China Law Blog

Friendship is also different over here. You can have a Chinese friend with whom you haven't talked in 3 years, and a lot of times you can just pick up the phone and call him out of the blue for a favor. You just pick up where you left off. They're happy to hear from you, you all go to dinner and have a great time. In the West, someone usually has hurt feelings over the 3 years of silence. Not here. It's a reunion, a cause for celebration.

Perhaps the most common non-verbal display of love is when someone picks out the choicest morsel and puts it directly in your rice bowl.

This way takes the Chinese no-nonsense sensibility that "talk is cheap" in matters of love and adds to it the passion for food.

A few years back before the drink scandals, there was an advertisement that added humor to this as well.

As I recall, the TV advert had a mother returning to her son's school on his first day of kindergarten because she forgot to give him his drink. With tears of joy (at the expression of love), the rather plump child ran (in slow motion) to receive his drink and a hug from his mother.

It was a fun, over the top ad that seemed very effective at positioning the product. Notably absent were any "I love you" and "I love you, too" statements which would likely conclude this ad if it was attempted in the States.

Cheers!

This post reminds me of the very good Taiwanese film, "Eat, Drink, Man, Woman" -- about a father that could not verbally tell his daughters he loved them so he expressed his love for them through the incredible meals he would make for them. Yet, the daughters were too clueless and selfish to get what he was trying to express to them.

Cheers from Cal Poly.

Interesting twist on my post, Dan -- thanks for picking it up!

As for applying it to business, I think it depends on who you're doing business with. Obviously, there is a lot of nonverbal communication in business interactions, including the inevitable banquets. But sometimes it can be difficult to distinguish what is genuine from what is just "for face" purposes. And sometimes, what people do is both for face and hospitality/warmth. But if you have a good relationship with the company, I'd bet it's going to be more on the hospitality/warmth side than just face.

This is weird. Today I received a phone call from a Chinese friend with whom I hadn't spoken in about a year. She clearly needed my face (or any Western face, really) to show up in a certain place to bolster her own face.

What struck me was how she asked for this favor, typical of how other Chinese friends ask for favors. It's very different from from the way a Western friend would ask. She asked in a tone that would seem to us Westerners as impertinent, even demanding. Urgent and commanding, with the expectation that I would not, could not possibly, refuse. My first gut reaction, Western reaction, hit first, and I remember thinking, "boy, she's got some nerve to ask me this way." Then I remembered that she's Chinese, and she was plainly upset and in need, and I realized that this is what friends do in China. When you get a call from a friend who needs help, and they demand that you drop what you're doing and run over, you hop-to, you don't beg off, claiming to be busy or being annoyed you didn't get any advance notice. You run over there and help, and after they're breathless with gratitude. You do it without complaining, and you give them all the face they deserve because they are truly good people, and their gratitude will last years longer than you even know.

Good friends in China won't put on "guest air" with you. They may seem abrupt and demanding, but that's how you know they regard you as close.

@robertb

That last comment of yours was like poetry, man...wow...I loved it and will share onward...