[Long post] "Squares and Circles"

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Title: Squares and Circles
Author: Li Jin

Background info: A netizen once highly recommended Squares and Circles as the Chinese equivalent of How to Win Friends and Influence People. I borrowed a copy from the library. I discovered much later that I had borrowed some "counterfeit" 2011 version of the original 2006 edition written by Ding Yuan Zhi. I thought that this book was crappy after skimming through it, but a family member of mine (very likely an NT) couldn't stop praising this book after borrowing it from me. He even described it as "honest and insightful". Argh... If this book truly describes how socialization is supposed to work, then socialization is sooooooooo complicated for me to figure out. Um, here are some bits and pieces from the book. Enjoy. (Your thoughts, please?)

1. Don't break any law. Don't defy any social norm.
2. When you are supposed to "grin and bear it", just "grin and bear it"!
3. You shouldn't be 100% honest. Whenever you have the opportunity to tell a white lie (to please somebody else), go ahead and tell the white lie instead of the truth.
4. You should seize opportunities to maximize your own gains instead of waiting for opportunities to fall from the sky.
5. You should promote yourself as if you were some product on sale.
6. You should do your best to maintain peace and harmony. You should neither stir up conflicts nor involve yourself in any existing conflict.
7. You have the right to pursue love, power and wealth, but you should be aware of your own limits. Don't be too greedy.
8. You should act dumb while remaining truly intelligent.
9. You should neither befriend nor divulge too much information to "smiling tigers" because they might betray you anytime.
10. Psychopaths tend to avoid eye contact. They tend to knock you out with charm and friendliness before sucking you dry.
11. Most flatterers enjoy bearing grudges. In other words, they are highly vindictive and therefore dangerous.
12. People engage in small talk so as to avoid exchanging secrets.
13. You should never allow anybody to use you as a tool to accomplish the dirty deeds that they have always yearned to accomplish. Think twice before you agree to help anybody out.
14. Invest kindness in people. They are likely to repay you with kindness sooner or later.
15. If you want to befriend so-and-so, you should convince him/her that your likes and dislikes are similar to his/hers.
16. When giving gifts, you should give people gifts that you think they will like; not give them gifts that you yourself like.
17. You should remember that your MAIN AIM in any conversation is to please the other party. You can say anything you like as long as you can keep the other party happy.
18. When you ask people for help, you should tell them (or at the very least hint to them) how they will benefit from helping you.
19. Some people care too much about their own pride. If you want to persuade them to do something, try wounding their pride first. They will then do that "something" (that you want them to do) to heal their own wounded pride. For instance, some parents tell their children that you are good-for-nothing because you rarely revise your work. Such children will then diligently revise their work to prove that they aren't good-for-nothing. Um, this trick often backfires, so don't use it unless you are very confident that it will work.
20. SMILE, SMILE, SMILE!! !
21. If you are help somebody out, you must always let him/her know that you have been helping him/her out so that he/she are likely to help you out too one day. If people don't know that you have been helping them, then you have helped them in vain. (In other words, when you help people, always ensure that you yourself will gain something in return sooner or later.)
22. Embrace changes.
23. You can't always play the same old role in different social situations. Every role that you play should suit what the social situation expects of you.
24. If you have the opportunity to escape from a conflict, ESCAPE!
25. "Other people praising you>You praising yourself"
26. You should ally yourself with people who are much more powerful than you because such people are capable of protecting you from harm.
27. Fake it till you make it.
28. You must always stay one step ahead of your rival(s).
29. Use your greatest strength to triumph over your rival(s)' greatest weakness.
30. Don't play your trump card unless you are desperate.
31. You should teach other people well but you shouldn't teach them everything you know, otherwise they might outperform you.
32. Don't burn bridges.
33. You have the right to bootlick people who are more powerful than you but you don't have any right to bully people who aren't as powerful as you. Powerful people might lose power while powerless people might gain power.
34. You ought to have more than one ally. If one ally can't help you, maybe some other ally can help you out.
35. You should always under-promise and over-deliver.
36. The silent dog is the first to bite. (???)
37. Don't share your joys with people when they are sad because they might accuse you of hurting their feelings.
38. When you win an argument, you might lose a friend. When you lose an argument, you might win a friend.
39. The lower your social status, the less you should talk.
40. You should act quickly but you shouldn't voice your opinions too quickly.
41. If so-and-so likes you, he/she will interpret any ambiguous remark from you as a good (well-intentioned) remark. If so-and-so dislikes you, he/she will interpret any ambiguous remark from you as a bad (ill-intentioned) remark.
42. Different people have different "sore spots". If you hit somebody's "sore spot", you would have offended him/her.

I disagree with #10. Some psychopaths do make eye contact.

I agree with the others, but only in an appropriate context.

I wonder if the author had read Machiavelli's "The Prince"? It's another good book in social behavior ... "When among wolves, become the fox; and when among foxes, become the wolf" is excellent advice for when I'm forced to work on a team.

I partially disagree with number one. While it is true we shouldn't knowingly break laws, since we have so many problems with social norms, we should be able to relax enough in private as not to worry about social norms. In public though, we should be ever cognizant of them, even if we do inadvertently break them.

Otherwise, most of these sound like good advice.

1. Don't break any law. Don't defy any social norm.

Adhering to social norms is a good way to avoid the wrong kind of attention, but not properly criticizing the social norms you choose to follow is a good way to become brainwashed and soak up negative traits, contribute to negative behaviors, and worse.

If you found the norm in your new social group was to pick on someone who'd been ostracized and accused of things you knew to be false, with the penalty of refusal being the group rejecting you, would you do it? What if you were outside the group and they offered you acceptance in exchange for following some of their norms, including the bullying? I was there in middle school and I'm glad I didn't accept norms. I've found numerous situations since where doing so would have made me a worse person and responsible for things I didn't want to be responsible for.

You can also break any norms you desire as long as you sell yourself the right way to the right people. Spend enough time in groups, and you'll see numerous people who can do whatever they want because they appeal to people's sympathies and become their buddy. Put too much faith in norms, and things like this will bite you in the ass.

5. You should promote yourself as if you were some product on sale.

In business, sure. That sounds like a depressing way to live out your personal life with the people you want to love the person you are and be able to trust on an intimate level. There's showing the public your good side, and then there's "selling" oneself. The thing about product advertisements is that they're as fake as they can be without having the bejeezus sued out of them, and sometimes not even that.

6. You should do your best to maintain peace and harmony. You should neither stir up conflicts nor involve yourself in any existing conflict.

Sounds like cowardice.

11. Most flatterers enjoy bearing grudges. In other words, they are highly vindictive and therefore dangerous.

Weren't we just told to tell white lies whenever possible to ingratiate ourselves to others?

19. Some people care too much about their own pride. If you want to persuade them to do something, try wounding their pride first. They will then do that "something" (that you want them to do) to heal their own wounded pride. For instance, some parents tell their children that you are good-for-nothing because you rarely revise your work. Such children will then diligently revise their work to prove that they aren't good-for-nothing. Um, this trick often backfires, so don't use it unless you are very confident that it will work.

Is this what a "smiling tiger" is?

It sounds like an interesting read, but I'm guessing it applies mostly to Chinese vs Western culture. There's probably more slant towards teamwork and melding into a group, and less towards individualism and standing out.

Major, excellent points. Having read some of the Chinese classics, as well as having practiced Zen Buddhism when I was younger, I understand that Chinese culture tends to celebrate a more covert, unobtrusive approach to dealing with other people--e.g., the best leader is one who appears not to lead at all.

As far as Chinese culture being more collectivist, this is a result of the circumstances of Chinese history. Since the major staple of the Chinese was rice, and rice requires extensive irrigation, major irrigation projects were necessary that required close collaboration of everybody concerned, as well as extensive planning. In the West, people relied on rainfall for their crops, and hence the need never developed for such close social cooperation.