Socialising and Social Niceties
Having an introduction to a Chinese person or family is a joy to be looked for. Their generosity knows no bounds and can quickly reach embarrassing levels. If you are invited to stay with someone, consider carefully that you will be enveloped in a way which may be a major economic drain on the family and behave accordingly. There are occasions, on the other hand, in which what you think is a kindness leads to suggestions of disproportionate compensation. Be sure you know the person making the invitation to stay or that the introduction is through someone you trust.
If you are taken out for a meal, insist on returning the favour. They will say no for at least half an hour, because this is polite. Insist. It will be very unlikely that you will be able to get any indication from them what kind of food they would like to eat, although you may be able to get some indication of what they don’t like. Use caution, however: if you suggest Běijīng duck, for example, and they say they don’t like it, the real reason may be that they think that it’s too expensive. Ordinary families eat out far more often these days, but be sensitive to costs. Be as attentive to them as they were to you, insisting they take the best morsels, topping up their tea cups or glasses and dealing with the bill swiftly and unobtrusively. You’ll need to do as they do, and order more food than is actually needed. Never suggest to anyone that they have ordered too much.
If you are invited to eat in someone’s home always take something to eat, perhaps fruit, and something to drink, preferably a relatively expensive (but not for you) type of local spirit or imported brand of good repute. Most localities have their own special brand of spirit, often made from sorghum, such as Běijīng’s Běijīng Chún. They may attempt not to accept your gifts mutiple times, all of which you should ignore and gently but firmly persist. Under no circumstances take any part of your gifts away again. You will yourself be given fruit or something else to take away. Politely decline several times but finally accept, unless there is a genuine reason why you cannot, in which case do your best to explain this and it will be accepted.
More likely, if your acquaintances are not entirely without funds or if you are on business, you will be invited out to eat, your host choosing the dishes. In either case the host will likely apologise for the poverty of the fare and for how little food there is (even if the table is groaning). Your job is to disagree politely, try everything and praise everything, taking an intelligent interest and enjoyment in the dishes. In more formal circumstances seats have different status, so sit where you’re put. As everywhere else in the world, young people and especially those who have an interest in the West, are much less formal. Very little of what’s been said here relates to casually going out for a pizza after work with office colleagues, for instance.
Drinking is usually undertaken collectively, rather than at your own individual pace, and through a succession of toasts. Don’t forget to propose your own in praise of the food, your hosts and the hospitality in general. The local equivalent of ‘cheers’, frequently heard, is gān bēi (干杯, ‘dry cup’ — empty your glass). In more casual settings, drinking beer, for instance, replenish others’ cups before topping up your own. Should you be eating out, or if you are participating in an official banquet, note that there is no dithering at the end of the meal. All participants quickly vanish.
Remove your shoes when entering someone’s house, despite cries of ‘no need, no need’. You’ll note no one else is wearing them. You’ll be offered slippers probably too small for your feet. Despite the freedom with phlegm in public places, note that it is very bad form to blow your nose at the table. If you feel the need to sneeze, turn completely away or leave the table if you can. Only help yourself to small amounts of food at a time and don’t refill the rice in your bowl until you have eaten completely what you have. Don’t wave your chopsticks around, but note that picking up your bowl and cupping it in one hand is perfectly normal, as is noisy eating, particularly of noodles. It is also perfectly acceptable to drink your soup straight from the bowl, but simply use common sense and observe what is happening around you. Do not leave your chopsticks sticking up out of the rice in your bowl.
Your tea will be topped up by someone (almost as soon as you drink any, so when you’ve had enough leave the glass full. Cleaning your bowl is also a direct invitation to refill it, so start protesting about your repletion well in advance (我吃饱了, Wǒ chībǎo le — I’ve eaten-to-fullness) and leave a little in it.
Gifts can be problematic with the more traditionally minded: avoid clocks, knives or scissors, or giving things in fours, although many of these restrictions depend upon the names of the gifts being homophones for terms to do with death or funerals, and may only work for people of southern origins, for instance, and be regarded as nonsense by young urban sophisticates. Never write any note in red ink. If you still write postcards, and do so in red ink, this may cause flutters at some post offices.
Losing your temper in China is rarely a good idea, although your patience may sometimes be tried to the limit. When dealing with people behind a counter, try to avoid getting them into a situation where they give you a flat ‘no’. If you get a ‘no’ straight away such as ‘no discounts at this hotel’, you’ll need to offer them an excuse to change their minds, however irrelevant, and particularly if the ‘no’ has been given publicly.
Be unswervingly polite until it’s absolutely clear that it will get you nowhere. Be cautious, however, of causing someone able to have the last laugh to lose face.
Dating
The days when any foreign male, however lacking in looks or socially inept, was a magnet for Chinese women are largely gone, and for those women more interested in passport and wallet than personality the short-term visitor is of little interest. Foreigners often find the attitudes of Chinese males towards women to be a century out of date, and while successful relationships are formed they are more rare. Foreigners at cafés and bars around the universities, principally in northwest Běijīng, and in the bars and cafés of assorted bar streets and known haunts of the middle-class employees of foreign companies who have English skills, may find themselves in conversation, but for most of these people, widely exposed to resident foreigners, you hold no particular interest.
Speaking Mandarin opens up a far wider range of possibilities. Casual encounters may be arranged via multi-purpose mobile phone app WeChat (www.wechat.com) which has a function allowing an exchange of messages with other users in the vicinity (although also allowing the government a back door into your phone) but the app is also used for commercially-driven intimacy, so be careful. The top Chinese dating app, which promises an English version before long, is Mòmo (immomo.com), China’s answer to Tinder.
China is not the ideal destination for those who like to mix travel with a little homosexual intimacy. Homosexual activity was only recently made legal and even more recently removed from the list of mental illnesses and a ban on forced conversion ‘therapy’ only still more recently introduced while discrimination remains widespread. But there’s also good news. Blued (www.blued.cn), a Chinese-language dating app for men has over 15 million users and a GPS function identifying nearby users. An English-language version is promised, but in the meantime language may well be no barrier to success. A version for lesbians is also on the way. Time Out Beijing has a list of LGBT-friendly bars and clubs here: www.timeoutbeijing.com/features/Bars__Clubs-Features/13466/Beijings-best-gay-and-lesbian-bars.html. [This page has now been blocked, but other articles on gay venues survive at timeoutbeijing.com.]
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