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Contemporary Strategic
Chinese American
Business Negotiations
and Market Entry
Edited by
Steven J. Clarke
Contemporary Strategic Chinese American Business
Negotiations and Market Entry
 Steven J. Clarke
Editor

Contemporary
Strategic Chinese
American Business
Negotiations
and Market Entry
Editor
Steven J. Clarke
School of Business and Management
The Royal Melbourne Institute
of Technology
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

ISBN 978-981-19-6985-0 ISBN 978-981-19-6986-7 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-6986-7

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer
Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights
of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and
retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology
now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc.
in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such
names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for
general use.
The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and informa-
tion in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither
the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with
respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been
made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps
and institutional affiliations.

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Singapore Pte Ltd.
The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore
189721, Singapore
 Acknowledgments

I gratefully acknowledge the support of five special people who

contributed throughout my career and have provided terrific insight
from their experience in Chinese and American business activities, Joan
McReynolds, Dr. Peng Chan, Phil Poms, Jack Shelton, Robert Lee, and
Richard Murphy.
Joan McReynolds—Senior Vice President—Chief Customer Officer,
Hanes Brands.
A friend and advocate, for over 40 years, Joan has contributed in
countless ways to my international business adventures, supporting my
goals, through her incredible business management, and personal skills!
Dr. Peng Chan—Tenured Professor of International Strategic
Management, California State University Fullerton, founder, and CEO
of Global Management Group. Dr. Peng, my mentor and friend, has also
been my boss at Global Management Group, appointing me as Managing
Director Asia. Dr. Peng is a distinguished executive and academic, having
published almost 200 articles, and has been my co-author for our mutual
publications focusing on business in Asia.
Phil Poms—Senior Vice President of Carter Hawley Hale Department
Stores, Federated Department Stores, and May Department Stores, my
boss in each case.
Phil’s management and friendship provided me with grounded busi-
ness skills and strategies, while also encouraging me to explore inter-
national sourcing, private label, and marketing and to achieve retail

v
vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

department store success. Phil also taught me how to manage, without

confrontation; in its place, to inspire success through partnership in
management style, and support for creativity and innovation in sales,
profitability, and marketing in several retail competitive environments.
Phil, his wife Marni, and son Josh have been my inspiration for almost
4 decades.
Robert Lee—Founder and Managing Director of Lapin Apparel Ltd.,
Hong Kong.
Robert’s guidance, friendship, and partnership enhanced my experi-
ences in living and working in China and resulted in a deeper under-
standing of Chinese business and culture. He is not only a brilliant
business executive, but also an entrepreneur with unlimited vision and
the skills that have led to his significant successes, and accomplishments,
numerous times over the years. Robert was my partner in Freesia Devel-
opment Ltd. A company we created with headquarters in Shanghai, for
the purposes of attracting, supporting, and guiding foreign market entry
into the China market. We worked with global brands, retailers, hospi-
tality, franchises, and more. This partnership proficiency helped build on
my “real world” experiences in China market entry and cross-cultural
negotiations.
Jack Shelton—Founder and President of Strategic Partners Inc.
Dallas, Texas.
Jack’s marketing skills and tenacity in business provided me with a
template for accomplishment in my endeavors as both a business exec-
utive and in project management. Jack has shown me how to balance my
personal life with my career and enjoy both along the way. His friendship
has provided a foundation for my confidence in my business and teaching
endeavors.
Richard Murphy—Friend.
Richie’s friendship and support, during the writing of this book,
provided a welcome view, as a respected “real world” approach to our
discussions. His voice will be missed.
Further, I must thank the hundreds of authors who have explored the
many issues facing Americans and Chinese in their cross-cultural business
negotiations. The vast research to date to try to explain the concep-
tual way the Chinese think about business and negotiations, as Chinese
and American history and culture are uniquely distinctive, has produced
significantly diverse conclusions.
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS vii

I would also like to thank all my co-authors added during this

book preparation journey and our interview executive participants,
who provided tremendous perceptiveness and insight based on their
valuable experience and noteworthy accomplishments in challenging
China/American business environments.
 Empathy

For a better understanding of human behavior and human value

Harvard President Drew Faust

In a world where we tend to think of business in terms of the bottom line

and financial metrics, a discussion of the role of empathy in business seems
like an indulgence. But is it really an indulgence, or is it a marketplace
imperative instead? (Forbes, 2013)

I would like to set the tone for this book and for my suggested
approach to cross-cultural negotiations as you prepare for the China
market. Culture is the preeminent element that requires your critical
capacity to inquire, without bias, avoiding prevailing assumptions and
imperfect theoretical foundations, but instead, to ask questions that go
beyond your current understandings, your initial interpretations, and to
acknowledge the role of your Chinese counterpart’s culture in their nego-
tiations strategy, and as a result, in your strategic China market entry and
negotiation development. For purposes of this book, I would like to offer
a definition of empathy as:
Empathy is the experience of understanding people’s condition,
from their perspective
Please note, I am not suggesting your goal should be that of “role-
taking” or even the “golden rule.” The objective is not for you to try
to behave like your Chinese or American counterpart, or to treat them,
as you want to be treated. You should remain loyal to your own culture,

ix
x EMPATHY

moral, ethical, and intellectual boundaries. As an alternative, I suggest

you get a sense of how Chinese perceptions are different from American
perceptions; and how your conjoint situations diverge. Chinese percep-
tions are uniquely tailored to their perspective and feelings on the issues
comprising negotiations. You will find it difficult to have understanding
if you remain disconnected from each other and from China’s society
and marketplace. Instead, you must enlist an active empathy toward
your Chinese counterpart’s cultural elements that set the table for their
motivations, needs, and behaviors.
“The process of empathy teaches a person as much about the self
as about the other… complicated by language, culture, and power”
(Williams Tanner, 2014).
In my experience, negotiating in China, while I read as much as I could
within the considerable literature offered, I found it difficult to under-
stand why robust, established American business-based negotiations with
my Chinese counterparts seemed imbalanced, and routinely frustrating.
While I believed I was researching and experimenting with sound busi-
ness strategy, I failed to appreciate and grasp the differences in values,
perceptions, and motivations that my Chinese counterparts experience.
I tried to deal with these barriers by standardizing the way roles are
taken. My American-based view of success, being that of a win-win
and my personal goal of trying to make as much money as possible
for me, my firm, and for my strategic alliances were not in equilibrium
in my negotiations. It was and is difficult to match up strategies and
tactics that are not in equilibrium. Judging each other will not get us
where we need to be. Instead, we must endeavor to understand the
different cultural norms. Just as I must decide on the degree of “stan-
dardization versus customization” of my products and services for the
Chinese market, so must I decide on the balance of “standardization and
customization” of my approach to negotiations in the Chinese business
environment. This approach to research and negotiation is based on a sort
of mutuality, characterizing our alternatives and actions so that they are
multidimensional.
It was not until I recognized the value and the necessity for an empa-
thetic approach, to my culturally Chinese-oriented research, and planning,
that I could truly progress toward my effective strategic negotiation
development and market understanding.
 Contents

Preface 1
Steve J. Clarke
Introduction 7
Steve J. Clarke
China Strategic Analysis 17
Steve J. Clarke, Minh Ngo, and Bill Au
China and Negotiation 85
Steven Clarke and Saiful Alam Saiket
China Market Environment 195
Steve Clarke and Todd Rogers
China Market Entry 231
Lynne M. Sprugel
China Cultural Environment 281
Steve Clarke and Saiful Alam Saiket
China and Guanxi 301
Steve Clarke and Saiful Alam Saiket
American and Chinese Ethics and Their Influence
on Multinational Business 311
Edmund Li Sheng

xi
xii CONTENTS

Resolving Commercial Dispute in China: The Legal

system, The Law, and The Dispute Resolution Methods 335
Shu Zhang, Peng Guo, and Chaolin Zhang
China’s Circular Economy Toward Environmental, Social,
and Governance 369
Wai Ching Poon and Chean Shen Lim
China Ecommerce and Marketing 395
Sharon Gai
Innovation and Technology in China 437
Michael Rowe and Kleanthes Yannakou
Challenge of Identifying and Negotiating with Chinese
Factories 453
Neale G O’Connor and Mike Bellamy
Fintech Market Development in China 471
Stanley Teck Lee Yap
China Belt and Road Initiative 495
Scott McDonald
Case Studies 517
Edmund Li Sheng

General Glossary, Terms, and Definitions 543

Index 551
 Notes on Contributors

Dr. Clarke Steven J. arrived in academia in 2017 after spending 45+

years in international business. He is currently an Hinrich Foundation
Honorary Global Trade Leader having collaborated with the Hinrich
Foundation and RMIT University on the state-of-the-art Masters of
Global Trade (by industry for industry) program, helping the future
global trade leaders meet the dynamic and contemporary issues facing
business leaders improving sustainable trade, benefitting many and
contributing to great levels of peace. In 1998, Steve moved to Bangkok,
Thailand, where he consulted for retail stores and brands in Asia,
including Central Department Stores, Robinson Department Store, Nike,
Adidas, and Reebok. He was responsible for the design and sourcing for
brands and retail, including men’s furnishing, sportswear, sport apparel,
kids, and outerwear.
In 2002, he founded Freesia Development in Shanghai with govern-
ment officials in China to help foreign companies enter the market. They
consulted for international brands such as Nike, Adidas, Reebok, Donna
Karan, Armani AX, and Quest Sports China.
Gai Sharon started her career in e-commerce at a Fortune 500 systems
integrator, enabling SMBs to conveniently order computer hardware
online. She was part of Alibaba’s globalization initiative in the Alibaba
Global Leadership Academy, which strived to internationalize Alibaba’s
domestic business units. In her tenure as a Category Manager in Tmall,
China’s largest e-commerce platform, she worked with FMCG brands

xiii
xiv NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

from large customers to emerging internet-viral brands in crafting their

digital marketing and online e-commerce strategy in China. She currently
serves as the Director of Global Key Accounts in the Tmall Overseas team,
enabling global brands to leverage Alibaba’s overseas e-commerce plat-
forms. She has an Honors Bachelor of Arts from McGill and a Master of
Science from Columbia University. She volunteers as a Global Shaper as
part of the Young Global Shaper Program in the World Economic Forum.
Dr. Guo Peng is a Lecturer in Law in the Graduate School of Business
and Law at RMIT University where he teaches Contract Law, Fundamen-
tals of Contract Law, Advanced Contract Law, and Commercial Law to
both undergraduate and post-graduate students. Prior to joining RMIT,
he worked at UNSW Law School, Melbourne Law School, La Trobe
Law School, and Deakin Law School. Also, he held visiting positions at
different universities, including University of Amsterdam, University of
Osnabrück, and Warwick University. His research interests lie in inter-
national sale of goods, international commercial arbitration, comparative
contract law focusing on English, Australian and Chinese contract laws,
and legal education. He has published his research in high ranking
academic law journals in his field, such as Journal of Contract Law and
Vindobona Journal of International Commercial Law and Arbitration.
Recently, his research focuses on a project on the application of the
CISG in China. The research outcome will be published by Springer
Germany as a book series to which he is the chief editor. He received
scholarships awarded by renowned research institutions and international
organizations, including the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and
International Private Law, the International Institute for the Unification
of Private Law (UNIDROIT), the Swiss Institute of Comparative Law,
and the European Union.
Mr. Lim Shen is an entrepreneur and structured investment professional
having almost 32 years of experience in ICT, FinTech, and Sustainable
Development. He currently provided investment and strategic manage-
ment advisory for Start-Ups, SMEs, and Corporates that focus on
developing Circular Economic and Shared Economic Frameworks, incor-
porating Environmental, Social, and Governance principles in respec-
tive business models and go-to-market approach. His key areas of
focus are Regenerative Agriculture and FinTech industries, particularly
high-technology-related fundraising in London and Hong Kong equity
markets.
 NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS xv

Dr. McDonald Scott has been with RMIT University since June 2016
and had previously taught Cambridge—Business Studies and General
Science to high-school students at Vietnam Australia International School
in HCMC since 2011. Besides lecturing and coordinating 3 courses at
RMIT, he is also involved in student recruitment efforts throughout
Vietnam as well as being a coordinator in the COIL program along with
supervising 2 Ph.D. candidates. At home he tutors students in English
(EFL & IELTS), Science, and Business Skills. Before coming to Vietnam,
he was employed as a Project Manager for an electronics manufacturer in
“Little Saigon” California, USA, as well as a Customer Service Manager,
Materials Manager and Purchasing Manager in the electronics, medical
device, and aerospace industries, and further back in time, he was a
Warehouse Manager for a laser manufacturer. He has recently received
a 2020 Teaching Award for Outstanding Contributions to Teaching and
Learning from RMIT and the prior year received a Graduate Certificate
in Tertiary Teaching and Learning. He obtained his Ph.D. in Business
(Entrepreneurship) from Nottingham Business School (NTU), his M.Sc.
in Project Management from the University of Hertfordshire, his M.B.A.,
and B.B.A. from Trinity College.
Poon Wai Ching is an Associate Professor and the Director of Grad-
uate Research Programs at the School of Business, Monash University
Malaysia. She has authored/co-authored more than 66 refereed journal
articles (with 17 tier “A” and “A*” ranked journal papers listing in
Australian Business Dean Council, ABDC), 5 books, and 6 book chap-
ters. She has sustained an active research agenda in Business and Financial
Economics, and Sustainable Development. She has published actively in
high-quality mainstream and multidisciplinary journals, such as Energy
Economics, Journal of Contemporary Accounting and Economics, Pacific-
Basin Finance Journal, International Review of Finance, Scientomet-
rics, International Business Review, Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology,
Personality and Individual Differences, etc. She serves as Editor (Cogent
Economics and Finance), Editorial Board (Corporate Governance: An
International Review; Water Conservation Science and Engineering ), and
Editorial Review Board (Management and Organization Review). She
is currently working on circular economy framework on regenerative
agricultural. Her research excellence and impact have been recognized
with different honors. She is in the top 25% of economists in Malaysia,
xvi NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

ranked by RePEc. She was a Visiting Scholar in Helsinki School of Busi-

ness (Finland), Soka University (Japan), Monash University (Australia),
Deakin University (Australia), and University of Queensland (Australia),
and Academia Sinica (Taiwan).
Rogers Todd After completing his Finance degree, he spent several years
in the Dairy Manufacturing Industry in Australia prior to moving to
Vietnam in 2010. He has been working in the education field since that
time and joined RMIT University in 2013 as an English Instructor and
then Market Engagement Coordinator. Since completing his M.B.A. in
2016, he worked as the School Manager of the RMIT Asia Graduate
Centre leading the administration team for the post-graduate business
master’s and Ph.D. programs. He commenced his Ph.D. program in 2018
and joined the RMIT Academic team in 2019 as an Associate Lecturer.
He has lectured in several courses across departments within the School of
Business and Management. His research interests include Organisational
Behaviour, Cross-cultural management, Strategy, and Blockchain.
Professor Sheng Li received his M.A. and Ph.D. from Universitaet
Freiburg, Germany, after graduating from Peking University. His research
focuses mainly on urban and international political economy. He has
published over 60 research papers in peer-reviewed academic journals,
among which 40 published in journals listed in the Social Sciences Cita-
tion Index. He has published one book with Palgrave, and another one is
in progress.
Professor Sheng’s services, honors, and projects include Associate
Dean of Faculty of Social Sciences, University Senate member, Coor-
dinator of Joint Programs of Macao Police Forces and University of
Macau, Programme Coordinator of Master of Arts in European Studies,
board member of Macau Urban Renewal Ltd., external advisor to Macao
Central Policy Unit with regard to Macao’s Urban Development Master
Plan and Macao’s Territorial Sea Management, member of Economic
Development Committee chaired by the Chief Executive, member of
Public Services Evaluation Committee, member of Industrial Layout
Experts Consultative Committee, Vice Chairman of Grand Thought
Think Tank Macao, member of the editorial board of “Cities”, First
Prize (research paper category) in the 3rd Macau Humanities and Social
Sciences Outstanding Achievement Award, Second Prize (research paper
category) in the 4th Macau Humanities and Social Sciences Outstanding
Achievement Award, and First Prize (research paper category) in the
 NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS xvii

5rd Macau Humanities and Social Sciences Outstanding Achievement

Award. Professor Sheng is a member of European Association of Evolu-
tionary Political Economy, Regional Studies Association International,
International Studies Association, and International Political Economy
Society.
Sprugel Lynne is a visionary Retail Product and Supply Chain Execu-
tive, Advisor, Speaker, Thought Leader, and Board Member with more
than 30 years of success across the retail, higher education, and apparel &
fashion industries. Her areas of expertise include global supply chain
management, branding, product development, quality assurance, global
sourcing, production management, logistics, sourcing/factory compli-
ance, Asian operations, and supply chain software solutions.
She holds a leadership position as the Founder and Chief Executive
Officer of abuzz global LLC, which is an advisory firm for businesses
needing global supply chain solutions, foresight supply chain risk manage-
ment planning, and cross-functional supply chain training.
She has also served as the Vice President and Managing Director of
International Sourcing Operations for Academy International Ltd based
in Hong Kong for six years where she focused on sourcing, production,
quality assurance, logistics, and factory compliance. She developed and
executed six years of Asian sourcing plan, opening an Asia Hub office
in Hong Kong and created a dedicated quality assurance team in China,
Vietnam, Cambodia, and Bangladesh.
She additionally led as the Vice President of Global Sourcing for
Academy Sports + Outdoors as well as the Senior Director of Import
and Domestic Logistics and Compliance. Prior to joining Academy, She
was Vice President—International Sourcing, Quality Assurance, Logis-
tics, and Compliance for Jerell Ltd., the womenswear division of The
Haggar Clothing Co. At JCPenney Purchasing Corporation in Dallas,
TX, Lynne managed International Sourcing and Customs Broker Opera-
tions/Payment Processing. She also worked for Norman Krieger Customs
Brokerage in Los Angeles, and Radio Shack Corporation in Fort Worth,
Texas.
She obtained her Doctor of Business Administration from the City
University of Hong Kong, a Master of Business Administration in Inter-
national Management from the University of Dallas. She has also received
a Bachelor of Business Administration in International Business from
xviii NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Washington State University and a Bachelor of Arts in International

Affairs from Texas Christian University.
She has attended Executive Education courses at University of
California-Berkeley, Stanford University, University of Cambridge-Lucy
Cavendish College, University of Houston, and GMI Sustainability
Reporting training. She has been an Adjunct Instructor at several US
universities, and continues at University of Dallas, teaching Global
Strategy at the Gupta College of Business MBA program. She is also a
licensed US Customs Broker.
She is a Vice Chair—Hong Kong American Chamber of Commerce-
Apparel, Footwear, and Supply Chain Committee; is Vice President and
on the Board of Directors of Americas Apparel Producers Network
(AAPN), and member of the American Apparel and Footwear Associa-
tion (AAFA). She is an advisor for Texas Tech University—Department of
Design, Apparel Design, and Manufacturing. She has also spoken at many
events and universities such as the recent University of Dallas Leader-
ship Lab webinar on “The Current State of Supply Chain,” Spieckerman
Retail, PI Apparel-Hong Kong, Inside Fashion HK Summit, Fashion
Transformer, and CBX Global Sourcing Days. She loves sports, playing
the flute, and monitoring global current events.
Dr. Yap Stanley is a Lecturer in finance and economics at RMIT
Vietnam. He had previously taught at Xiamen University Malaysia and
several colleges in China for five years. Before joining the academia,
he has twelve years of industry experience in supply chain management
and global trade, where he holds senior managerial roles in minerals
mining and exploration, palm oil plantation, telecommunication, and e-
commerce. He serves as an Associate Research Fellow of the Institute
of China Studies at the University of Malaya and the Institute of ASEAN
Studies at Guangxi University of Nationalities China. He has received two
external grants from the private sector. He has published journal articles
and book chapters on trade and finance development in Asian markets. He
was also a familiar voice in Chinese newspapers in Malaysia for the past
ten years in weekly commentaries on current issues in the world economy.
He also received two outstanding trainer awards from Xiamen University
Malaysia for supervised students to won two silver medals and one bronze
medal in the 3rd and 5th China College Students’ “Internet+” Innovation
and Entrepreneurship Competition. He holds a Ph.D. in Finance and a
M.Sc. in Economics from Shanghai University of Finance and Economics.
 NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS xix

His current research interests encompass topics related to international

trade and finance, digital economy, big data, and machine learning, CSR
and social accounting, and China and the world economy.
Dr. Zhang Shu is a Lecturer of commercial law in the Deakin Law
School, Deakin University. Before she joined the Deakin Law School
she worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the Chinese International Busi-
ness and Economic Law Initiative, University of New South Wales (now
the Herbert Smith Freehills CIBEL Centre). She specialized in the area
of international commercial law and published extensively on the topic of
international arbitration and international sale of goods law. In addition,
she also coached the Deakin Law School’s Willem C. Vis International
Commercial Arbitration Moot team in the past few years and leads the
Alfred Deakin International Commercial Arbitration Moots. Her recent
research interests are the application of various legal instruments in
international commercial practice, judicial review of arbitration agree-
ments and arbitral awards, as well as the performance of international
commercial contracts, from a comparative law perspective.
 List of Figures

China Strategic Analysis

Fig. 1 Research requirements 23
Fig. 2 SEQ China wheel of competitive strategy Porter (1980) 26
Fig. 3 China situation analysis 29
Fig. 4 PESTLE analysis 42
Fig. 5 China SWO4 T situational analysis 45
Fig. 6 Porter’s value chain 50
Fig. 7 Value chain sequential process of value-creating activities 51
Fig. 8 China/United States geographic comparison 57
Fig. 9 Differentiation and standardization (Source Adapted
from Doole and Lowe [2012]) 70
Fig. 10 Market mix—4Ps 72

China and Negotiation

Fig. 1 Negotiation approach questions 95
Fig. 2 French and Raven (1959) described the bases of power
and influence 107
Fig. 3 Culture, trust, and behavior (CTB Model) 111
Fig. 4 Behavior assessment elements 113
Fig. 5 International misconceptions of Americans 117
Fig. 6 International perceptions of defined U.S. groups 118
Fig. 7 American views of Chinese 121
Fig. 8 Pre-negotiation/preparation stages 128
Fig. 9 Chinese/American formal/active negotiation 130

xxi
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
The Project Gutenberg eBook of In the three
zones
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United
States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away
or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License
included with this ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you
are not located in the United States, you will have to check the
laws of the country where you are located before using this
eBook.

Title: In the three zones

Author: Frederic Jesup Stimson

Release date: June 20, 2022 [eBook #68351]

Language: English

Original publication: United States: Charles Scribner's Sons,

1893

Credits: D A Alexander and the Online Distributed Proofreading

Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced
from images generously made available by University
of California libraries)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN THE

THREE ZONES ***
 In the Three
Zones
By F. J. Stimson (J. S. of Dale)

Dr. Materialismus. His Hypothesis

Worked Out

An Alabama Courtship. Its Simplicities

and its Complexities

Los Caraqueños. Being the Life History

of Don Sebastian Marques del Torre
and
of Dolores, his wife, Condesa de Luna

Charles Scribner’s Sons

New York, 1893
 Copyright, 1893, by
Charles Scribner’s Sons

TROW DIRECTORY
PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY
NEW YORK
 WORKS OF FICTION
BY

F. J. STIMSON
(J. S. of Dale)

First Harvests, Cloth, $1.25

The Sentimental Calendar, $1.00
The Crime of Henry Vane, Cloth, $1.00
Guerndale, Cloth, $1.25; Paper, 50 Cents
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 DR. MATERIALISMUS
HIS HYPOTHESIS WORKED OUT

Ishould like some time to tell how Tetherby came to his end; he,
too, was a victim of materialism, as his father had been before him;
but when he died, he left this story, addressed among his papers to
me; and I am sure he meant that all the world (or such part of it as
cares to think) should know it. He had told it, or partly told it, to us
before; in fragments, in suggestions, in those midnight talks that
earnest young men still have in college, or had, in 1870.
Tetherby came from that strange, cold, Maine coast, washed in
its fjords and beaches by a clear, cold sea, which brings it fogs of
winter but never haze of summer; where men eat little, think much,
drink only water, and yet live intense lives; where the village people,
in their long winters away from the world, in an age of revivals had
their waves of atheism, and would transform, in those days, their
pine meeting-houses into Shakspere clubs, and logically make a cult
of infidelity; now, with railways, I suppose all that has ceased; they
read Shakspere as little as the scriptures, and the Sunday
newspaper replaces both. Such a story—such an imagination—as
Tetherby’s, could not happen now—perhaps. But they take life
earnestly in that remote, ardent province; they think coldly; and,
when you least expect it, there comes in their lives, so hard and
sharp and practical, a burst of passion.
He came to Newbridge to study law, and soon developed a
strange faculty for debate. The first peculiarity was his name—which
first appeared and was always spelled, C. S. J. J. Tetherby in the
catalogue, despite the practice, which was to spell one’s name in full.
Of course, speculation was rife as to the meaning of this portentous
array of initials; and soon, after his way of talk was known, arose a
popular belief that they stood for nothing less than Charles Stuart
Jean Jacques. Nothing less would justify the intense leaning of his
mind, radical as it was, for all that was mystical, ideal, old. But
afterwards we learned that he had been so named by his curious
father, Colonel Sir John Jones, after a supposed loyalist ancestor,
who had flourished in the time of the Revolution, and had gone to
Maine to get away from it; Tetherby’s father being evidently under
the impression that the two titles formed a component part of the
ancestor’s identity.
Rousseau Tetherby, as he continued to be called, was a tall, thin,
broad-shouldered fellow, of great muscular strength and yet with
feeble health, given to hallucinations and morbid imaginations which
he would recount to you in that deep monotone of twang that
seemed only fit to sell a horse in. The boys made fun of Tetherby; he
bore it with a splendid smile and a twinkle in his ice-blue eye, until
one day it went too far, and then he tackled the last offender and
chucked him off the boat-house float into the river. He would have
rowed upon the university crew, but that his digestion gave out;
strong as he was in mind and body, nothing, that went for the
nutrition and fostering of life, was well with him. Such men as he are
repellent to the sane, and are willed by the world to die alone.

Some one on that night, I remember, had said something

derogatory about Goethe’s theory of colors. A dry subject, an
abstruse subject, a useless subject—as one might think—but it
roused Tetherby to sudden fury. He made a vehement defence of the
great poet-philosopher against the dry, barren mathematics of the
Newtonian science.
“Do you cipherers think all that is reducible to numbers? to so
many beats per second, like your own dry hearts? Sound may be
nothing but a quicker rattle—is it but a rattle, the music in your
souls? If light is but the impact of more rapid molecules, does MAN
bring nothing else, when he worships the glory of the dawn? You
say, tones are a few thousand beats per second, and colors a few
billion beats per second—what becomes of all the numbers left
between? If colored lights count all these billions, up from red to
violet, and white light is the sum of all the colors, what can be its
number but infinity? But is a white light GOD? Or would you
cipherers make of God a cipher? Smoke looks yellow against the
sky, and blue against the forest—but how can its number change?
You, who make all to a number, as governments do to convicts in a
prison! I tell you, this rage for machinery will bear Dead Sea fruit.
You confound man’s highest emotions with the tickling of the gray
matter in his brain; that way lies death and suicide of the soul——”
We stared; we thought he had gone crazy.
“Goethe and Dante still know more about this universe than any
cipherer,” he said, more calmly. And then he told us this story; we
fancied it a nightmare, or a morbid dream; but earnestly he told it,
and slowly, surely, he won our hearts at least to some believing in
the terror of the tale.
When he was through, we parted, with few words, thinking poor
Tetherby mad. But when he died it was found among his papers,
addressed to me. Materialism had conquered him, but not subdued
him; “say not the struggle naught availed him” though he left but this
one tract behind. It is only as a sermon that it needs preserving,
though the story of poor Althea Hardy was, I believe, in all essentials
true.

I was born and lived, until I came to this university, in a small

town in Maine. My father was a graduate of B—— College, and had
never wholly dissolved his connection with that place; probably
because he was there are not unfavorably know to more
acquaintances, and better people, than he elsewhere found. The
town is one of those gentle-mannered, ferocious-minded, white
wooden villages, common to Maine; with two churches, a brick town-
hall, a stucco lyceum, a narrow railway station, and a spacious
burying-ground. It is divided into two classes of society: one which
institutes church-sociables, church-dances, church-sleighing parties;
which twice a week, and critically, listens to a long and ultra-
Protestant, almost mundane, essay-sermon; and which comes to
town with, and takes social position from, pastoral letters of
introduction, that are dated in other places and exhibited like
marriage certificates. I have known the husbands at times get their
business employments on the strength of such encyclicals (but the
ventures of these were not rarely attended with financial disaster, as
passports only hinder honest travellers); the other class falling rather
into Shakespeare clubs, intensely free-thinking, but calling Sabbath
Sunday, and pretending to the slightly higher social position of the
two. This is Maine, as I knew it; it may have changed since. Both
classes were in general Prohibitionists, but the latter had wine to
drink at home.
In this town were many girls with pretty faces; there, under that
cold, concise sky of the North, they grew up; their intellects
preternaturally acute, their nervous systems strung to breaking pitch,
their physical growth so backward that at twenty their figures would
be flat. We were intimate with them in a mental fellowship. Not that
we boys of twenty did not have our preferences, but they were
preferences of mere companionship; so that the magnanimous
confidence of English America was justified; and anyone of us could
be alone with her he preferred from morn to midnight, if he chose,
and no one be the wiser or the worse. But there was one exceptional
girl in B——, Althea Hardy. Her father was a rich ship-builder; and
his father, a sea-captain, had married her grandmother in Catania,
island of Sicily. With Althea Hardy, I think, I was in love.
In the winter of my second year at college there came to town a
certain Dr. Materialismus—a German professor, scientist, socialist—
ostensibly seeking employment as a German instructor at the
college; practising hypnotism, magnetism, mesmerism, and
mysticism; giving lectures on Hegel, believing in Hartmann, and in
the indestructibility of matter and the destructibility of the soul; and
his soul was a damned one, and he cared not for the loss of it.
Not that I knew this, then; I also was fascinated by him, I
suppose. There was something so bold about his intellectuality, that
excited my admiration. Althea and I used to dispute about it; she said
she did not like the man. In my enthusiasm, I raved to her of him;
and then, I suppose, I talked to him of her more than I should have
done. Mind you, I had no thought of marriage then; nor, of course, of
love. Althea was my most intimate friend—as a boy might have
been. Sex differences were fused in the clear flame of the intellect.
And B—— College itself was a co-educational institution.
The first time they met was at a coasting party; on a night of
glittering cold, when the sky was dusty azure and the stars burned
like blue fires. I had a double-runner, with Althea; and I asked the
professor to come with us, as he was unused to the sport, and I
feared lest he should be laughed at. I, of course, sat in front and
steered the sled; then came Althea; then he; and it was his duty to
steady her, his hands upon her waist.
We went down three times with no word spoken. The girls upon
the other sleds would cry with exultation as they sped down the long
hill; but Althea was silent. On the long walk up—it was nearly a mile
—the professor and I talked; but I remember only one thing he said.
Pointing to a singularly red star, he told us that two worlds were
burning there, with people in them; they had lately rushed together,
and, from planets, had become one burning sun. I asked him how he
knew; it was all chemistry, he said. Althea said, how terrible it was to
think of such a day of judgment on that quiet night; and he laughed a
little, in his silent way, and said she was rather too late with her pity,
for it had all happened some eighty years ago. “I don’t see that you
cry for Marie Antoinette,” he said; “but that red ray you see left the
star in 1789.”
We left Althea at her home, and the professor asked me down to
his. He lived in a strange place; the upper floor of a warehouse, upon
a business street, low down in the town, above the Kennebec. He
told me that he had hired it for the power; and I remembered to have
noticed there a sign “To Let—One Floor, with Power.” And sure
enough, below the loud rush of the river, and the crushing noise
made by the cakes of ice that passed over the falls, was a pulsing
tremor in the house, more striking than a noise; and in the loft of his
strange apartment rushed an endless band of leather, swift and
silent. “It’s furnished by the river,” he said, “and not by steam. I
thought it might be useful for some physical experiments.”
 The upper floor, which the doctor had rented, consisted mainly of
a long loft for manufacturing, and a square room beyond it, formerly
the counting-room. We had passed through the loft first (through
which ran the spinning leather band), and I had noticed a forest of
glass rods along the wall, but massed together like the pipes of an
organ, and opposite them a row of steel bars like levers. “A mere
physical experiment,” said the doctor, as we sank into couches
covered with white fur, in his inner apartment. Strangely disguised,
the room in the old factory loft, hung with silk and furs, glittering with
glass and gilding; there was no mirror, however, but, in front of me,
one large picture. It represented a fainting anchorite, wan and yellow
beneath his single sheepskin cloak, his eyes closing, the crucifix he
was bearing just fallen in the desert sand; supporting him, the arms
of a beautiful woman, roseate with perfect health, with laughing, red
lips, and bold eyes resting on his wearied lids. I never had seen such
a room; it realized what I had fancied of those sensuous, evil
Trianons of the older and corrupt world. And yet I looked upon this
picture; and as I looked, some tremor in the air, some evil influence
in that place, dissolved all my intellect in wild desire.
“You admire the picture?” said Materialismus. “I painted it; she
was my model.” I am conscious to-day that I looked at him with a
jealous envy, like some hungry beast. I had never seen such a
woman. He laughed silently, and going to the wall touched what I
supposed to be a bell. Suddenly my feelings changed.
“Your Althea Hardy,” went on the doctor, “who is she?”
“She is not my Althea Hardy,” I replied, with an indignation that I
then supposed unreasoning. “She is the daughter of a retired sea-
captain, and I see her because she alone can rank me in the class.
Our minds are sympathetic. And Miss Hardy has a noble soul.”
“She has a fair body,” answered he; “of that much we are sure.”
I cast a fierce look upon the man; my eye followed his to that
picture on the wall; and some false shame kept me foolishly silent. I
should have spoken then.... But many such fair carrion must strew
the path of so lordly a vulture as this doctor was; unlucky if they
thought (as he knew better) that aught of soul they bore entangled in
their flesh.
“You do not strain a morbid consciousness about a chemical
reaction,” said he. “Two atoms rush together to make a world, or
burn one, as we saw last night; it may be pleasure or it may be pain;
conscious organs choose the former.”
My distaste for the man was such that I hurried away, and went to
sleep with a strange sadness, in the mood in which, as I suppose,
believers pray; but that I was none. Dr. Materialismus had had a
plum-colored velvet smoking-jacket on, with a red fez (he was a sort
of beau), and I dreamed of it all night, and of the rushing leather
band, and of the grinding of the ice in the river. Something made me
keep my visit secret from Althea; an evil something, as I think it now.
The following day we had a lecture on light. It was one in a
course in physics, or natural philosophy, as it was called in B——
College; just as they called Scotch psychology “Mental Philosophy,”
with capital letters; it was an archaic little place, and it was the first
course that the German doctor had prevailed upon the college
government to assign to him. The students sat at desks, ranged
around the lecture platform, the floor of the hall being a concentric
inclined plane; and Althea Hardy’s desk was next to mine.
Materialismus began with a brief sketch of the theory of sound; how
it consisted in vibrations of the air, the coarsest medium of space,
but could not dwell in ether; and how slow beats—blows of a
hammer, for instance—had no more complex intellectual effect, but
were mere consecutive noises; how the human organism ceased to
detect these consecutive noises at about eight per second, until they
reappeared at sixteen per second, the lowest tone which can be
heard; and how, at something like thirty-two thousand per second
these vibrations ceased to be heard, and were supposed
unintelligible to humanity, being neither sound nor light—despite their
rapid movement, dark and silent. But was all this energy wasted to
mankind? Adverting one moment to the molecular, or rather
mathematical, theory—first propounded by Democritus, re-
established by Leibnitz, and never since denied—that the universe,
both of mind and matter, body and soul, was made merely by
innumerable, infinitesimal points of motion, endlessly gyrating among
themselves—mere points, devoid of materiality, devoid also of soul,
but each a centre of a certain force, which scientists entitle
gravitation, philosophers deem will, and poets name love—he went
on to Light. Light is a subtler emotion (he remarked here that he
used the word emotion advisedly, as all emotions alike were, in
substance, the subjective result of merely material motion). Light is a
subtler emotion, dwelling in ether, but still nothing but a regular
continuity of motion or molecular impact; to speak more plainly,
successive beats or vibrations reappear intelligible to humanity as
light, at something like 483,000,000,000 beats per second in the red
ray. More exactly still, they appear first as heat; then as red, orange,
yellow, all the colors of the spectrum, until they disappear again,
through the violet ray, at something like 727,000,000,000 beats per
second in the so-called chemical rays. “After that,” he closed, “they
are supposed unknown. The higher vibrations are supposed
unintelligible to man, just as he fancies there is no more subtle
medium than his (already hypothetical) ether. It is possible,” said
Materialismus, speaking in italics and looking at Althea, “that these
higher, almost infinitely rapid vibrations may be what are called the
higher emotions or passions—like religion, love and hate—dwelling
in a still more subtle, but yet material, medium, that poets and
churches have picturesquely termed heart, conscience, soul.” As he
said this I too looked at Althea. I saw her bosom heaving; her lips
were parted, and a faint rose was in her face. How womanly she was
growing!
From that time I felt a certain fierceness against this German
doctor. He had a way of patronizing me, of treating me as a man
might treat some promising school-boy, while his manner to Althea
was that of an equal—or a man of the world’s to a favored lady. It
was customary for the professors in B—— College to give little
entertainments to their classes once in the winter; these usually took
the form of tea-parties; but when it came to the doctor’s turn, he
gave a sleighing party to the neighboring city of A——, where we
had an elaborate banquet at the principal hotel, with champagne to
drink; and returned driving down the frozen river, the ice of which Dr.
Mismus (for so we called him for short) had had tested for the
occasion. The probable expense of this entertainment was
discussed in the little town for many weeks after, and was by some
estimated as high as two hundred dollars. The professor had hired,
besides the large boat-sleigh, many single sleighs, in one of which
he had returned, leading the way, and driving with Althea Hardy. It
was then I determined to speak to her about her growing intimacy
with this man.
I had to wait many weeks for an opportunity. Our winter sports at
B—— used to end with a grand evening skating party on the
Kennebec. Bonfires were built on the river, the safe mile or two
above the falls was roped in with lines of Chinese lanterns, and a
supper of hot oysters and coffee was provided at the big central fire.
It was the fixed law of the place that the companion invited by any
boy was to remain indisputably his for the evening. No second man
would ever venture to join himself to a couple who were skating
together on that night. I had asked Althea many weeks ahead to
skate with me, and she had consented. The Doctor Materialismus
knew this.
I, too, saw him nearly every day. He seemed to be fond of my
company; of playing chess with me, or discussing metaphysics.
Sometimes Althea was present at these arguments, in which I
always took the idealistic side. But the little college had only armed
me with Bain and Locke and Mill; and it may be imagined what a
poor defence I could make with these against the German doctor,
with his volumes of metaphysical realism and his knowledge of what
Spinoza, Kant, Schopenhauer, and other defenders of us from the
flesh could say on my side. Nevertheless, I sometimes appeared to
have my victories. Althea was judge; and one day I well remember,
when we were discussing the localization of emotion or of volition in
the brain:
“Prove to me, if you may, even that every thought and hope and
feeling of mankind is accompanied always by the same change in
the same part of the cerebral tissue!” cried I. “Yet that physical
change is not the soul-passion, but the effect of it upon the body; the
mere trace in the brain of its passage, like the furrow of a ship upon
the sea.” And I looked at Althea, who smiled upon me.
 “But if,” said the doctor, “by the physical movement I produce the
psychical passion? by the change of the brain-atoms cause the act
of will? by a mere bit of glass-and-iron mechanism set first in motion,
I make the prayer, or thought, or love, follow, in plain succession, to
the machine’s movement, on every soul that comes within its sphere
—will you then say that the metaphor of ship and wake is a good
one, when it is the wake that precedes the ship?”
“No,” said I, smiling.
“Then come to my house to-night,” said the doctor; “unless,” he
added with a sneer, “you are afraid to take such risks before your
skating party.” And then I saw Althea’s lips grow bloodless, and my
heart swelled within me.
“I will come,” I muttered, without a smile.
“When?” said the professor.
“Now.”
Althea suddenly ran between us. “You will not hurt him?” she
said, appealingly to him. “Remember, oh, remember what he has
before him!” And here Althea burst into a passion of weeping, and I
looked in wild bewilderment from her to him.
“I vill go,” said the doctor to me. “I vill leafe you to gonsole her.”
He spoke in his stronger German accent, and as he went out he
beckoned me to the door. His sneer was now a leer, and he said:
“I vould kiss her there, if I vere you.”
I slammed the door in his face, and when I turned back to Althea
her passion of tears had not ceased, and her beautiful bright hair lay
in masses over the poor, shabby desk. I did kiss her, on her soft face
where the tears were. I did not dare to kiss her lips, though I think I
could have done it before I had known this doctor. She checked her
tears at once.
“Now I must go to the doctor’s,” I said. “Don’t be afraid; he can do
me or my soul no harm; and remember to-morrow night.” I saw
Althea’s lips blanch again at this; but she looked at me with dry eyes,
and I left her.
 The winter evening was already dark, and as I went down the
streets toward the river I heard the crushing of the ice over the falls.
The old street where the doctor lived was quite deserted. Trade had
been there in the old days, but now was nothing. Yet in the silence,
coming along, I heard the whirr of steam, or, at least, the clanking of
machinery and whirling wheels.
I toiled up the crazy staircase. The doctor was already in his
room—in the same purple velvet he had worn before. On his study
table was a smoking supper.
“I hope,” he said, “you have not supped on the way?”
“I have not,” I said. Our supper at our college table consisted of
tea and cold meat and pie. The doctor’s was of oysters,
sweetbreads, and wine. After it he gave me an imported cigar, and I
sat in his reclining-chair and listened to him. I remember that this
chair reminded me, as I sat there, of a dentist’s chair; and I good-
naturedly wondered what operations he might perform on me—I
helpless, passive with his tobacco and his wine.
“Now I am ready,” said he. And he opened the door that led from
his study into the old warehouse-room, and I saw him touch one of
the steel levers opposite the rows of glass rods. “You see,” he said,
“my mechanism is a simple one. With all these rods of different
lengths, and the almost infinite speed of revolution that I am able to
gif them with the power that comes from the river applied through a
chain of belted wheels, is a rosined leather tongue, like that of a
music-box or the bow of a violin, touching each one; and so I get any
number of beats per second that I will.” (He always said will, this
man, and never wish.)
“Now, listen,” he whispered; and I saw him bend down another
lever in the laboratory, and there came a grand bass note—a tone I
have heard since only in 32-foot organ pipes. “Now, you see, it is
Sound.” And he placed his hand, as he spoke, upon a small crank or
governor; and, as he turned it slowly, note by note the sound grew
higher. In the other room I could see one immense wheel, revolving
in an endless leather band, with the power that was furnished by the
Kennebec, and as each sound rose clear, I saw the wheel turn
faster.
Note by note the tones increased in pitch, clear and elemental. I
listened, recumbent. There was a marvellous fascination in the
strong production of those simple tones.
“You see I hafe no overtones,” I heard the doctor say. “All is
simple, because it is mechanism. It is the exact reproduction of the
requisite mathematical number. I hafe many hundreds of rods of
glass, and then the leather band can go so fast as I will, and the
tongue acts upon them like the bow upon the violin.”
I listened, I was still at peace; all this I could understand, though
the notes came strangely clear. Undoubtedly, to get a definite finite
number of beats per second was a mere question of mathematics.
Empirically, we have always done it, with tuning-forks, organ-pipes,
bells.
He was in the middle of the scale already; faster whirled that
distant wheel, and the intense tone struck C in alt. I felt a yearning
for some harmony; that terrible, simple, single tone was so
elemental, so savage; it racked my nerves and strained them to
unison, like the rosined bow drawn close against the violin-string
itself. It grew intensely shrill; fearfully, piercingly shrill; shrill to the
rending-point of the tympanum; and then came silence.
I looked. In the dusk of the adjoining warehouse the huge wheel
was whirling more rapidly than ever.
The German professor gazed into my eyes, his own were bright
with triumph, on his lips a curl of cynicism. “Now,” he said, “you will
have what you call emotions. But, first, I must bind you close.”
I shrugged my shoulders amiably, smiling with what at the time I
thought contempt, while he deftly took a soft white rope and bound
me many times to his chair. But the rope was very strong, and I now
saw that the frame-work of the chair was of iron. And even while he
bound me, I started as if from a sleep, and became conscious of the
dull whirring caused by the powerful machinery that abode within the
house, and suddenly a great rage came over me.
 I, fool, and this man! I swelled and strained at the soft white ropes
that bound me, but in vain.... By God, I could have killed him then
and there!... And he looked at me and grinned, twisting his face to fit
his crooked soul. I strained at the ropes, and I think one of them
slipped a bit, for his face blanched; and then I saw him go into the
other room and press the last lever back a little, and it seemed to me
the wheel revolved more slowly.
Then, in a moment, all was peace again, and it was as if I heard
a low, sweet sound, only that there was no sound, but something like
what you might dream the music of the spheres to be. He came to
my chair again and unbound me.
My momentary passion had vanished. “Light your cigar,” he said,
“it has gone out.” I did so. I had a strange, restful feeling, as of being
at one with the world, a sense of peace, between the peace of death
and that of sleep.
“This,” he said, “is the pulse of the world; and it is Sleep. You
remember, in the Nibelung-saga, when Erda, the Earth spirit, is
invoked, unwillingly she appears, and then she says, Lass mich
schlafen—let me sleep on—to Wotan, king of the gods? Some of the
old myths are true enough, though not the Christian ones, most
always.... This pulse of the earth seems to you dead silence, yet the
beats are pulsing thousands a second faster than the highest
sound.... For emotions are subtler things than sound, as you
sentimental ones would say; you poets that talk of ‘heart’ and ‘soul.’
We men of science say it this way: That those bodily organs that
answer to your myth of a soul are but more widely framed, more
nicely textured, so as to respond to the impact of a greater number
of movements in the second.”
While he was speaking he had gone into the other room, and was
bending the lever down once more; I flew at his throat. But even
before I reached him my motive changed; seizing a Spanish knife
that was on the table, I sought to plunge it in my breast. But, with a
quick stroke of the elbow, as if he had been prepared for the attempt,
he dashed the knife from my hand to the floor, and I sank in despair
back into his arm-chair.