadence, and no book will provide that.

First this book is about American companies who want to do business in Japan and then with the Japanese. The author seems oblivious to the fact that a company might want to do business with the Japanese in the U.S.

Second, the book has no index. For someone who is pressed for time and wants to find out the peculiarities of a particular Japanese custom, don't expect to find any advice quickly.

I returned this book after reading half of it and skimming the other half. I can't find a single original observation to point to, and many of the observations about "Chinese etiquette" are really just observations about etiquette in general - such as the universal practice of starting a conversation with small talk.

One particularly annoying part of this book is the author's practice of compling long lists of Chinese vocabularly, phrases, place names, and historical references, and then failing to provide the character or "tone" marks. As anyone with an even cursory knowledge of China knows, Chinese is a tonal language and, hence, without tone marks a vocabulary item is completely useless to a foreigner. Moreover, the author misspells many of the pinyin transliterations, and often provides phonetic transliterations that are non-standard or inacurrate.

After reading Boye Lafayette De Mente's Chinese Etiquette and Ethics in Business, I felt it imperative to respond because I found major flaws in his analysis. De Mente has spent thirty years in Japan and East Asia, but is clearly not an expert on Chinese etiquette and ethics in business. He appears to have collected information from a wide variety of sources and thrown them all together claiming that he is writing about Chinese business etiquette. However, he does not distinguish which Chinese culture he is referring to and often mixes characteristics of the etiquette observed in different Chinese subcultures. Many of the tips he gives as things to do in Chinese etiquette would cause serious social blunders in Shandong business culture. He frequently mixes Cantonese customs and northern Chinese customs which, under certain circumstances, are incompatible. I have included a few examples of where De Mente's analysis does not fit in the business culture found in Shandong Province.

De Mente obviously does not have a clear understanding of the northern Chinese psychology when he states that Chinese downplay the status one's friends and employer. This would certainly depend on who is present when the "downplaying" occurs. Northern Chinese often laud their friend's accomplishments in order to give them face and would never speak in a negative fashion about their employer while he or anyone who might inform him of what was being said was present because of the obvious consequences. Furthermore, the essence of interacting within northern Chinese culture is personal friendships which can be very intimate rather than being between organizations as De Mente purports. Normally, Shandongnese businessmen do business with an organization because of the personal friendship between two members of the respective organizations.

De Mente also suggests to "look the other party directly in the eyes, and say something simple in Chinese" in order to break the psychological block many Chinese have a! bout Chinese speaking foreigners. This tactic may appear to be effective in the immediate encounter, but it would be much too direct for most northern Chinese to accept. Furthermore, it would be a direct affront to their face. Rather than facilitating interaction with them, in the long term, it would more than likely cause them not to want to interact with an individual even though he has the ability to speak Chinese. Because one can speak Chinese, the expectation is that he also has a certain level of understanding of the culture. Therefore, this very un-Chinese behavior would be more damaging than not interacting in Chinese at all.

In his chapter on eating and drinking etiquette, De Mente states that the host is seated nearest the door and that "In Chinese etiquette, the left side is the seat of honor." However, in Shandong banquette culture the principle host is always seated furthest from the door and the seat of honor is always to the principle host's right. Furthermore, if a Shandong host were to only sip his alcoholic beverage while his guests were drinking full glasses, as De Mente suggests is the case, he would be seen as not fulfilling his responsibilities as host. Moreover, such an action would be a direct affront to his guests' face. Refusing to drink with someone, which includes the amount that is consumed with each drink, is tantamount to refusing to give that person face. This type of host would also be deemed as not being forthright because he refuses to drink to his ability. Thus, Shandong guests would not want to conduct business with such a host because he is not willing to reveal everything about himself to them.

Also, De Mente translates suiyi as 'to sip.' Sip might be what some guests do when the host tells them to suiyi, but suiyi does not mean to sip. This is a phrase commonly used by hosts to accomplish one of three tasks. One, it is a means for calling a time out in the performance. Actors can then eat a few bites of food and chat freely. This suiyi can be transla! ted as 'as you please.' Suiyi can also be used by hosts to display to the guests that he is performing his duties as host. In this usage, it should translate something roughly equivalent to 'Make yourself at home.' The third use of suiyi comes in the drinking context. Sometimes it means '[we are not going to play the Shandong banquet game today.] Don't stand on formalities.' However, when used in the context of drinking wars, it should be translated as 'Since you can't handle drinking very much, you do not have to drink your entire glass.' Combine this with the fact that glasses are filled almost to the point of overflowing, and the result is De Mente's 'sip.'

Finally, one glance at De Mente's glossary should inform the reader of the book's major flaw. It is a hodgepodge of Cantonese and Mandarin terms thrown together without being distinguished. Were the reader to adopt many of the phrases listed in the common business vocabulary section, he would have great difficulty being comprehended by Shandong businessmen.

Therefore, I would not recommend the person not familiar with Chinese culture who can not distinguish among the regional subcultures to use this book as a guide to interacting with Chinese professionals. The notion of subculture must be considered when professionally interacting with Chinese businessmen.

De Mente is an excellent writer who provides a good description of why the Chinese behave the way they do, and how they behave (which, I have decided, is enough to drive most western businesspersons mad). I found the book slightly lacking in practical advice, and suspect Mr. De Mente has few good stories to tell that he didn't. But overall quite good and well worth reading if you have any ideas about getting rich in China (don't quit your day job)