Saving "Face" -- Shame is intolerable.

Fighting for the bill. Despite our reputation for frugality, the importance of
being a generous host is paramount.
Eating everything and anything that moves. Have you tried chicken feet? Geoduck?
Pig ears? Fish heads? Google Image them.
Respect for elders and social hierarchy to a fault (even when they are wrong).
Hardline focus on education and work ethic.
Parental sacrifice for their offsprings and vice versa; your parents living with
you and depending on you when they are elderly.
Fascination with status, wealth, brands and luxury, yet frugality everywhere else.
Taking shoes off indoors.
Sexual repression and distance with the opposite gender before marriage
Social / racial tensions.
Variance between regions of Chinese people -- folks from Northern parts of China
are completely different from the Southern. And it's not just a "twang" -- after a
few thousand years, they are essentially distinct ethnicities (as different as
Italians are to the French).
Chinese mythologies, legends and "tall-tales" (Moon, Zombies, Dragon, Phoenix,
Feudal Lords, and Emperors).
The colors Red, Gold, White, and Purple.
Superstitions with Chinese zodiacs, numbers (1,4,6,8,9, etc) and homonyms.
Poetic proverbs (chengyu).
Self deprecation and modesty.
Differences of dialects of spoken Chinese.
Chi (qi), Eastern Medicine, Feng Shui
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Bertil Hatt
Bertil Hatt
I dont know if you consider Poetic proverbs (chengyu) only as a sign of culture, by
reciting full...
1 more comments from Ericko Samudera
Guyi Shen
Guyi Shen, CEO of EdgePi, DIY Price Intelligence for SME E-Commerce
Answered Aug 26, 2010
Business ethics is a major difference between Chinese culture and Western culture
in general.

In Western culture we look for consistency, fairness and honesty in people we like
to do business with. The ideal gentleman is someone who is unflinchingly honest no
matter who they are dealing with.

In China, it is a lot more complicated. You separate your dealings with people
into concentric rings of trust; the innermost ring is your family, then it spreads
out into close friends, work acquantainces, former classmates, friends of friends,
people from the same town as you, same country, and the last ring is everyone else.

Your obligation in fair business dealing is proportional to where someone is in

your circle of trust, so for a close friend or family member, you would go out of
your way to give them favourable treatment, even to your own detriment, whereas for
a gwailoh (foreigner) you wouldn't think twice about cheating him out of his money.

That's why guanxi is so important in Chinese culture. Before you do business with
anyone in China, it is critical to establish both parties within a circle of trust.
Without it, any business dealing is fraught with danger because there is no social
stigma attached to breaking any agreements.
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Peter Su
Peter Su, Chinese ESL teacher in Beijing
Answered Dec 29, 2010
1. Chinese think highly of people whose profession has something to do with
studying more than anyone else.

Consequently, the equivalent of "Sir" in English, in terms of its function of

addressing the others, is "Teacher" in Chinese.

As the old Chinese saying goes, "Everything is despicable compared with studying".
Studying is ?? in Chinese, which means 'reading books'. As a result, the term
"???", which means "reader", has a more or less sense of respect when used to
describe someone, with the connotation of knowledgeable, well-mannered, patient and
sometimes even ambitious.

2. On contrary, businessmen used to suffer quite injustice when it came to social

recognition, as in the traditional rank of social status, �????�.

? (shi), government officials (all selected from ??? in the whole country)
? (nong), peasants
? (gong), handicraftsman
? (shang), businessman, which is of course the bottom of the bottom of the social
trough.

"Liars", "peddlers without conscience" used to be their typical labels.

Once a businessman made a big fortune, no matter how hard working as a

professional, or how kind as a person, he would end up as the villain in gossip.
Not for the reasons as simple as envy or merely sour grapes.

"Financial speculation" is a much much worse word in Chinese than in English.

3. The connotation of "businessman" in Chinese (???,??) is actually getting better

and better, thanks to people like Ma Yun of Alibaba, and the influence of Hollywood
movies.

People may still think businessmen are necessarily slick or evilly slick, but they
do believe, sometimes enviously, businessmen are smart and hardworking.

4. However, some prejudice sticking around for thousands of years doesn't, poof,
suddenly disappear.
People still hold strong hostility against businessmen who acquire their fortune
not seemingly through their personally efforts.

Phrases like "???" (I don't know how to translate this accurately, it means
someone getting super rich overnight, just like some sort of explosion), or "???"
(the second generation of a very rich family), these phrases spring up in
newspapers or daily communication, indicating disdaining of businessmen is really
deep-rooted.

One of the phrases we hate so much is "?????" (the coal mines owners or coal
traders from Shanxi province), which carries the same touch of "???" while
picturing them as nasty people, illiterate, dirty both physically and mentally.

Ironically however, Shanxi is the one of ancient birthplaces of Chinese modern

business, especially financial industry, dating back 400 or even 600 years,
probably in the Qing even Ming dynasty.

Ever since them, businessmen from Shanxi province, for the most part, have always
been savvy, hardworking, and patriotic, fairly speaking. They contributed a lot of
their personal fortune in this country's toughest days. But they are still "???".
People can be rather ungrateful. I think that's the case everywhere in the world.

5. Chinese people are hard workers.

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Elaine C. Smith
Elaine C. Smith, American-Born Taiwanese
Answered Aug 24, 2010
You're not supposed to eat the last one of anything on a dish, but you're supposed
to get other people to eat it, possibly by force.
Belief that Chinese food is better than all other cuisines.

Wearing pajamas in public:

http://boingboing.net/2010/02/05...
Ok, it's not clear that this is really part of the Chinese culture canon.

Joseph Hsieh has a pretty good list. Each time something comes to mind, I see
that it's on there already.
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Paul Denlinger
Paul Denlinger, Have lived in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong; fluent in Mandarin
(written, spoken)
Answered Nov 2, 2011
Showing off through one's own children, and trying to one up everyone else through
one's only child or children. Having them tutored so that they can participate in
math competitions and beat everyone else, then be falsely modest when they beat
their competitors, and reveling in it quietly at home.
Making sure that the kids don't engage in team competitions or social events
because they want their child to shine. Screw team sports; they are for white and
black people, not for us Chinese.
Government officials or wealthy businessmen having affairs with actresses, not
because they like the person, but to show off to their friends that they have the
money and can afford to literally get in bed with that person. Pure bragging
rights.
The desire to eat expensive and sometimes endangered species (like shark fins' for
example) to show off money and social status, yet again.
False modesty, and claiming that one is not special, wealthy, etc. when in fact,
the constant aim is show oneself off/attract attention, and then, once someone
notices, to brush it off almost dismissively.
Love/hate with the west. Claiming that Chinese culture is superior in the west in
every way, but always sending their child to the west for education, even if they
belong to the most senior ranks of the government hierarchy.
Being superficial, and judging everyone by their bling, instead of respecting
people for their knowledge. Mistaking form for substance.
Quietly enjoying the mishaps and misfortunes of others, especially if they put one
in a better position to climb the social ladder. But, then in public, saying that
it was so sad.
A corrupt social culture which always values lavish banquets, screwing aspiring
singers and actresses, and then using this knowledge to leverage oneself into the
echelons of power.
In public, praising simple values, but in private, doing the exact opposite.
Elevating hypocrisy to a fine art, far beyond what most other cultures have
achieved.
Treating women as a social adornment and symbol of wealth and bling, not as an
individual.
Calling non-Chinese "foreigners" when speaking among themselves, even though they
are 4th or 5th generation Americans, Germans, etc.
Quietly making fun of Chinese parents who neglect letting their kids who grew up
overseas not learn Chinese and implying that they are poor parents.
Never considering anyone as an equal, but always looking for a way to upstage
someone in sometimes subtle ways.
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Shijia Wei
Shijia Wei, lived in China
Updated Oct 5, 2014
We say things out of courtesy (like invitations), but we do not always really
really mean it, as the polite thing for the others to do would be to decline the
offer in order to save the host from hassles. Then the polite thing for the host
will be to invite again, to which the invited must again decline with greater
vehemence. In case of giving presents, it could even get physical. Repeat ad
nauseam, till one side gives up and promises to return the favor the next time. If
the repetition rate is too low, then people will view you as an unmannered
douchebag.

If you want to invite a Chinese person, you have to say "Don't be so courteous!" or
in Chinese "????!� (more often than the times the same line is replied back to you)
and signal that you really mean it and not just say it out of courtesy (which is an
art in itself), or else be prepared for all the ping-pong above.
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Tara Wu
Tara Wu
I just imagined a non-Chinese saying "Don't be so courteous." It sounds just like
"Don't be so co...
Bonan Wang Link
Bonan Wang Link, Clichely Chinese
Answered Sep 28, 2014
Man some of you folks brought up some really heavy stuff! Let's lighten up people.
Here's some fun ones:

-Chinese people don't see the point in having a photograph without people in it.

When I would go to, say, resort in Cancun and take some landscape shots of the
beach, my parents would say: "Why aren't you in this