Interesting Cultural Customs

In an attempt to bring some culture to this board - heh - anyone care to share any interesting customs from foreign countries? Just a thought because of an article that was published in The Globe & Mail today in its cover story about how basically the Chinese are taking over the world (Yay us!), and Westerners' need to adapt to be successful in a Chinese market. Foreign customs have always fascinated me. Bring it on!

Jan Wong's Tip Sheet

It's Autumn Moon Festival in Beijing. Someone gives you a beautifully wrapped box. You open it, right?

Wrong.

I committed that faux pas some years ago. In China, you do not open a gift in front of the giver. You open it later. By forgetting that dictum, I humiliated my friend. When I opened his present, purchased gift-wrapped, a sickening smell filled the room. The moon cakes were mouldy.

Doing business in China means mastering the etiquette. Herewith a quick tip sheet, including a step-by-step guide through the minefield known as the formal banquet, a ritual even more important than our business lunch.

SEASONED GREETINGS: Call people by title. It's Director Wang, not Ms. Wang.

NO TOUCHY-FEELY: Shaking hands is fine, but don't hug. Don't wrap your arm around the other guy. Above all, don't air-kiss. And don't bow; that's what you do in Japan, stupid.

BRING CARDS: Don't leave home without 'em, or you're nobody. Get bilingual ones printed before you leave. Ask a Canadian-Chinese friend to help you pick your name. (Mark Rowswell, the most famous Canadian in China, calls himself Da Shan, which means Big Mountain.

LOST IN TRANSLATION: If you're simply translating your name on your card remember, the surname comes first, and be careful picking characters. Say your name is Dan Brown in English. Without help, you could end up choosing something like "Bun Dawn." Bun Dawn is a pun for Stupid Idiot.

DON'T GO SINGLE-HANDED: Give and receive business cards with two hands. One hand is very rude.

GIVE MODESTLY: To receive a gift - see above. If you give one, don't buy anything that might be construed as a bribe. Give a bulky Canadian sweater or an Inuit carving. It's undignified for an official to receive a gift directly. Unless it's a formal presentation, mention it to him, but hand it to his driver or assistant. And remember the two-handed approach.

PERFECT TIMING: Don't be late, ever. Leave early for appointments because you will get stuck in traffic. At banquets, arrive 10 minutes early if you are the host. If you are the guest of honour (GH), do not arrive early. But do not arrive more than five minutes late.

SITTING PRETTY: The host or GH - whoever is highest ranked - sits facing the door. The GH sits to the host's right. The next most important guest sits to the host's left. The host's spouse or most important underling sits opposite the host. After that, seating order isn't significant.

RAISING A GLASS: The host starts the dinner with a toast, even using tea. Say something like: Welcome, thanks for coming, here's to friendship, etc. If the host forgets, no one will start eating. The GH ends the dinner with a toast. Says thanks, time to go home, wonderful getting together, etc. After the formal toast, the GH suggests one final bottoms-up to polish off all remaining alcohol, GH then leaves, If GH doesn't leave, no one else will.

FOOD CHAIN: Never start eating until the most important guest takes a mouthful. Spin the lazy Susan around to offer the first taste to the GH. Then spin food around to the second-most important guest. After than the order doesn't matter. Gender is irrelevant. And eat lightly. Take one piece. When everyone has had a shot, you may take a second piece. Never take more than your portion, one bit at a time.

TALKING POINTS: The GH does all the talking for his company. Junior associates listen. Don't make fun of the government. Don't call Taiwan a country. (It's a Chinese province, got that?) And don't talk business. You may bring up your pending deal at the very end, in a vague way. But dinner is not the time to negotiate.

DON'T WORRY: If you mess up, the Chinese are quite forgiving. They realize that Westerners are ignorant barbarians and bereft of good manners.

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Updated On: 10/23/04 at 09:18 PM

"DON'T WORRY: If you mess up, the Chinese are quite forgiving. They realize that Westerners are ignorant barbarians and bereft of good manners."

That was a really interesting and imformative article until that last sentence. Ugh.

Feh. If the Chinese part of me can deal with years of, "Do you really say 'chicken flied lice?'" and "Why are you guys always so short/such cheap drunks?", the Western part of me can laugh at being called an ignorant barbarian.

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Thanks, Type_A_Tiff! (I read that article in today's Globe & Mail, too!)

One more interesting custom: when I was in HK/China last month(sigh...I still miss it), I noticed that my Hong Kong friends tapped the table with their index finger when someone poured them tea. They told me it was a gesture of appreciation (like your index finger is a person bowing to the one serving you tea). This gesture doesn't seem to have made its way to North American Chinatowns, though.

The article was great, but it made Chinese banquets seem much more formal than they are. Chinese banquets are a time of celebration, conversation and yes, even a little fun and debauchery (just attend a wedding banquet to find out what I mean). I find them less formal than Western banquets, because there's a lot more chatter and chaos going around.

For those who were offended by this:
They realize that Westerners are ignorant barbarians and bereft of good manners.

It's a joke. But I will admit that many Chinese sometimes find light-hearted amusement with "fish out of the water" Westerners who don't know the customs.

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Updated On: 10/27/04 at 01:14 AM

One more interesting custom: when I was in HK/China last month(sigh...I still miss it), I noticed that my Hong Kong friends tapped the table with their index finger when someone poured them tea. They told me it was a gesture of appreciation (like your index finger is a person bowing to the one serving you tea). This gesture doesn't seem to have made its way to North American Chinatowns, though.

Very prevalent here on the west coast, and not just with FOBs. Just goes to show you Chinese Vancouverites may have more class than eastern Canadian Chinese, no? jk

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Every time a see a documentary about people living in the jungle, there is always a piercing involved. For example, I went to an IMAX film about the rainforest one time, and these natives had there lip stretched out so much and had a huge hole in it, where they stuffed a big wooden circle. Ouch. I also saw in my Guiness Book of Records these people who put these rings on their necks to make them longer.

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