A Cross-Cultural Study of Chapter One, the Mencius: Integrity Within and Without

[[abstract]]The cultural entities influenced by Confucianism are prominent in their pro-collectivistic tendency, which can be understood as a humanism highlighting how individuals are socially situated and how they are able or supposed to act properly. The established studies have found collectivistic cultures are usually characterized by a long term orientation, so a further attempt to trace back to where such a quality may have come from and to find out how the quality has been coded may turn out to be academically fruitful. With the fact that the Mencius is one of the most influential canons that has shaped the mindset commonly shared among Confucianism-affected cultures, this paper initiates a close reading of Chapter One of the Mencius with the lenses of Chronemics and Group Conformity as an approach to better understanding of the matrix of Chinese culture and aims to interpret how Mencius embedded his long-term orientation in the book