Another massive cultural difference I've discovered today while reading the responses to Yatin Parasher's blog and took into account my own experiences.
People, take words, very literally. You can almost never do that, as a foreigner. Chinese people, especially coaches, speak in a very deep, rhyme like manner and they cushion words if you aren't local.
If it tastes good, they'll go "That was excellent! Truly excellent!" or if you did well, they might go "Correct! Correct! That was good!"
In Chinese it is called "give face".
When they're being technical, every word they say, you have to analyse the actual depth behind the word. This is why, when my coach says 10 words, I end up translating nearly 2x as much. I somewhat attribute it to my less than natively proficient mandarin, but even when we're discussing in a group with American Chinese, the more proficient mandarin speakers, they don't know the translation either.
There were some really confident responses about what the Chinese technique was, but, if there was a definition of misinterpreted, it was in that forum alright.
With Chinese, go deep. AND YES, if a Chinese coach says, "nah, I'll pay this meal", it DOES mean YOU should pay for it.
cultural difference definition 在 What is CULTURAL DIVERSITY? What does CULTURAL 的推薦與評價
... <看更多>