Helping the Ghost in the Elevator

Yesterday i had the most peculiar experience here in Beijing. I thought it really exemplified the idiosyncrasy of the Chinese mindset. I stepped into an elevator on the first floor of a building and press the 10 button. The door shuts and then opens. A woman comes in and presses the 4 button to go the 4th floor. Once again the door shuts and opens, shuts and opens. We realize that the elevator is broken, so we exit and move over to the adjacent elevator. I press the 10 button and she presses... 4 and 7. Now in the previous elevator the 7 button had been lit up the whole time, even before I entered, which admittedly is something she may not have been privy to.

Nonetheless it really struck me how confident and automatic her move to "make whole", a.k.a. "indemnify" the situation is. She is evidently not contemplating AT ALL, WHATSOEVER, who may have pressed the 7 button. it doesn't matter. What is more important is to be helpful to the "other" person who with her who presumably pressed the 7 button.

The problem is that with a tiny bit of thought it should be obvious that the 7th floor button pusher is no longer with us. it's just me and her. and in the extremely unlikely event that I had intended to exit on the 4th floor for a second and then move on to the 10th floor, why would she presume to know more about my intentions after I had already demonstrated interest in the 10th floor only by pressing ONLY the 10th floor button.

If her behavior is typical of the Chinese, then here's what we learn from this with respect to their culture and how it differs from ours:

1. Always be mindful of what other people want and need and try to help them. You will help yourself and be a successful member of society by channeling all your energy is helping others. Moreover, if in a position to help someone, always help first and ask questions later. In the West we are also often gentlemanly when assisting others, even strangers, but we prefer to verify their intentions and the helpfulness of our planned actions before executing them.

2. The Chinese goal is to indemnify, not to fix what is malfunctioning or solve the problem. When they approach a situation that is anomalous --something is amiss-- they don't think about the cause or about a methodical, permanent solution. It's superfluous. Investigating the cause is tedious and mind-consuming work and if they can get just as much credit by simply restoring matters to their original status, why go the extra mile?

Accordingly, what she is doing is simply ensuring that all the buttons that were lit up in the previous elevator are lit up here. Hence, the restoration of the original configuration.

3. Good intent is more important than good actions. With a little bit of thought it would have become clear that her "assistance" in pressing the 7 button is actually hurtful, since it prolongs my trip. But in her mind she did me a favor regardless, because she had good intentions, namely to help the --what turns out to be a ghost-- person who pressed the 7 button.

In Chinese society people can positively take credit for trying to help, not only even if their actions weren't successful but even if they were hurtful, sometimes negligently so.

4. Thinking is NOT important. Acting is! This dovetails with item 2 above. The goal is not to solve the problem. Therefore, no thought and planning are required nor desired. Since the goal is to indemnify, all one needs to do is observe what things were like before the disruption occurred and simply restore the original appearance of things. No brainstorming of ideas or planning is required.