Buckland Weekly #28: The Act of Being Polite

All views expressed are the author's own etc.

It’s getting to the time of year when Buckland start recruiting for the February Orientation and so I intend to post a few articles about living and teaching in China here. You can find my previous articles by scrolling back and following the links.

So let’s talk about one of the differences between Chinese culture and western culture, British culture in particular – the whole business of “please”, “thank you”, “excuse me and so on and the related subject of rewarding someone for doing something good for you.

I remember when I first arrived in China and went to the city of Baiyin in the north. On my first few trips to the supermarket I noticed that the cashiers seemed highly amused whenever I was paying for my goods and I couldn’t work out what they thought was so funny. Eventually I asked a Chinese friend about it and we worked out that it was the ridiculous number of times an Englishman at a supermarket checkout says “thank you”. Saying “please” and “thank you” and all the other little politeness words is something we do all the time and it’s such an ingrained part of British culture that until someone points it out we don’t even notice that we are doing it. So at the checkout the exchange would go something like this.

Cashier scans an item. I say “thank you” and put it in my bag.

Cashier scans another item. I say “thank you” and put it in my bag.

Same happens with every item, no matter how many there are.

Cashier rings up the total and tells me how much. I say “thank you” and hand over the money.

Cashier hands me my change. I say “thank you”.

As I walk away I say “thank you”.

Once I realized I wasn’t surprised that people found it weird and amusing. I still catch myself doing it from time to time but I am slowly getting better.

It would be completely wrong to let this give you the idea that Chinese culture isn’t polite. It’s simply that the politeness takes other forms. When out for a meal if someone is pouring drinks they will almost never pour their own until all the others have been poured. Also at meals people will sometimes select food from the dishes and place it onto your plate for you. In large gatherings it’s extremely common for someone to stand up and individually toast every member of the group. When everyone decides to do this the toasting can last a very long time. If people are doing this you should do it to, watch they way they go about it and copy it.

Another illustration of how it can be difficult to thank and reward someone – even when they have done something really beyond what you might expect back home – is the story of my lost camera.,.

I was living in Baiyin and I had slipped on some ice and injured my leg so that I was in plaster from ankle to thigh. Nevertheless I had still been teaching, from a chair at the front of the class on one particular day had to go to a meeting at another location. I took a taxi there and back and on the return journey I heaved myself with difficulty out of the cab, paid the driver and, two seconds after he had driven off, realised that my camera, which had been in my pocket, had fallen out in the cab. I called my Chinese friends to help and we tried all sorts of ways to find it but I didn't know the cab company and in the end I gave up. Two weeks later I got a call from my school administrator. A passenger had found the camera and given it to the driver. The driver had looked through the pictures and realised it belonged to his only foreign passenger of the day. Among the other pictures was a picture of the school I taught at. His son went to a different school but had friends at my school so his son called one of his friends who was at my school but not in my class. The friend took the camera to his class teacher. The class teacher took it to the head of my department. The head of my department called my administrator and she called me and returned the camera.

I wanted to give the cab driver a reward but was told that this would be a serious loss of face for him as it would look as if I felt that he only did it because he expected a reward. He didn't expect to be rewarded for doing the right thing and would be offended if I offered one.

Nevertheless I wanted to something to show my appreciation so my administrator suggested that I could give some school books and supplies tor his son – not as a reward but as a gift from a friend. That’s what I did and so I had my camera back and had shown my appreciation indirectly and everyone was happy.

It is often these tiny cultural differences that we have trouble coming to grips with and if you are getting things wrong it’s extremely unlikely that anyone will point it out directly. After all that would be impolite.