To be invited to someone home is considered a great honor and a sign of deep abiding trust and friendship. My students were suddenly expecting much more of me in terms of my correspondence with them and my generosity. They expected me to correspond frequently with them by email and to offer them free consultation, personal advice and even books that I had written. In return, they were willing to offer me access to the Taiwanese business market, free products from their own companies, and all of the friendship that I could handle. I soon received many wonderful gifts (including a beautiful painting and wooden sculpture that I still cherish).
What does all of this mean? First, “openness” is much more likely to be defined in Taiwan by the decision we make and actions we take than by the words we speak. My invitation was defined as an act of exceptional “openness” rather than as a kind gesture to men and women who are “a long way from home.” Second, the boundaries between work and home life are much greater in Taiwan than in the United States. We are much more likely in the USA to blend business and family life than in Taiwan. This, in turn, may suggest that we are likely in the United States to face a much greater interpersonal challenge than in Taiwan (or many other countries) with regard to differentiating between the Quad One for business and the Quad One for home and family.
The Psychic Echo: What is “True” about Me?
We ask ourselves: “Who am I?” As I have already suggested, this is a particularly important and difficult question to answer in our postmodern world. The British school suggests that this is an even more difficult question to answer than one might initially suppose. Advocates of the British School would suggest that Quad One is vulnerable to joint collusion – both parties join in on the illusion. This projection, in turn, helps to reinforce the idealized self (an invasion of Quad Four into Quad One) and leads (as I will discuss more fully in a later essay) to increased narcissism and a failure to accurately see either our own “real” self or the “real” self of other people with whom we interact.
