Environment
Contributor: Charles J Plumhoff
Country: China
City: Beijing
China is a very populated and crowded country and being close to one another is a way of life. The people are comfortable with less personal space than are Americans. We were actually pushed into the subway by a "professional pusher" and the locals seemed like it was just another day on the subway.
The issue of personal space was an aspect of China's environment that I did not realize was so different from the U.S. Traveling by subway or train, walking through the markets, or even getting onto an elevator in an office building, the luxury of personal space was not one employed by the urban Chinese due to the high population density. When talking with the folks from Intel China I found this absence of personal space to be the most interesting aspect of U.S. culture that one of the executives missed now that he lives in China.
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Environment