When in China...

During the recent holidays I vacationed in China, and was struck by their different cultural norms. In Singapore, it is often normal to hear people address a female stranger as ‘xiao jie’, by which we mean ‘miss’. In fact, we hear it everywhere - in food courts, markets, shops, basically anywhere having salesgirls. When we were in Shanghai, my family was ordering food in a restaurant. My aunt wanted a menu and addressed the waitress as ‘xiao jie’, as we are used to in Singapore. This brought the waitress over but she seemed very unhappy and her demeanor, sulky. We did not know what to make of it and just wrote it off as poor service.

Later on in the tour bus, the tour guide informed us that while it is common to call service personnel in Singapore ‘xiao jie’, it is considered rude in China to call not only their service personnel but anyone ‘xiao jie’ as it means prostitute. If we needed to address the service personnel, it was more appropriate to say ‘fu wu ren yuan’, which means service staff. After hearing what the tour guide said, we had to watch our tongue whenever we called for service staff and tried not to lapse back into our habit of saying ‘xiao jie’.

This situation could potentially have been a larger conflict which fortunately did not escalate. This situation ended up very different from the one reported in The New Paper, which ended up in a brawl with the police having to be called in (for more information please see: http://forums.sgclub.com/singapore/excuse_me_xiao_157317.html).

I think there are a few things we could learn from the above situations.

1. It takes two hands to clap: both parties should be understanding and not bear grudges if a certain ‘rude’ action or word is used. The offended party should not be too quick to anger, whereas the offending party should take a step back and try to understand where the offended party is coming from. I believe both parties have to listen to both sides of the story before proceeding with a judgment.

2. When in Rome, do as the Romans do: even though it is such a cliché, I believe that when people are placed in different cultures, we should learn to adapt and not cling on desperately to our own customs. By doing so, we would seem less stand-offish, and it would cheer the natives that we are making an effort to integrate with them and assimilate their culture. When unsure of what to do and what the norms are, asking and clarification is the best way to go.

3. Never assume: Most gestures or phrases do not have the same meaning worldwide. Most of the time we assume that what is acceptable to us would be acceptable to others, and gestures and words are universally understood throughout the world. However, we should remember that the world is made up of people from all walks of life, and everyone sees things differently. Never assume, it makes an ‘ASS out of U and ME’ :)