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Book Review
Red Roulette May, 2023 |
This New York Times bestseller by Desmond Shum is about the conditions surrounding the December 5, 2017 disappearance of his ex-wife Whitney Duan. It's about the Chinese practice of "guanxi" (关系), that in American parlance might be described as mutual back-scratching. (Here's a Wikipedia explanation of it.)
In writing the book, Shum risks his life; so he quotes Fan Zhongyan (989-1052),
In writing the book, Shum risks his life; so he quotes Fan Zhongyan (989-1052),
"Better to speak out and die than keep silent and live."
Guanxi is about cultivating partiality and favoritism. It's about making uneven playing fields. You might say it's what the incompetent do when they know they can't compete, when they realize that they are incompetent. They do what they can to rig the game in their favor. In deed, one might say that it is a tacit admission of incompetence.
Shum was a competitive swimmer who learned to compete and win on his merits. Over the course of his maturation as a business person, he learned to progress from guanxi to open competition on a level playing field. He gained the confidence and competence to graduate out of it.
His ex-wife Whitney, on the other hand, made the cultivation of guanxi her sole focus. Therefore in graduating, he left her behind. And in the end, it proved to be her nemesis.
Guanxi reminds me of spiders who become so adept at spinning webs that they get caught in their own.
Throughout the book, certain Psalms of the Bible flooded my mind like 26, 121, and 146.
The excerpt of Psalm 26 that came to mind was from verses 9-10, "Gather not my soul with sinners, nor my life with bloody men in whose hands is mischief, and their right hand is full of bribes."
This, according to Shum, is business-as-usual in China.
All eight verses from Psalm 121 flooded my my mind, which begins "I will lift up mine eyes until the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth . . . "
From Psalm 146 I recalled verses 3 and 4, "Do not put your trust in princes, in human beings, who cannot save. When their spirit departs, they return to the ground; on that very day their plans come to nothing."
And I am sure that if I made a thorough review of all 150 Psalms, I would find many other examples about putting confidence in God and not in people.
Reading Shum's book taught me what it is like to live and do business in an atheistic culture where relationships are only horizontal and there is no vertical divine relationship to calibrate them, keep them in check, and provide a refuge when they falter and fail. It taught me how all of mainstream Chinese culture is, and has been for a very long time, in dire need of spiritual rebirth. It taught me that the notions in these Psalms, which have become second nature to me, are totally foreign to the mindset of the people in Shum's story.
A striking irony of the book is how, of the two, Whitney the ex-wife is the professing Christian. One would assume that in a relationship between Christian and non-Christian, the Christian would be the idealistic absolutist while the non-Christian would be the more pragmatic relativist. In this case, however, the opposite is true. Shum is the absolutist and Duan is the relativist.
This indicates to me how culture and peer pressure can trump dogma, how strongly the undercurrent of Chinese guanxi can run through everything, including religion.
Indeed: I've come to see how in some (many!) circles of Christianity, people do not theologize at all. They socialize, and confuse socializing with theologizing because they've been taught that "this is how we do it." They pray to be heard by others, as if it prayer were a public performance or a show. Foreign to them is the prayer that rises like incense (Psalm 142) - quiet, vertical, constant, yet almost imperceptible . . . wordless prayer that is more of a fragrance than a speech.
And this guanxi is not unique to China. I've seen it here in the United States. Think of any affinity scam like the one that afflicted Bernie Madoff's clients, or the Enron scandal.
Anywhere you have partiality, where business is not being done on its merits, you have the same problem. I see it in my own locale with "buy local" partiality and parochialism, and in local ethnically white homogenous communities, where birds of a feather like to flock together. Xenophobia is everywhere.
Shum was a competitive swimmer who learned to compete and win on his merits. Over the course of his maturation as a business person, he learned to progress from guanxi to open competition on a level playing field. He gained the confidence and competence to graduate out of it.
His ex-wife Whitney, on the other hand, made the cultivation of guanxi her sole focus. Therefore in graduating, he left her behind. And in the end, it proved to be her nemesis.
Guanxi reminds me of spiders who become so adept at spinning webs that they get caught in their own.
Throughout the book, certain Psalms of the Bible flooded my mind like 26, 121, and 146.
The excerpt of Psalm 26 that came to mind was from verses 9-10, "Gather not my soul with sinners, nor my life with bloody men in whose hands is mischief, and their right hand is full of bribes."
This, according to Shum, is business-as-usual in China.
All eight verses from Psalm 121 flooded my my mind, which begins "I will lift up mine eyes until the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth . . . "
From Psalm 146 I recalled verses 3 and 4, "Do not put your trust in princes, in human beings, who cannot save. When their spirit departs, they return to the ground; on that very day their plans come to nothing."
And I am sure that if I made a thorough review of all 150 Psalms, I would find many other examples about putting confidence in God and not in people.
Reading Shum's book taught me what it is like to live and do business in an atheistic culture where relationships are only horizontal and there is no vertical divine relationship to calibrate them, keep them in check, and provide a refuge when they falter and fail. It taught me how all of mainstream Chinese culture is, and has been for a very long time, in dire need of spiritual rebirth. It taught me that the notions in these Psalms, which have become second nature to me, are totally foreign to the mindset of the people in Shum's story.
A striking irony of the book is how, of the two, Whitney the ex-wife is the professing Christian. One would assume that in a relationship between Christian and non-Christian, the Christian would be the idealistic absolutist while the non-Christian would be the more pragmatic relativist. In this case, however, the opposite is true. Shum is the absolutist and Duan is the relativist.
This indicates to me how culture and peer pressure can trump dogma, how strongly the undercurrent of Chinese guanxi can run through everything, including religion.
Indeed: I've come to see how in some (many!) circles of Christianity, people do not theologize at all. They socialize, and confuse socializing with theologizing because they've been taught that "this is how we do it." They pray to be heard by others, as if it prayer were a public performance or a show. Foreign to them is the prayer that rises like incense (Psalm 142) - quiet, vertical, constant, yet almost imperceptible . . . wordless prayer that is more of a fragrance than a speech.
And this guanxi is not unique to China. I've seen it here in the United States. Think of any affinity scam like the one that afflicted Bernie Madoff's clients, or the Enron scandal.
Anywhere you have partiality, where business is not being done on its merits, you have the same problem. I see it in my own locale with "buy local" partiality and parochialism, and in local ethnically white homogenous communities, where birds of a feather like to flock together. Xenophobia is everywhere.
What do I conclude from this book?
I conclude that there is tremendous freedom in theologizing. If one theologizes, or at least tries, one has another option, an upward escape route, a pressure release valve when all mortal avenues turn out to be dead ends and the pressure becomes intolerable.
Poor Shum got so entangled in the avenues that appeared available to him that he lost most of his hair from the stress.
And in a way, he did make, and is making, an attempt at theologizing, making the best use of the resources that he has been able to find. Writing and publishing this book is a part of that effort.
In several places in the book, he mentions how he paused to contemplate and reflect. He mentions how he studied books I have read including the Rothschild family history and the writings of James E. Hughes on legacy-building. What he learned from these writings saved him from the "Crazy Rich Asian" roller coaster ride and positioned him to become an excellent, attentive father.
People worry, if I stop cultivating guanxi, what will I have left? Without my cherished connections, how can I survive?
That is a good question. All I can say is, a good name is more precious than gold (Prov. 22:1). If you theologize, it will show in your life and the right people will notice without your having to try to attract their attention. And if/when you ever find yourself in need, they will show up. They will come out of the woodwork to help you, sometimes from the most surprising directions.
That is what happened to me when I developed colon cancer in 2020. Good people came from out of the blue to help me, in the right ways, at the right time.
For all I know, some of them might be angels in disguise. I'm sure I will find out at the end of this mortal ride.
Respectfully submitted,
Kristofer N. Freeberg
I conclude that there is tremendous freedom in theologizing. If one theologizes, or at least tries, one has another option, an upward escape route, a pressure release valve when all mortal avenues turn out to be dead ends and the pressure becomes intolerable.
Poor Shum got so entangled in the avenues that appeared available to him that he lost most of his hair from the stress.
And in a way, he did make, and is making, an attempt at theologizing, making the best use of the resources that he has been able to find. Writing and publishing this book is a part of that effort.
In several places in the book, he mentions how he paused to contemplate and reflect. He mentions how he studied books I have read including the Rothschild family history and the writings of James E. Hughes on legacy-building. What he learned from these writings saved him from the "Crazy Rich Asian" roller coaster ride and positioned him to become an excellent, attentive father.
People worry, if I stop cultivating guanxi, what will I have left? Without my cherished connections, how can I survive?
That is a good question. All I can say is, a good name is more precious than gold (Prov. 22:1). If you theologize, it will show in your life and the right people will notice without your having to try to attract their attention. And if/when you ever find yourself in need, they will show up. They will come out of the woodwork to help you, sometimes from the most surprising directions.
That is what happened to me when I developed colon cancer in 2020. Good people came from out of the blue to help me, in the right ways, at the right time.
For all I know, some of them might be angels in disguise. I'm sure I will find out at the end of this mortal ride.
Respectfully submitted,
Kristofer N. Freeberg
