Guanxi
As someone who was born and raised in China I just like to remind people that the real meaning of &quot;guanxi&quot; is a function of location and time. i.e. the real meaning of &quot;guanxi&quot; is different from 20 yrs ago to present, and the word has different meaning from small cities to big cities like Beijing and Shanghai, also it doesn&#x27;t mean exactly the same thing from, say, southern China to north east China.<p>In general in big cities &quot;guanxi&quot; plays a smaller role, while in small cities especially the underdeveloped ones it plays a bigger role, to the extent that even doing some fairly trivial business (or even things like getting a passport or going to hospital) needs you to have some &quot;guanxi&quot;. By &quot;needs one to have some &#x27;guanxi&#x27;&quot; I mean it&#x27;s not impossible for one to do without &quot;guanxi&quot; but it&#x27;s just way smoother and faster if you know someone who can help. That&#x27;s also one of the reasons people prefer to live in big cities. It&#x27;s just more fair for young people without acquaintances in every possible field. On the other hand, parents are more familiar with &quot;guanxi&quot;.<p>The existence of &quot;guanxi&quot; also makes people doubt if they have failed to lubricate some &quot;guanxi&quot; if they got rejected or failed for something (e.g. U.S. visa, or a reasonable exam) even if there are other reasons more likely to cause it.<p>&quot;guanxi&quot; sometimes even helps one to pass the test for driver&#x27;s license, oh a big facepalm to road security...<p>(What I said above is not to confuse you guys, the wikipedia page is still worth reading though.)