- Title
- Percy : A life in China - The life and times of Percy Nettle : 1886-1964
- Creator
- Nettle, Rodney
- Date
- 2016
- Type
- Text; Thesis; PhD
- Identifier
- http://researchonline.federation.edu.au/vital/access/HandleResolver/1959.17/160466
- Identifier
- vital:12190
- Identifier
- https://library.federation.edu.au/record=b2713020
- Abstract
- This thesis is about the transnational life of Percival Edward Nettle (1886-1964), a young man born in Ballarat who moved from Australia to Shanghai at the end of 1906 on his way to San Francisco. He never did get to San Francisco but lived in and out of China until he died in 1964. This thesis tells his story and also addresses the perennial human management problem of achieving a co-operative fit between people from different cultural backgrounds. Percy Nettle achieved this fit with the Chinese through developing an exceptional rapport with Chinese people from the time he commenced working with them in 1907 on engineering projects, and later during and through wars and other civil engagements. He was a great success in China, the key to which was his skill with the language and later from his ability to culturally adapt and empathise with the people in the environments in which he was living at the time. Percy also found that his ‘Wesleyan’ approach to people conveniently dovetailed with the ‘Confucian’ values approach of the Chinese. Percy was able to communicate with Chinese people from Viceroys to infantry men and bandits and could win their trust regardless of social levels. Percy documented his ‘fitting in’ experience with the Chinese in his diaries, letters and journals over a fifty-five-year period until his death in Hong Kong in 1964. The analysis and contextualisation of his original records form the basis of this thesis and what is learned from this study of his exceptional life is the importance of achieving a very high level of cultural empathy and understanding with the people we deal with beginning with learning how to speak with them in their own language. Percy was also able to demonstrate the universal efficacy of strong ethical values even when they are transposed from one cultural setting to another.; Doctor of Philosophy
- Publisher
- Federation University Australia
- Rights
- Copyright Rodney Nettle
- Rights
- Open Access
- Rights
- This metadata is freely available under a CCO license
- Subject
- Percival Edward Nettle; China; Australia; Culteral differences
- Full Text
- Thesis Supervisor
- Tasker, Megan
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