Differences Between Us and Russian Business Styles Essay Example for Free

Differences Between Us and Russian Business Styles Essay Everyone knows that the key to effective communication is knowledge. And cross-cultural communication is not an exception to the rule. Quite the contrary we have to know not only the basic data about our foreign partner, but also we ought to be acquainted with numerous rules and standards of behavior established in his or her country. To negotiate with our partner we should possess both the minimum personal information about him or her and the maximum information about his or her country. In this essay I’d like to examine differences and common points in styles, traditions and etiquette of the US and Russian negotiations. I believe that present relations between the United States and Russia are quite good. The two countries still have differences, but they increasingly work together on a wide range of political, economic, cultural issues. Despite the fact that we can still destroy each other with our nuclear weapons, our businessmen and entrepreneurs work very closely, and Russian-American enterprises and firms develop with increased speed nowadays. Naturally I reckon it makes no sense to have all those warheads. The Cold War is over, and the best thing our countries can do is to be reconciled and to get along well with each other. And business partnership is one of the factors to establish friendly bilateral relations in all aspects of cooperation. However, sometimes it is very difficult to build relationships with people of different cultures, mentalities and customs. And this point concerns both our peoples too, because the Russians utterly differ from the Americans. In fact I consider that actually we also have much in common. So further in this essay I’m going to compare our countries’ negotiation styles and traditions, and to define how much differences we have and how much we have in common. In the first place I want to compare appearance of business circles in Russia and the USA. Both Russian men and women leading the negotiations usually wear conservative dark, often pinstriped, and well-tailored clothes along with good dress shoes. A Russian man is not supposed to take off his jacket during the negotiations, while a businesswoman is more welcomed to be dressed in a pencil skirt than in pants. However on some shirtsleeve meetings Russian people of business prefer to look more casually, in such cases they untie their ties, take off their jackets and can choose suits of more light classic colors, such as gray or camel. Similarly American business people wear conservative suits and ties of dark colors. But women  are also allowed to put on not only classic skirts and dresses, but also pants. In rural areas American people of business can wear their suits even without jackets and ties. Both Russian and American businesswomen are not supposed to wear jeans even on casual occasions. All in all negotiators of both our countries have an utterly conservative look, avoid vivid colors of fabrics and gaudy accessories. In the second place it’s necessary to compare the ways of behavior of Russian and American negoti ators. Be ready to that your counterpart from Russia will not be in time. It is quite appropriate in this country, so do not wait any excuses. What is more is that the higher is the rank of your colleague in the company the more probability he or she will be late for much time. On the contrary it is inappropriate and very offensive for your counterpart in the USA to be late, as every businessperson in this country follows the rule â€Å"time is money†. Gift giving in the USA is discouraged by many firms and companies, because it can be considered as a bribe. A gracious note will be enough for your partner. In contrast of the USA gift giving in Russia goes without saying. The fact is that it is extremely difficult and even impossible to do business in Russia without help from local authorities, thus a pretty penny, a cognac bottle, a chocolate box, a bouquet of flowers or other items can help you by doing business in Russia. It is necessary to take into account that negotiations with Russians often can be unsystematic, as negotiators in Russia can focus on several issues simultaneously. Moreover, the Russians are very emotional, so tantrums and walkouts can occur during the negotiations. Although the Americans are quite emotional too, the negotiations with them are more ordered, as they prefer focusing only on the one issue. During their negotiations Russian businesspeople can make some pauses, while the Americans seem to fill the silent periods and do most of the talking. The Americans are individualistic aggressive self-reliant businessmen who do not care for cultural customs of other countries and very often just neglect them; they have a greater level of tolerance for a variety of ideas, thoughts, and beliefs within a business team. On the contrary people of Russian business most often resort to collective thinking and take collective decisions. However, there is a great hierarchy within the structure of any company, and the subordinates must respect the chain of command and do not offer any ideas their chiefs do not want to take. The US  businesspeople are really initiative and active in contrast with negotiators from Russia who very often bide their time, demonstrating their well-known patience. Russia is renowned for its hostility, so it will be a serious breach of etiquette, if you refuse to take a drink or to have a toast. In the third place I compare the gestures the Americans and Russians have. Both in Russia and the USA you greet your colleague by a firm and lasting a few seconds handshake, but in Russia this handshake should be a little bit firmer. Also shaking hands with someone in Russia be sure that you have taken off your gloves, as it is considered rude not to. Keep good eye contact during your handshake. In the USA the counterparts who are good friends can briefly embrace, though in Russia it is not appropriate. A smile is a sign of friendliness for the US businessmen, while Russian people of business prefer to maintain gravity during the negotiations and do not smile at every occasion. In Russia it is extremely inappropriate to show soles of your boots, as they are considered to be dirty, while in the USA they can put their legs on the table. To laugh and to talk too loudly is regarded as bad manners in Russia. Just quite the reverse it is regarded as a sign of sincerity of a person in the USA. To summarize everything that has been written above, I want to stress the fact that actually both our peoples, including negotiators, do have too many differences. They have a great heap of differences in all aspects, but nevertheless I assume they have one very important common thing: both the US and Russian strive to maintain economic links and friendly relations with each other. To achieve success, business organizations sand negotiators should follow the culture of every particular country. It can be quite a problem for American and Russian people of business, because they do not pay much attention to cultures of other nations. It is quite a bad trait business circles in these countries have. Without understanding culture of a country in which organization want to do business, the organization cannot achieve success because if they don’t know the norms, values, beliefs and attitude of customers and employees then they cannot run their business successfully.

China-ASEAN Relations Essay -- Foreign Policy

Despite its traditional mistrust of security regimes, China became one of the founding members of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) in 1994 – the first region-wide multilateral discussion of peace and security issues in Asia-Pacific. Besides, Beijing established military links with Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, Myanmar, Cambodia, and Malaysia. This extends not only to military aid and loans, bilateral talks on military issues, and signing of defense memoranda of understanding, but also includes joint production of military equipment and joint training exercises. During the 12th Foreign Ministers’ Meeting of the ARF in 2005, Chinese Ambassador Liu Yongxing stated that deepening mutual trust, respecting diversity, handling relations with other institutions properly, maintaining vitality of the Forum and achieving continuous development should be the main goals of ARF looking forward. In 2006, China also signed the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC), i n which China promised not to threaten the security of other signatory states (ASEAN), to express China’s intention of establishing a strategic partnership with ASEAN for peace and prosperity. China is also willing to support ASEAN’s declaration of Southeast Asia as a nuclear weapons-free zone. With continuing norm convergence and growing trust, ASEAN may be persuaded that the region’s strategic future could be codetermined with China. The China-ASEAN strategic relationship, however, is not always a bed of roses. There remain serious issues between China and Southeast Asia which affected their relationship in the 1990s and will continue to complicate their relationship. The most prominent of all is the South China Sea dispute. Beijing has maintained that it has f... ... Shishi chubanshe, 2003). â€Å"ASEAN-China Dialogue Relations†. David Arase, â€Å"Non-Traditional Security in China-ASEAN Cooperation: The Institutionalization of Regional Security Cooperation and the Evolution of East Asian Regionalism†, Asian Survey, Vol. 50, No. 4 (July/August 2010) (pp. 808-833), http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/as.2010.50.4.808, accessed March 22nd, 2012. China’s Foreign Affairs 2006 published by the Department of Policy Planning, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, PRC (World Affairs Press, 2006), p.413-416. â€Å"Vietnam: Better Defense Cooperation to Help Build ASEAN Community,† Thai Press Reports, (April 30th 2010). â€Å"China’s National Defense in 2008†, Information Office of the State Council of the People's Republic of China, (Beijing, January 20th 2009) http://www.china.org.cn/government/whitepaper/node_7060059.htm, accessed March 22nd 2012.

A Family Study of Victor Frankenstein and his Monster Essay

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is an exploration of the relationship between parent and child. Inspired in many ways by Mary Shelley’s own experiences as a motherless child and a grieving mother, Victor’s tale follows a linear trail of decline traceable to his mother’s death. Up until that point, though fascinated with alchemy and life science, Victor’s ideas retain a manner of scientific remove. His egotism is controlled and does not boast a power over life or death. It is only when confronted with death that the fissures begin to appear and the idyllic scenes from his childhood begin to show the full remove of affection Victor experienced. Unable to deal with this abandonment realistically, he manipulates death to create renewed animation of the body in place of actual life. In his creation of the monster, he assumes the role of mother to child in his single-minded manner but overcome by his own ego and lacking compassion he abhors and shuns his â€Å"child† as an abomination. Victor’s monster finds himself thrown into a society for which he was neither prepared nor accepted. His abandonment is immediate but his initial reaction differs greatly from the destructive creationism of Victor. His rage at being ostracized is at first controlled and in a newborn state he recedes into the woodshed of the De Lacey family where he learns of and comes to yearn for a familial connection. Being denied this connection, yet again, his rage consumes him but does not obliterate this desire. That the novel should center on the idea of the mother-child relationship and the deep-seated effects of rejection and abandonment is no surprise considering Mary Shelley’s own experiences with motherhood. Her own mother Mary Wollenscraft died from complications to childbirth when Shelley was only 10 days old (Adams 72). Throughout the author’s childhood and adolescence she experienced feelings of abandonment and guilt. As a child she saw her birth as the cause of her mother’s death. Shelley’s own experiences with motherhood were no less tragic having lost her first child when she was only 17, just one year before she began writing Frankenstein. Shelley used her pain, to turn the tables to have death create life. As Will Adams explains, â€Å"Shelley’s feelings and fantasies about killing her mother became on of the formative influences in her life [†¦] Frankenstein is a meditation on the destructive consequences of growing up without a mother (or consistent father [†¦]) (73). Art was Shelley’s coping mechanism to come to terms with her own internal demons stemming from the guilt from her mother’s death and her own helplessness in the face of her first child’s death. Similarly, Victor struggles with the absence of parental affection and the death of his mother, which permanently removes this possibility from his life. His efforts to reconcile the science of his youth with the realities of his emotional and familial life, while carrying potential, become perverted in his quest to overcome death. Though Victor clearly idolizes his mother, his affections for her are based on the ideal of motherhood and not interconnected with the woman herself. Through Victor’s descriptions we see and feel a symbol of motherhood but not the day-to-day tasks and affections one associates with motherhood. Victor’s relationship to his mother suffers from his inability see her as a person and not simply a maternal symbol. Victor’s sense of his mother is directly related to his parents’ relationship with one another and not Victor’s relationship to them individually. Viewed through his father’s eyes, Victor’s mother is a creature of adoration. As Victor explains his parents’ relationship, â€Å"There was a show of gratitude and worship in his attachment to my mother, differing wholly from the doating fondness of age, for it was inspired by reverence for her virtues† (Shelley, Chapt. 1). Critics have questioned the role that being an only child played in Victor’s reception and perception of his parents’ affections. Feeling left out of their love for one another, Victor childhood consists of a â€Å"love/hate relationship with his parents because he senses that they share an affection that in some way excludes him† (Claridge 15). Victor’s over the top representation the goodness of his childhood, compared to the man he becomes, ring false, â€Å"while during every hour of my infant life I received a lesson of patience, of charity, and of self control, I was so guided by a silken cord that all seemed by one train of enjoyment to me† (Shelley, Chapt. 1). Viewing this in hindsight of Victor’s adult persona and rejection of parenting, it is difficult to accept this statement at face value. Where, after all, were these lessons in helping to guide Victor away from his creation of the monster and in maintaining strong bonds with his remaining family? His mother’s death from scarlet fever rather than halting his idyllic fantasies of perfection, only deepen them into a form of denial and repression that prevent closure and emotionally stunt him as a father to the creature. Even in death, his mother retains her saintliness, accepting and â€Å"resigning† herself â€Å"cheerfully to death† (Shelley, Chapt. 3). This must have made death all the more unreal for young Victor. As Will Adams explains in his psychological evaluation of the tale, Victor is â€Å"a man who cannot bear the reality of death and suffers greatly because of this defensive denial† (65). For Victor the death of his mother is not merely tragic, but â€Å"evil† and it is this view, which propels him forward in his endeavor to recreate life. As Adams explains, â€Å"he daemonizes death, daemonizes a reality that is completely natural and unavoidable† (65). Death becomes a foe to be overcome; if life can be ended so easily, than death should be no harder to reverse, is Victor’s basic reasoning. As a result of his experiment in turning death to life, Victor ignores the living family he still has in his father, brother and Elizabeth. Victor’s deficiencies in coping and accepting his creation are seen by come critics to stem from his own childhood. Victor appears to be incapable of loving his family, despite his many assertions to the contrary. He obviously feels that family relationships should be shaped around mutual love and communication but his own attempts are stinted and selfish. After his mother dies, he leaves as scheduled and does not return for 6 years until tragedy requires he fulfill his family obligation. When his brother William is murdered by Victor’s creation, his guilt overcomes his grief making the tragedy more Victor’s than anyone else’s. Not only has he lost his little brother, but it was his creation which had broken yet another connection between Victor and his family. Propelled by ego, he placed himself into the role of creator and mother, without fully comprehending the responsibility. Uncertain in his feelings of acceptance from his mother, Victor has little on which to base the parent-child bond and his feelings toward his father cause an even greater friction in the role he should have rightly played in the creation of the monster. Given revisions performed by Shelley to the original text, in which Victor’s adolescent relationship to his father is made to become even more remote. In the first version of the novel, Alphonse Frankenstein shares his son’s fascination with science but in the later 1831 edition Victor’s interest is singular only to him. This estrangement in affection between father and son becomes no less stark with the death of Victor’s mother. Instead he pulls himself farther away from his father, who seems to be pushing Victor away as well. Without a strong paternal or maternal bond, it is no surprise that Victor does not make this connection between himself and the monster. As Will Adams notes, if Victor had â€Å"the courage, or we could say the ego strength, to consciously accept responsibility for his grand venture, everything may have turned out differently† (79). The two years, which culminate with the creation of the monster, are defined by a single-minded energy that though engineered through scientific brilliance lack ethics. His purpose for these two years is creation; something of which he expects will be of benefit to mankind. Victor’s reaction to the monster at his â€Å"birth† throw light onto the lack of actual forethought and responsibility inherent in its creation, â€Å"Victor’s reactions suggest that eqoic, self-serving, death-denying motivations outweigh his genuine wish to serve humankind† (Adams 77). It is therefore not surprising that in the end, deluded throughout his endeavor that Victor would shun the reality of his efforts. Pieced together from dead bodies parts, Victor is never able to reconcile these various parts into a semblance of humanity. In fact, by the end, he is unable to fully comprehend the steps, which had led to his ability to conceptualize his creation, â€Å"this discovery was so great and overwhelming that all the steps which I had been progressively led to it were obliterated, and I beheld only the result† (Shelley, Chapt. 4). This can be read as Victor’s inability to discover and explore the root of his fascination with death and further avoiding the resolution of feelings which would have either stopped him in continuing or better prepared him to father his creation. To imagine the â€Å"birth† from the creature’s perspective is particular saddening. Though considered an abomination by established science and religion, the creature is unaware of his distinction from the rest of mankind. On opening his eyes the first time, he sought to gaze upon his creator and to be nurtured. Instead, Victor turns away in fright and abandons the creature to his own devices. Like a newborn, the creature is helpless in understanding the mechanics of the world and is even further handicapped by society’s judgment of his appearance. His physical deformity did not directly lead to his monstrous and violent behavior but rather the world’s rejection of him, starting with the rejection of his parent. Before the creature has committed his first crime, he is deemed by Victor to be a â€Å"daemon. † Will Adams notes that Shelley’s use of the image of daemon is intentional, â€Å"For the past few hundred years, some writers have deliberately chosen the forms daemon, in part to emphasize the psychological and spiritual character of these being who are midway between humans and gods† (Adams 60). Defying the logics of life and death, the creature is caught between humanity and a solitary existence. Intentionally large, further highlighting his abnormalities of the creature, he has the stature of a god but the emotional baggage of a human. In his observance of the De Lacey family, the creature is able to learn the constructs of a family’s day-to-day lives. During his time in their woodshed, the creature learns not only language and history but also comes to understand the nature of love and family. He knows that his appearance causes fright in the average person and therefore keeps himself hidden from the De Lacey’s wishing to learn more from them before revealing himself. Through his daily watchfulness, the creature comes to love and feel kinship for the family even as they remain unaware of his presence. He finds himself caught up in their stories and sympathizing with their plight. Even the creature’s own basic desires for food draw into a more universal focus as he realizes that each bit of food he takes unaware from the family, is one less bit of food they themselves will have to eat. If not for the creature’s very human inclination toward companionship, he may have succeeded in living peacefully aside the family for many years. However, as each day passes and he finds their lives entangling his own, the creature wishes for a human connection. Though monstrous in appearance, each part of him was once human and in the De Lacey’s he sees the full potential of this humanity. â€Å"Even though he is rejected when the De Laceys become terrified by his horrible appearance, he accomplishes (for a while) what Victor is never really able to do. That is, the creature transcends his own egocentric perspective, sees through the eyes of another, feels love, and acts kindly† (Adams 81). Victor, on the other hand, reacts to emotional closeness by pushing his family away. In fact, it is not surprising given Victor’s relationships with his family, and the distance he cultivates, that he would completely abandon a creature, which did not live up to his dream of reality. Victor’s obsession with natural science is a means by which to divert all of his attention away from these relationships and to realize something within himself. With the creation of the monster, Victor realizes his folly in believing he can reverse death but never addresses the root cause. Instead, he focuses his negative energy toward recognizing and rejecting the humanity of the creature. It has been supposed that this rejection is in effect a rejection not only of the monster but of the deep seated issues which Victor refuses to address, â€Å"Even though the creature appears strangely alien – a singular, isolated, non-human being with no kin nor friend – he is also strangely familiar, universally understandable and intimately connected to Victor† (Adams 64). In the role of parent, Victor Frankenstein, is an utter failure. Poorly prepared by his own childhood to provide genuine affection and understanding to the creature, Victor actions perpetuate an endless cycle. The creature’s rejection by his parent and the people from which he has learned affection and companionship, lead his unraveling into the very â€Å"daemon† his appearance implies him to be. His one request from Victor for a companion is denied to him on these grounds. While he briefly receives understanding from his creator through the narration of his tale of the De Lacey’s, the issues, which have plagued Victor’s familial relationships, create a strong barrier and lead to Victor destroying his companion. Victor is unable to relate to the creature, as it is the living proof of his own parents’ failings in raising him and his subsequent failures at love. In the end, Victor dies as alone as the creature; their only communion to another being is through each other. Starting as creator and creation, they each die nurturing their own unhappiness and solitude through a fruitless hunt that leaves them both monstrous. Works Cited Adams, Will W. â€Å"Making Daemons of Death and Love: Frankenstein, Existentialism, Psychoanalysis. † Journal of Humanistic Psychology. 41. 2001: 57-89. 31 March 2009 Claridge, Laura P. â€Å"Parent-Child Tensions in Frankenstein: The Search of Communion. † Studies in the Novel 17. 1 Spring 1985: 14. MasterFILE Premier. EBSCO. 31 Mar. 2009 . Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. Literature. org. < http://www. literature. org/authors/shelley-mary/frankenstein/>.

Explore Neptune’s Frigid Moon Triton

When the Voyager 2 spacecraft swept past the planet Neptune in 1989, no one was quite sure what to expect of its largest moon, Triton. Seen from Earth, its just a tiny point of light visible through a strong telescope. However, up-close, it showed off a water-ice surface split by geysers that shoot nitrogen gas up into the thin, frigid atmosphere. It not only was weird, the icy surface sported terrains never before seen. Thanks to Voyager 2 and its mission of exploration, Triton showed us just how strange a distant world can be. Triton: The Geologically Active Moon There arent too many active moons in the solar system. Enceladus at Saturn is one (and has been studied extensively by the Cassini mission), as is Jupiters tiny volcanic moon Io. Each of these has a form of volcanism; Enceladus has ice geysers and volcanoes while Io spouts out molten sulfur. Triton, not to be left out, is geologically active, too. Its activity is cryovolcanism — producing the kind of volcanoes that spew ice crystals instead of molten lava rock. Tritons cryovolcanoes spew material out from beneath the surface, which implies some heating from within this moon. Tritons geysers are located close to whats called the subsolar point, the region of the moon directly receiving the most sunlight. Given that its very cold out at Neptune, sunlight isnt nearly as strong as it is at Earth, so something in the ices is very sensitive to sunlight, and that weakens the surface. Pressure from material below pushes out cracks and vents in the thin shell of ice that covers Triton. That lets the nitrogen gas and plumes of dust blast out and into the atmosphere. These geysers can erupt for fairly long periods of time — up to a year in some cases. Their eruption plumes lay down streaks of dark material across the pale pinkish ice. Creating a Cantaloupe Terrain World The ice depots on Triton are mainly water, with patches of frozen nitrogen and methane. At least, thats what the southern half of this moon shows. Thats all Voyager 2 could image as it went by; the northern part was in shadow. Nonetheless, planetary scientists suspect that the northern pole looks similar to the southern region. Icy lava has been deposited across the landscape, forming pits, plains, and ridges. The surface also has some of the weirdest landforms ever seen in the form of cantaloupe terrain. Its called that because the fissures and ridges look like the skin of a cantaloupe. Its probably the oldest of Tritons icy surface units and is made up of dusty water ice. The region probably formed when material under the icy crust rose up and then sank back down again, which unsettled the surface. Its also possible that ice floods could have caused this weird crusty surface. Without followup images, its hard to get a good feel for possible causes of the cantaloupe terrain. How Did Astronomers Find Triton? Triton is not a recent  discovery in the annals of solar system exploration. It was actually found in 1846 by astronomer William Lassell. He was studying Neptune just after its discovery, looking for any possible moons in orbit around this distant planet. Because Neptune is named after the Roman god of the sea (who was the Greek Poseidon), it seemed appropriate to name its moon after another Greek sea god whose was fathered by Poseidon. It didnt take long for astronomers to figure out that Triton was weird in at least one way: its orbit. It circles Neptune in retrograde — that is, opposite to Neptunes rotation. For that reason, its very likely that Triton didnt form when Neptune did. In fact, it probably had nothing to do with Neptune but was captured by the planets strong gravity as it passed by. No one is quite sure where Triton originally formed, but its quite likely it was born as part of the Kuiper Belt of icy objects. It stretches outwards from the orbit of Neptune. The Kuiper Belt is also the home of frigid Pluto, as well as a selection of dwarf planets. Tritons fate is not to orbit Neptune forever. In a few billion years, it will wander too close to Neptune, within a region called the Roche limit. Thats the distance where a moon will start to break up due to gravitational influence. Exploration After Voyager 2 No other spacecraft has studied Neptune and Triton up close. However, after the Voyager 2 mission, planetary scientists have used Earth-based telescopes to measure Tritons atmosphere by watching as distant stars slipped behind it. Their light could then be studied for telltale signs of gases in Tritons thin blanket of air. Planetary scientists would like to explore Neptune and Triton further, but no missions have been selected to do so, yet. So, this pair of distant worlds will remain unexplored for the time being, until someone comes up with a lander that could settle down among the cantaloupe hills of Triton and send back more information.