Common Talk Weeklyshuang yu zhou kan
issue date

Culture Clash
December 24, 2003
By Zhang Yan
Picture by Zhu Lijun

Modest and old

ntroduced her to the foreign engineer, Mr. Bruce, who comes from America.

“Xiao Li, this is Bruce, our department’s foreign expert. And Bruce, this is Xiao Li, our new colleague.” Both Xiao Li and Bruce said: “how do you do?” Then Bruce said, “Your sweater is so smart.” “Oh, no, it is an old one. I bought it last year.” Xiao Li answered. Bruce said again, “You are so young and smart, I’m sure you are a good employee.” “No, no. I am just a newcomer, I should learn from you old engineer.”

Bruce looked very surprised and asked me later “Did I say a wrong word? Am I really so old?”

I realized that there had a misunderstanding resulting from different cultures. Since the Chinese character is relatively bashful and modest, our response to compliments tends to be to decline it, even though sometimes we are very happy in heart. If someone accepts the praise very directly, they are viewed as not to be modest especially by elders. Furthermore, Chinese and Westerners have different attitudes towards age. In China “being old” means being experienced, which shows respect to others. Chinese don’t regard it as a taboo while Westerners often do.

After I explained it to Bruce, he smiled and seemed to understand something else, “I know now why Chinese call their boss ‘Lao ban’（老板）.”—How clever Bruce is!