Beware of Cross-Cultural Faux Pas in China

April 30, 2002

By CRAIG S. SMITH

SHANGHAI - A Washington State agriculture official who was

touring China a few years ago handed out bright green

baseball caps at every stop without noticing that none of

the men would put them on or that all the women were

giggling.

Finally, a Chinese-American in the delegation took the man

aside and informed him that "to wear a green hat" is the

Chinese symbol of a cuckold.

It is the bane of the business traveler in an unfamiliar

culture: making a comment or gesture that is meant to be

friendly but that offends or embarrasses the hosts. Mocking

a man's masculinity is only one of the inadvertent slights

that visiting corporate executives and government officials

can make in China that serve to emphasize the cultural gaps

they are trying hard to minimize.

Happily, such cross-cultural faux pas are no longer deal

killers. Globalization has narrowed the cultural divide,

and these days the Chinese are experienced enough in

dealing with foreigners to shrug off indiscretions. Even

stabbing chopsticks into a bowl of rice and leaving them

there (an act of hostility among Chinese because it

signifies death) would be laughed off (nervously) by locals

unless it was done with obvious intent. What really matters

is a friendly attitude and a patient manner.

Even so, the worst gaffes still leave a bad impression and

the right gestures still earn respect.

One rule of thumb is understand the Chinese worldview. Don

St. Pierre Jr., who has spent his adult life doing business

in China, recalls a Canadian winemaker telling Chinese

reporters in Shanghai that he expected his "ultrapremium"

wine to do well in China because it had done well in Japan

and the two cultures had so much in common.

Resentment of Japan runs very deep in China, particularly

in Shanghai, which was bombed and occupied by the Japanese

during World War II. The Chinese regard Japan's culture as

derivative of their own far more ancient traditions and

bristle at Japanese notions of superiority.

Mr. St. Pierre nudged the winemaker beneath the table, but

by the time the man had stopped speaking, the room was

quiet enough to hear a Champagne bubble burst. The damage

had been done, Mr. St. Pierre said, even though the

winemaker had hired an expensive international public

relations firm to brief him on what he should and should

not say. "Which shows how useful that advice can be," Mr.

St. Pierre added.

Duncan Clark, a consultant based in Beijing, says locally

hired secretaries are generally a better first line of

defense for multinationals. He recalled that during his

days at Morgan Stanley in Hong Kong the firm ordered

expensive clocks to give as gifts commemorating the closing

of a deal. The firm's local staff caught the mistake: to

"give a clock" in Chinese sounds the same as "seeing

someone off to his end."

With thousands of years of accumulated cultural snippets to

sift through, an outsider cannot hope to catch every

potential pitfall. The Chinese language is filled with

embarrassing puns and unlucky homonyms that at best can

cause snickers behind a foreigner's back.

Besides clocks, giving umbrellas is taboo because doing so

is homonymous with a phrase that means the person's family

will be dispersed. Books, too, are unlucky presents because

"giving a book" sounds the same as "delivering defeat."

China's many dialects multiply the risks. Shanghai natives

chuckle at Va Bene, an expensive Italian restaurant that

recently opened in town, because the Italian name meaning

"it goes well" sounds like Shanghainese for "not cheap."

Color is another cue that can send an unintended message.

One multinational company giving gifts from Tiffany

replaced the white ribbons on the famous jeweler's

robin's-egg- blue boxes with red ribbons after the

company's Shanghai employees pointed out that white in

China signifies death, while red is lucky and is used for

celebrations.

Picking numbers for everything from product prices to

telephones is also tricky. Avoid four, a homonym for death

in Chinese, and load up on eights, a number that is

pronounced the same as "making money" in the southern

Cantonese dialect.

But even an experienced Sinologist like Mr. Clark was

mystified when his Beijing workers objected to pricing a

product at 250 yuan. It turned out that in northern China,

calling someone "250" is to say the person is nuts.

Mr. Clark's confusion illustrates the regional diversity of

cultural quirks in a country as big as China. In the south,

people tap two fingers on the table to say thanks, but

people in the north might think the gesture is just a

nervous tic.

On the other hand, a few generalizations apply across Asia.

Most seasoned business travelers from the United States and

Europe caught on long ago to the tradition of indulging in

small talk and meandering toward the main point rather than

getting down to business right away.

They have also come to appreciate the importance of "face"

in Asian societies. Scott Seligman, author of "Chinese

Business Etiquette: A Guide to Protocol, Manners, and

Culture in the People's Republic of China" (Warner Books,

1999), says face is the most important concept for

foreigners in China to master.

"It's not that we don't have a concept of face, but the

Chinese raise face to high art," he said. "It's a fragile

commodity in China that can easily be lost."

A person who has lost face, meanwhile, will often retaliate

in unexpected, often passive ways.

"The trigger doesn't have to be extreme," Mr. Seligman

noted. "You can contradict somebody in front of someone who

is lower ranking and cause the person to lose face. Even

the simple act of saying no to somebody can make that

person lose face."

Journalists are not immune. This reporter once made a gaffe

by suggesting in a way intended to be complimentary that a

central government official across the table was "probably

too young to remember" some minor event in the past. In the

context in which it was said, age-obsessed Americans would

have taken the comment as a flattering suggestion that they

looked too young to remember whatever historical reference

was being made.

But in China, where age is revered, the comment made the

official and his entourage blanch, apparently wondering

whether it was a veiled insult suggesting the man was too

junior to warrant respect.

Bob Kapp, president of the U.S.-China Business Council,

says his advice on how to avoid blunders in China has not

changed in 30 years.

"Be modest in demeanor. Listen well. Preach little," he

says. "Watch how others do things and follow suit."

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Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company