Caring Neighbors

(Neighbors in Kathmandu helping with home construction)

Pawan Mishra once said, “Good neighbors always spy on you to make sure you are doing well.”  In America, many of us have lost that neighborly care and concern, but it is still alive and well in other cultures.

A humorous perspective on this comes from a Ukrainian American friend in Chicago who lived in the Ukrainian Village neighborhood all her life – where every neighbor knew everyone else and kept tabs on them; something she found a bit irritating.  When she was in her 30s, she had purchased a live tree for Christmas one year, but got preoccupied with holiday events and a new boyfriend she was seeing.  Christmas came and went, New Year’s came and went, the Epiphany came and went, and one day in March, she realized that the dead tree really needed to go.  But her neighbors were nosey – a bunch of older Ukrainian ladies who gossiped like “The Real Housewives of Kiev.”  So she borrowed a handsaw and headed up to her apartment to dismember her tree.  She packed the various sawed-off limbs in black garbage bags along with her regular trash and skulked down the three flights of her greystone every couple of nights for a week until all of the garbage bags had been placed into several different dumpsters.

Though this is a bit of an extreme example of neighborly concern, it illustrates something that many of us no longer worry about too much – our neighbors.  Unless you move into a relatively small, tight-knit community development, you likely won’t receive a basket of muffins or a bottle of wine from those who wish to welcome you, or expect to borrow a cup of sugar from them when you are baking.  It is becoming less common to know our neighbors beyond a friendly wave across the yard.

Maybe because of this change in our own society, many people are more critical of South Koreans and their keen sense of what others think of them.  It permeates their society, and caring about what others think is a cornerstone of their collectivist society.  We should be careful to not consider that this is necessarily a bad practice, though it can have unintended negative consequences: an overarching beauty ideal that leads to the highest percentage of cosmetic surgery in the world (with the top ranking US and Brazil both just over 1.2% and 1.4% of their populations respectively, while Korea is closer to 2.2%); very high stress-related issues among students and workers (drinking, depression, lack of bonding time with family and friends); and even suicidal thoughts among some teens who are not admitted into top tier universities.  At the same time, however, there is a sense of rootedness with this kind of community awareness.  You know your people, and you know that people will still take care of you, even if they judge you from time-to-time.

The first month I lived in China, I got sick – a terrible cold that just would not go away.  One morning, after I had called in sick to the school where I worked, I heard banging on my apartment door.  I shuffled to the door with my comforter wrapped around me, and the next thing I knew, there were 4 older Chinese ladies moving through my apartment.  They stripped my bed, beat my pillows, opened the curtains, looked in my fridge, and then put a pot of Chinese medicine on my gas burner.  Although it seemed a bit like the Normandy Invasion, and I could not understand a single word any of them said, I realized that this was a side effect of me being part of their community – they heard I was ill and wanted to take care of me. 

On the flip side, after I was better, I realized that everything I did was noticed by everyone in the school and the girls’ dorm area where my apartment was.  Guards marked my comings and goings for a weekly report to the principal; the dorm mom would tell others if I went for a walk in the sun during the lunchtime “rest” period, which led to people telling me about the evils of the sun; and after sharing with one person the price of a futon that I bought, suddenly everyone started to ask how much money I made.  But I’ll tell you what – I sure kept my fridge clean and did my laundry when everyone could see it to avoid another home invasion.

Caring to some extent about what others think can be a powerful motivator and provide deeper ties to one’s community.  Just don’t let it scare you into discarding a bagged-up Christmas tree like it’s a dead body you are trying to get rid of!

How to Know When No Means No

After an illuminating conversation with a couple of my colleagues about the appropriateness/inappropriateness of the 1940s song, “Baby, it’s Cold Outside,” and the language usage of the time, I realized that I could draw parallels with some of the Asian cultures I’ve experienced and how they say ‘no.’

When examining the lyrics of the song, and the decade in which it was written, it could be argued that [her] protests were simply voiced as good etiquette of a polite woman of the time.  The same goes for the Chinese and their culture of appropriate rejection.  In China, it is customary to decline offers three times before accepting – a ritual refusal.  This goes for something as simple as a cup of tea that is offered in a Chinese friend’s home or for larger invitations to important events.  This type of behavior shows the receiver’s humility and modesty – and it is an important part of social etiquette.  I was allowed a bit of a foreigner license when I lived there and was not (at least to my knowledge) considered rude when I accepted things immediately.  And before I became aware of this expectation, I’m sure I left several of my guests thirsty or left out when I made an offer that was politely refused once.

These ritual refusals should not be confused with the more substantive refusals.  When working with Chinese either in your own country or in China, it is important to understand the often watered down ‘no’ that may be delivered politely when doing business.  Chinese tend to not be as blunt as Americans, and this can lead to confusion in negotiations or in workplace settings where both cultures are represented.  In many cases, you can recognize a polite, but substantive, refusal by whether or not you feel unsure at the end of the conversation.  This is a typical practice to allow the asker to “save face” (avoid humiliation and preserve reputation) by not directly being denied.  Sometimes a gentle alternative will be offered, or sometimes a nebulous excuse will be used to end the request.

My advice when doing business across borders?  If you are not sure, ask someone who is with you for some clarification – a translator or near equal peer.  You don’t want to put the big boss on the spot, but you also need to understand the underlying meaning in business negotiations.

I will end this on a slightly unrelated note:  My officemate (a Chinese who has lived in the US for 25 years) just shared a funny story that illustrates the hidden meaning that can lurk in a seemingly polite offer.  Several of his visiting Chinese students invited him to come for dinner.  He politely declined, thinking that they were feeling obligated to invite him to a meal.  They offered again, and he still declined.  The next text he received from them (a few hours later) indicated that their rice cooker was broken, and they needed a new one.  It is highly likely that they did not directly want to ask for a new cooker, but had my officemate accepted the offer, they would have mentioned off-handedly that they would eat noodles instead of rice – since their cooker was broken.