Abstract:

My journey as a marketing scholar began in 1982. I was given a scholarship by the Ministry of Education in China to study for my MBA in the United States. Since then ，my study has changed from focusing on tangible and man-agerial matters at a micro level ，to pondering intangible and philosophical issues at a macro level. Initially ，I was heavily influenced by Philip Kotler's marketing theory. I then progressed to study the more outward-oriented American culture（categorized as ‘Yang’） and the more inward-oriented Confucianist culture （categorized as ‘Yin’） as complementary opposites for applications in branding. Next, I compared the more people-oriented Confucianist culture （categorized as‘Yang’） and the more nature-oriented Laoist culture （categorized as ‘Yin’） from a Chinese philosophical perspective. Now I devote myself to the study of the relationship between the “Action”-oriented （You Wei） American-Confucianist culture （categorized as Yang） and the “Inaction”-oriented （Wu Wei ，or“A ction according to the Principle of Inaction”） Laoist culture （categorized as Yin），in an even larger cross-cultural framework. These three cultural Yin-Yang systems and the related marketing concepts are shown in Figure 1. For the future ，I think it is important to continue to learn from non-Chinese marketing theories，but it is even more important for us to develop marketing theories rooted in the Chinese culture.

Key words: Business Philosophy , Comparison between Chinese Culture and American Culture, Laoism , Dao De Jing , Confucianism , Life , Brand , Marketing