How is Language Important in China

In ancient Chinese times, there was an emperor who united China as a nation named Emperor Qin Shihuang. The priority he did after being the king of ancient China would be making union of currency and language. Those have been two elementary tools of society activities. Union of them will result in a union in social life thus a union as a nation. The Emperor Qin was surely smart. Language is what governs people mentally that people will assume they come from a same country if they have the same mother tongue.
As for the dialects, Chinese have countless of them throughout the country and some of the dialects are completely different from mandarin. For example, I have a Chinese friend whose ancestors came from nomadic tribes originally from Mid-East Asia and who still lives in a typical minority way. His ethnic group shares written forms of the Arabs and has developed a unique sound system against the Arabs. Some kinds of dialects are similar to mandarin in some way but extra understanding will also be needed. Dialects are an important part of our language system, because they form a diverse culture which remains culture identities.
So, united language and dialects are good friends to work together. A country would be isolated if either one is lost.
Nowadays, the world is working as a whole so international communication is necessary for arts, trade, political reasons etc. Take international trade in China as an example. In universities, they set it as a major that is among the top 10 popular majors; in the business field, there’re more companies doing foreign trade in China, as the professional international trade agencies are thriving. Foreign language is a kind of need in modern times.
So, let’s talk about inter-cultural communication. We’re famous for our high context language. High-context and low-context communication refers to how much speakers rely on things other than words to convey meaning. For example, Americans are more direct than Chinese. People understand each other basically depend on language in the U.S, but in China, one should always take the situation into account because people are trying to be polite that sometimes it’s hard to get their real meaning.
For example, an American businessman who was on his vocation in Beijing was attracted unexpectedly by a Chinese store when he was wondering on the street. He asked the manager to talk for further information. They had a great conversation. The American guy wanted to bring some documents the next day to talk formally about the possibility to cooperate in trade. The manager checked the schedule and said,”you can step by tomorrow.” When the American came the next day, the manager was so busy that seldom had time to talk. How’s that? Because people from low context culture backgrounds can seldom distinguish the indicative words when talking with those from high context ones. The secret is in “step by”, that means you can come but I may have time to attend you. It rather refers to “you’d better not come”, just a polite way to say so.
Directness is something to avoid, either to say something good or bad in Chinese. If somebody isn’t good-looking, you’d better say, “She has pretty personality”, pretty much alike what English culture says, “She’s homely.” If one done a pretty good job, his boss may say to him,” Do it even better next time. ” These are not real appraisal in English speaker’s mind. But we do avoid making it straight and you’ll have to think twice to get the real meaning.
So, we should learn language in a whole view of culture background in any case. Especially in China, learn the indirectness for your convenience.