Chinese Customs

Some tidbits on Chinese customs that differ from Western culture. I’m making notes as I go along to try to remember. Here are a few:

• When complimented do not say “thank you” – say it isn’t true. If you say thank you it sounds like boasting.
• Chinese are more formal at first meeting, but open up quickly. Do not be surprised at very personal questions once the ice is broken.
• If you are invited to dinner, bring a gift. If you are given a gift at dinner, do not open it until the end of the meal.

• Do not ask how many children someone has. Because of former laws about having children, this may be a point of great pain.
• If you are offered shark fin, eat it. It’s a delicacy.
• If you are told “that is not convenient”, that means no. Do not push it. Saying no may cause the person to “lose face”.
• The biggest character flaw is to lack patience. Do not be in a hurry.
• Accept local customs. Most westerners can find plenty to be offended by at first. Accept the ways of the locals.
• Loud slurping is normal when eating soup. It means the food is good.
• In business, even after a contract is signed there may be requests for changes. This is normal.
• Decisions are not always made on the spot. Be patient.
• If one person in a family loses face, the whole family loses face.
• If someone is smiling while they are talking, it does not mean they are happy. Do not take facial expressions as signs of true meaning.

Face

As in most Asian countries, face is a very important and complex feature of daily life. We may call it “pride” in the West, but we don’t have as developed a sense of the absolute necessity of “saving face” as in the East. In China, you will encounter this idea of “saving face” as well as having to “give face,” on multiple levels. Maybe in the classroom the student in the back row who knows the answer to your question won’t answer because she doesn’t want her classmates to feel stupid. Maybe when you asked that old man how to get to the museum he just pointed to the left because he was too embarrassed to admit that he had no idea where it really was. Maybe the official at the Public Security Bureau won’t extend your visa because you lost your temper in front of him and his colleagues, and if he granted your request now it would look as if he’d given in to your threats. Be aware of face and its importance to the Chinese. In general, as a foreigner to whom face means comparatively little, you can afford to lose face more than the Chinese, so you can use this to your advantage. Try to give face as often as possible—it will be appreciated.

Sensitive Subjects

As in any other country, if, while conversing with a local, he or she suddenly clams up, changes the subject, or feigns incomprehension, you can bet you’ve stumbled onto a forbidden topic. Don’t push the matter or you may cause trouble for your Chinese friend as well as for yourself. It’s best not to initiate discussions of religion or politics in particular.

Gift Giving

It’s traditional to bring a gift when invited to someone’s home. Usually fresh flowers or fruit are your best bet (the number eight is considered lucky, so eight apples or eight oranges is a good idea) or, of course, anything from home. The more expensive the gift, the more respectful, but don’t go over the top or you’ll embarrass your hosts, who may feel the need to bankrupt themselves to return your generosity. Don’t be surprised when, if your gift is wrapped, it is placed somewhere prominent all evening and not unwrapped until after you leave (your hosts might look greedy and ungrateful if the gift were opened too hastily and in front of you). It is also courteous to bring something back from traveling—just a token gift is fine. But be sure to be fair with your gift-giving: don’t give something nicer to the secretary in the office than to the dean of the college, and don’t give gifts to one group of students and not another—they’ll find out, you can bet on it. Often, it’s better to give something that can be shared, like food.

EATING

Family Meals
Though customs and the kinds of food eaten vary according to region, it is most common for Chinese families to gather for three meals a day. In some areas and at some times of the year, laborers may have only two full meals a day, but when possible, they supplement these with up to three smaller ones, often taken at tea houses. There is not, in general, the strong association we have in the West between the type of food and the time of day it should be served (say, eggs for breakfast, a sandwich for lunch, pot roast for dinner). The sorts of dishes served at the two or three main meals are pretty much the same. The goal in planning, however, is to provide a number of dishes at each meal, so that, rather than experiencing difference by comparison between one meal and the next, each meal includes, in itself, a satisfying array of elements.

The Stuff of the Meal
The center of the Chinese meal is fan, or grain. So much so, that the meal itself is called hsia fan, “a period of grain.” In the South and among urban families in other areas, the fan may be rice or rice products, but rice is expensive, as is the wheat eaten in the North in the form of cooked whole grains, noodles, or bread. Depending on the region, then, less prosperous families might make their meals of millet, sorghum, or corn. The meats and vegetables we think of as the focus of the meal are known as ts’ai, which means something like “side dishes” — one could almost go so far as to call them condiments for the fan.

Place Settings and Serving Etiquette
An individual place setting for an everyday meal includes a bowl of fan, a pair of chopsticks, a flat-bottomed soupspoon, and a saucer. Instead of a napkin, a hot towel is often provided at the end of the meal for the diner to wipe his hands and mouth. The meat and vegetable dishes are laid out all at once in the center of the table, and the diners eat directly from the communal plates using their chopsticks. Soup is also eaten from the common bowl. Rather than for serving oneself a separate portion, the saucer is used for bones and shells or as a place to rest a bite taken from a communal plate when it is too large to eat all at once. It is perfectly acceptable to reach across the table to take a morsel from a far-away dish. To facilitate access to all the dishes, Chinese dining tables are more likely to be square or round, rather than elongated like their western counterparts.

Who Eats When and How
Eating begins in order of seniority, with each diner taking the cue to start from his or her immediate superior. Children are taught to eat equally from each ts’ai dish in turn, never betraying a preference for a particular item by eating more of it, never seeming to pause to choose a specific bite from the plate. In order to cool the soup a bit and to better diffuse the flavor in the mouth, soup is eaten by sipping from the spoon while breathing in. This method, of course, produces the slurping noise that is taboo in the West. To eat fan, a diner raises the bowl to her lips and pushes the grains into her mouth with chopsticks. This is the easiest way to eat it and shows proper enjoyment — eating fan from a bowl left sitting on the table suggests dissatisfaction with the food. The diner must finish all the fan. To leave even a grain is considered bad manners, a lack of respect for the labor required to produce it.

Accompaniments
Neither beverages nor dessert are commonly served with a meal. People drink tea nearly all day, but at meals soup is usually the only liquid provided. At special events there may be wine or liquor, but the water that westerners drink with their meals is never present. Sweet foods are usually reserved for special events, where they are served between courses, or for small meals at tea houses.