Asking visiting family members for gifts and money.
Is this common?
Say an American-Vietnamese family goes and visits family back in Vietnam. Are the americans asked to give gifts or pay for meals or give the native born money? I watched one tv show where this American Vietnamese made the mistake of showing the picture of their american house and the Vietnamese went crazy saying “You a Millionaire! You need to give me Money!”. Of course they didnt understand that nice house came with a big mortgage and they had barely scraped money together for the trip.
My Filipino friends say this is a problem. He said when they visited they were expected to host a big meal for all their relatives back home and pay for it all. And thing is, those Filipinos are not poor. They make just as much as the Americans.
I’m not sure I understand your complaint. This thread is about trying to form an understanding or intuition of the average differences between Western and Asian culture. Is the problem that everyone should know these already, or that we’re suggesting such differences exist? Because if it’s the latter I would argue there are such average differences, plus people like me did stress they were only talking about China or whatever.
I think what’s common is that family members are expected to share resources. If they don’t think you have it, they won’t ask for it. But if they think you’ve got money, they will wonder why the hell you’re not sharing. Parents give their kids money; adult children give their parents money. It’s not “My money” or “Your money” - that’s an American/Western thing.
Another example is how women will take over family finances. The man may be the breadwinner but a lot of times, it’s the wife who does the banking, the shopping, the financial planning, and in many cases, sets an allowance for the husband even though he is the one bringing in the income - again, it’s not his money.
LOL, so even your cherry-picked list requires a disingenuous interpretation of observations like “more respect of seniors”. A textbook example of someone trying hard to find something to be offended by.
This is a thread without value judgement. I learned some people count by bending their fingers. This may be due to a desire to avoid pointing, which might be impolite. This is interesting, but not better or worse than any other way of counting. Some people may be offended by saying people count in different ways.
This. And - I used to think that Asians, too, were more indirect about things, but then found that it’s more that every culture has its taboos and bushes to beat around.
In the USA, for instance, you can criticize government to your heart’s content, but the wrong opinion about race, gender, sexual orientation, etc. can land you in serious social trouble.
Whereas in China it’s largely the opposite; you can be as anti-trans, anti-Muslim, anti-gay as you want and suffer relatively little repercussions, but criticizing the government can get you in serious trouble.
“When I worked in Japan this was called “breaking the wa” (harmony). That’s the one cardinal sin. As long as you keep the wa, you can get away with some pretty astronomical fuckups.”
Very true. In Japan the main thing was not to stand out and instead be a good member of the group. This is vitally important for women. And decision-making has to be by consensus - usually.
The Japanese certainly do queue in an orderly way. One or two things in Japan; most people shower every day. And many women wash their hair every day.
In Japan people smile if they are embarrassed.
The other points seem valid. I was in Hong Kong and Macao, also in South Korea, Singapore and Thailand.
You’d think they’d settle on a system where person A would suggest what they know to be B’s favorite, B would suggest C’s favorite, and so on around the circle (or, more likely, down the hierarchy).
Finally after much nodding and hmming, then they’d go to someplace else nobody suggested to break the tie.
It’s hard for me to see this as a value free judgement, (painfully, aggressive, unapologetic) but there you are: I just don’t understand what those words mean to other people.
Now I, personally, don’t object to your narrow parochial view of the world (and I apologize to Acsenray for using that sentence as an example), because I also have a narrow parochial view of the world, and I also don’t expect Chinese, or Japanese, or Indian “Asians” to be any less narrow or parochial.
I think the stereotypes mentioned here speak more of the people making the statements than they do of the group characterized, but I’m OK with that. It’s interesting to hear you talking about yourselves.
The only place you might get away with anything like line-cutting in NYC is places that don’t really have a line ( there’s just a mob in front of a counter) - and even then you’re more likely to be told " I was here first"
I’m not going to say it’s exactly a value-free judgement - but I am going to say that “aggressive” and “unapologetic” most likely mean the same thing to me as they do to you , it’s just that I don’t see them as always negative. Let’s take “The old ladies are very aggressive and will unapologetically barge right ahead of everyone else.” . In most places in the US, “aggressive” and “unapologetic” are seen as negative qualities, especially for women. But why would you be apologetic for barging ahead if that is precisely what is expected by your culture. ? And being passive when everyone else is aggressive and barging ahead means you don’t get on the elevator
My work colleague was complaining that he was expected to bring stuff like xboxes and other expensive electronics as gifts when he visited his family in India. And from how he described them they were pretty well off, too.
Some (much?) of that is simply about evading customs duties.
Here in Miami there’s a large outlet mall near the airport. Scads of folks come up from South America with a day bag. They go to the mall, buy a couple gigantic steamer-trunk sized wheeled suitcases, fill them with clothes, electronics, etc., then head back to the airport to fly home with all that checked baggage.
One’s duty free allowances are usually per trip, not per month or year. And if nothing else, these goods are often newer models at a lower sticker price than back home in e.g. Brazil, Chile, Barbados, etc.
“Aggressive” and “unapologetic” are simple descriptions of the situation. “Painful” is a description of the situation’s personal impact on me. I was surrounded by family members laughing at me for my failure to be more agressive and unapologetic about barging in to things and for my instinct to wait my turn and be called on.
Incidentally, me and all my classmates at a Chinese university, were asked just today to answer some questions on the differences between west and east culture for a video. The questions were focused mostly on the business / work environment, but touched on many of the things in this thread: Whether “mianzi” (saving face) is more important than in the West, the differences in how willing people are to stand out etc etc
I mention this, to illustrate that the kind of cultural comparison being done in this thread, is the same as many Asian people themselves are interested in, and try to summarize too. It’s not inherently negative, or about feeling superior, even if some of the items in the list are mildly negative.
You say that jokingly, but I saw something like this happen once. I was out drinking with my (Japanese) buddy with a mixed group in Sapporo. He told me he wanted to hook up with the girl sitting beside me, so I told him I’d be glad to switch seats so he could chat her up. He looked horrified at my suggestion, and I despaired at his chances.
What happened next, I missed a bit because of the language barrier, but they broke out some method of everyone swapping seats, based on some mysterious “random” algorithm they sketched out on the back of a cocktail napkin. That way everyone could swap seats without anyone expressing a desire to sit next to a particular person. They did so, my buddy ended up sitting next to the girl, and he succeeded decisively.
Damndest thing I ever saw, but you can’t argue with success.
