What are Chinese people like?

In the past few years, China has been catching global attention as an important player. In Japan, no country is more frequently reported in the news than China. The word "China" always makes the covers of major magazines. Chinese tourists, students and workers are everywhere throughout Japan. Under these circumstances, I'm often asked what China and Chinese people are like since I lived in Guangzhou, China from 2006 to 2008. Actually, this is the most difficult question to answer for me.

As you know, China is a huge country with a huge population and a very long history. Every local area has its own culture and language. It's well-known that the Cantonese language is so different from Mandarin that it usually takes many years for Beijing people to master Cantonese. Chinese people love and are proud of their hometowns. When they first meet somebody, they always ask him/her where he/she comes from. They care about where somebody originally comes from to the point where it sometimes causes conflicts. For example, when a person from a province next to Shanghai became a manager at the shanghai branch of a Japanese company, some shanghaian employees complained, saying that they didn't want to work under the manger because they felt uncomfortable with non-shanghaian managers. I guess that this was because the promotion touched shanghaian pride. Some Chinese people strongly advise you that you should care about where your coworkers come from when you manage them.

It will take me some time to describe China and Chinese people. If I told you a common characteristic of Chinese people, it would be that they always live aggressively and act in their best interests. If they didn't do so, I guess that they wouldn't be able to survive. Many of them keep challenging to make a better life in given situations. It sometimes impresses me. On the other hand, since they pay too much attention to their best interests, contracts and regulations are meaningless. It means that they consider contracts and regulations to be always changeable based on situations. It often bothers me.

Anyway, I've realized that the Chinese society and Chinese people are generous enough to accept different things, which is what the Japanese society doesn't have. Actually, the generosity attracts some Japanese people to China.