Chinese Culture - #5

View Chinese Culture - #1 for an explanation of this series.

Chinese Tradition: "Have you eaten?"

The standard Chinese greeting when meeting someone is "Nie How" (You Good). If it's a friend, often this becomes a question: "Nie How Ma?" (You Good?). But if you really care about someone, family or very close friend, the greeting can be "Nie Chur Ma?" (You Eat? / Have you eaten?). [Please pardon my Pinyin, I'm spelling Western Phonetically the best I can to get the pronunciation correct for people who may not know Pinyin character pronunciation]

This all comes back to wishing someone good health and long life as well as many times in Chinese history where there was just not enough food to go around. Asking someone if they have eaten means you care about their health and well-being. Its more direct than our typical "How are you?"

Chinese Culture - #4

View Chinese Culture - #1 for an explanation of this series.

Chinese Superstition: The Number 4

The number 4 is very unlucky to the Chinese. The reason for this is that its pronunciation is the same as the word for Death.

The number four is 'Si' (say 'Sir' but drop the 'r').

As a result, anything to do with 4 is to be avoided. How so? Don't buy 4 of something, buy 3 or 5. Don't celebrate a birthday with for in it: 4, 40, 44 (really bad), etc. To receive a gift of 4 things is also to be avoided. And you certainly cannot serve 4 dishes at dinner.

We even avoided giving a silver coin to my father-in-law because the year was 2004.

Play it safe in the Chinese community and avoid the number 4.

Chinese Culture - #3

View Chinese Culture - #1 for an explanation of this series.

Chinese Tradition: If someone in your household dies, you cannot visit another home or have company over for 7 weeks.

I'm not exactly sure where the '7 weeks' duration comes from. If I find out, I'll update this post. But as for not having visitors or visiting another home, this appears to originate as a voluntary quarantine.  Someone in your home dies, especially in ancient times, you would not necessarily know from what. If it was contagious, the best way to stop the spread would be to quarantine the household away from everyone else. Today, this does not mean you can't go to work or to the store to buy things, but you cannot socialize until the 7 weeks are up. Then you can be sure you wouldn't be spreading whatever it was to others.

Often times, like with the H1N1 and Bird Flu outbreaks we see here, I wish we had a tradition like that. I see sick people, very sick people, all the time out eating in restaurants, coughing and hacking on airplanes, shopping, etc. Seriously. Can't it wait? Or can't you ask someone else to do your shopping just that once?

Chinese Culture - #2

View Chinese Culture - #1 for an explanation of this series.

Chinese Superstition: It is bad luck to put shoes on the table.

It's been explained to me that this holds true even for new shoes in their original box.

Personally, I think this is just a good practice in cleanliness turned into a Superstition. After all, where have your shoes been all day? Outside walking around in lord knows what: dirt, garbage, dead things, etc. Really, you don't want to be putting that on something you will eat off of. Even if you wear indoor-only shoes, it just makes good sense to not put them up on something you'll server food from later. The simplification comes from extending this to all shoes - even new ones in the box. Its easier to remember to never do it than to keep track of exceptions for new shoes, or indoor slippers, or freshly washed shoes, etc.

Chinese Culture - #1

This is the first of many posts to come on Chinese Culture: Traditions, Beliefs, Superstitions, Remedies, Sayings and Practices and they differ, or relate, to Western Culture. I hope this will be interesting, enlightening and entertaining.

First, a disclaimer

There are thousands of diverse cultural artifacts that make up the dozens of ethnic and religious groups of China. This perspective is through my own experience and interaction alone and does not reflect, no try to represent China as a whole. It is meant to only to illuminate a small part of the vast and fascinating diversity of Chinese culture. My opinions are just that: mine. And in no way represent any professional cultural anthropological assessment.

Chinese Saying: If you fall down, look around when you are down there, you might find some money.

Literal
This means just what is says. While you're laying flat on the floor, look around for loose change. You might as well take that opportunity to find some money before you pick yourself and dust off.

Figurative
There are opportunities everywhere. Even when you have failed and are starting over. Look around. You might find an opportunity to take advantage before starting over. Perhaps a different plan or path to take, or a new idea to attack the problem that caused you to fail in the first place. Don't just 'jump up' and try again. Take an assement of things around you and make a plan or discover something new before trying again.