Do you get left out of conversations?

xiaophil

This restaurant 现象 happens to me too. My wife says that, oddly enough, it is their way of being nice, which I sort of get in a backwards way if I think about it, but really I don't. I really wonder what is the underlying thinking here.

orangina

I would love insight as to why this is polite. I really do try to appreciate other people's reasons for doing things. I think differences in manners are the hardest to wrap my head around. Certain things to me were passed down as laws of the universe, but I have come to find that they are not. (That and why are there no cars passing thru the cross walk while my walk light is red, but as soon as the little guy turns green cars go zipping by? Do we all wait together and all go at once?)

hiewhongliang

Hi xiaophil, calkins and orangina.

I'll take a stab at this... a waiter is being respectful to you by putting you on a pedestal - if you were the Emperor in ancient China, no way would he dream of talking to you directly. The Chinese collective is a of mix of complex unspoken hierarchies, many of which are formulated innately in a person's mind through cultural influences. If a waiter perceives you as being higher in his hierarchy, he would be uncomfortable speaking "up" to you. It would also be his responsibility to prevent you from losing face by making a mistake in ordering from the menu. Hence he protects you.

I think it is one of the intriguing things about Chinese culture that a person can be treated like an idiot and an Emperor all at the same time.

bodawei

I have a variation on this story. We have a favourite hot pot restaurant, been several times. On this one occasion my wife and I went with two Chinese friends but I did all the ordering. At the end of the meal, the 老板 brings the bill over and usually asks you to check that you got everything okay before she tells you how much you owe. On this one evening she came over and handed the bill to my Chinese friend to check. (He actually arrived late and had missed all the ordering.)

I said to her - 'I will check it'.

She turns to me and asks 'Oh, .... YOU can read Chinese?'

'Um.. yes'. [At a hot pot restaurant you have to read to order - you mark off items on a printed sheet with a pen they give you.]

Then unfortunately I had to climb down off my high horse as I mis-read one of the characters. Damn! :)

xiaophil

Yes, it is quite annoying. We are always told we should never ever hold her erect. And about the weather, it is always a wind thing. Even if there is almost no wind, and the wind is warm (like an indoor draft), we are risking a cold. I wonder if Chinese people know that colds are caused by viruses?

But I should say that at least they care.

calkins

Ha ha! I don't have kids, but the parents in Taiwan put WAY TOO MANY clothes on their kids. It's unbelievable. It could be 20 degrees celsius (about 70 F) and a kid will have 3 shirts on, a sweater, and a thick winter jacket with fur! That is no exaggeration. On top of that, most places have the AC kicking full throttle during winter...so the kids are sweating from all the clothes they are wearing, then they come into a building with the AC on.

I don't understand this one.

abelle

Calkins, that's an interesting observation. Here in the US, teenage kids wear too little clothing in the winter. (And parents can't make them wear any more.) My daughter's boyfriend only wears a sweatshirt-hoodie even though it's 20 degrees F outside, the wind is blowing and its snowing. I feel like buying him a winter jacket, but I'm not his mother. Most teenage kids I notice are like him. My daughter is dressed warmer, with the always popular North Face jacket and UGG boots. My college-age son always wears his snowboarding jacket, which doesn't look all that warm to me, but he says it is. Ironically, my daughter is the one who's caught a cold this winter!

I'm going back to Chinese class today after a 10-day break. I'm afraid my brain is just not in gear this morning! I probably will have a hard time understanding what my teacher says.

pretzellogic

Ok, so i'm not the only bad parent ;-) I guess Americans are just used to having less clothes on their kids for whatever reason.

orangina

Don't forget the rag down the back of the shirt to collect all the sweat. I had to ask about that. The woman I asked replied to me in wonder, "Do American kids not sweat?" Different strokes for different folks!

cinnamonfern

:D My soon to be sister-in-law visited me here in HK with her six-month-old in November. Almost the whole time her son was just wearing a onesie, the kind without any legs. Of course at the same time all the Hong Kong kidlets were outfitted in little snowsuits. So she always had people coming up to her and asking - wasn't the baby cold? She just had to reply that they were from Canada.

pretzellogic

In the days when I was regularly getting "the lecture" about my about-to-be-frozen-to-death children, my Chinese was almost non-existent. I knew I was getting the lecture, but I only understood "cold" and "hands". I would just smile and say, "oh, I didn't know", and "thank you".

light487

but I think this is quite a common thing regardless of the subject matter.. it's the "you should pay attention to me because I know what will keep you safe" thing.. and it's not the same as it is here, in the west, where people are saying "you should pay attention to me because I know more or better than you".. no.. it's not ego at all really.. it's a genuine concern and sincere need to make sure you and your children are ok.. and that's what makes it bearable I think :)

pretzellogic

Yeah, in retrospect, I didn't really have a problem with it. I assessed the weather differently than a typical Chinese mom, but I was always amused by the lecture. I guess in the back of my mind, I thought these women giving me the lecture were being sincere. I guess I was thinking the entire interaction was a cultural touchpoint that I was witnessing. Plus a "father/mother" thing as well.

light487

Yes.. It's quite endearing.. amiable... ke3ai4 :)

xiaophil

Thanks for the explanation. It seems to me a few years ago I felt a little annoyed when I heard that some Chinese people think foreigners are simple. But after living in China, I have seen how complicated it can be living in Chinese society, just as you show here. Now I think they might be right.

chris

Yes, definitely get this - the recent CNY at the 老家 being a good example. I can't understand a word of minnanhua, so it's generally a boring trip- but to top it off, the mandarin, when spoken, is so heavily accented that I feel like I'm a newbie again! Thank God for several weeks of Economist downloads on the ipad...