The giving of a clock carries the implication of time running out and thus death. Unfortunately, this is a pretty serious faux pas for a number of interesting cultural and linguistic reasons. I know, I know, you had that enormous grandfather clock stuffed into your carry-on bag and you were all excited to give it as a gift to your boss/host family/cousin/calligraphy teacher. I’ve had many bosses and co-workers compliment my English, for instance, which is a bit silly since it’s my native language, and it took me a long time to realize that the subtext was often that they thought my Chinese skills weren’t up to snuff. It’s part of the larger Chinese cultural preference for indirectness, in which words that may sound kind can actually be interpreted as insulting (and vice versa!). It sounds a bit counterintuitive (after all, who doesn’t like some kind words now and then?), but it’s important to be subtle and conservative with your compliments in general. People trained and educated abroad generally dislike being complimented on their English skills, as it implies that there is nothing else worth complimenting. This is a bit more applicable in a business context, but is valid everywhere really. Complimenting English/other language skills. It seems to depend on the headlines, essentially, but it might be best to play it safe by avoiding the 3 T’s wholesale.ģ. When I first arrived in China, for instance, there was a lot of tension with Tibet, so the topic was rarely discussed, but these days it’s not considered such a big deal. In my personal experience, the taboo nature of these topics tend to vary quite substantially from year to year. Obviously simply mentioning Taiwan or Tibet isn’t offensive (they’re sitting right there on the map, after all), but bringing them up as topics often leads to discussions that many find uncomfortable.īesides that, it can bring opinions to the surface that might make you rethink relationships – even a free speech-lover like myself (my grandparents fled Nazi-occupied Austria, so I take my first amendment rights pretty seriously) has learned that it’s better to simply avoid these topics. These are very touchy subjects for most Mainlanders, though sensitivity varies. The classic “Three T’s” of must-avoid conversation topics. It’s thought that Americans misinterpreted 筷子 as 快子 and then applied another Chinese expression to give chopsticks their English name! Anyways, whatever you call them, don’t leave them upright in your food, or you’ll risk offending your hosts or friends. So we’d call them “fast sticks” were it not for the term “chop chop”, which is itself derived from the Chinese “急急”, pronounced in Cantonese as “gāpgāp” (jíjí in Mandarin), which Americans working with early Chinese immigrants misheard as “chop chop.” This is observed even more fervently in Japan, interestingly enough.įun side note, the English term “chopsticks” is thought to be derived from Chinese in an interesting way: kuài (筷) is a homonym for kuài (快), meaning fast or quick. Leaving your chopsticks (kuàizi, 筷子) upright in your rice or noodle bowl while eating.ĭo not, under any circumstances, do this! In many parts of China, offerings of food are made to the dead with chopsticks presented in this way, and upright chopsticks in food generally connote death, so it’s a pretty serious taboo. Some are easy to avoid and others require a bit more effort, but all are worth paying attention to, so here are seven cultural no-no’s to steer clear of.ġ. Chinese culture has been around for a long, long time, so it’s hardly surprising that there are some deeply-rooted cultural faux pas’ (faux pases? faux’s pas? Damn you, France!).
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