ABSTRACT
I N addition to consideration for the fa.ceofyourfellow-man, there is another complementary factor which is of possibly equal importance in China. You must not shame a man by making him lose face and also you must not destroy his livelihood Of, as the expressive Chinese phrase goes, 'break his rice bowl'. I t is quite in order to get the best of him in a business deal, to beat him down to the lowest possible price and then make another attack by demanding discounts, rebates and allowances. But to bring him to destitution, to cause him unnecessary loss, to take advantage of technicalities, to insist on him fulfilling a contract when he can only do so by impoverishing himself - all these things are looked on as being abhorrently inhuman. The right to live is inherent and he who deprives his fellow-man of that right is no
better than a cannibal. There are, everything considered, surprisingly few lawsuits in China. One reason is that most business deals are between friends or relatives, and the powerful and well-organised trade guilds usually settle all disputes in a friendly and common-sense manner without reference to courts of law. Another reason is that no matter how favourable a contract one party to a controversy may have, or how much another is indebted to him, he will seldom resort to a lawsuit to enforce a claim or collect an account which might throw the other party into bankruptcy. Those suits which are brought into the courts are usually fought with great bitterness because the two parties, before resorting to the employment of lawyers, have reduced themselves to such insane anger that they have forgotten all about friendship, face and broken rice bowls.
