When people from western countries come to Shanghai, their first impression is that China people are so fucked up.

The passengers waiting to get on the bus piled up at the subway gate, and the cars on the road sped through the red light on the sidewalk; There are also public occasions to urinate everywhere. Anyway, this is not your home, and there are no one around you.

They have various reasons for these rude behaviors. When westerners accuse this "China culture", Shanghai locals blame the farmers who migrated from the countryside, although China people in Taiwan Province and Hongkong are more polite.

However, there should be a deeper psychological reason, that is, China's difference effect within or outside the ethnic group is particularly obvious.

If you are my friend, I can lose everything for you; If you are a stranger, if you look at me, I may chop you into shredded pork with Beijing sauce. The deep love for friends and the hatred for strangers form two completely opposite extremes.

Of course, what I said above can't represent the 1.4 billion people in China at all. My conclusion comes from some friends I met in Shanghai, Guangzhou and Boston.

but whether they are typical representatives or not, I have learned a lot from them. So what can westerners, especially like me, from the northeast of the United States learn from the Chinese?

Generosity and hospitality

In China, generosity is like saying "please" or "thank you", like a conditioned reflex.

obviously, for example, paying bills in restaurants. But it also contains subtle things, for example, as soon as you see your neighbor's old man dirty himself, you immediately hand over a tissue. Or take a glass of water for her immediately when her eyes are placed on the water dispenser before she opens her mouth. Just like everyone is searching for the smallest and most inconvenient place of others and then responding or solving it immediately.

When my father flew to Fuzhou to give a speech, the host university sent a graduate student named Lily to accompany him. Once, she offered to help my father with his notebook, and my father said, no, I'm fine. At this time, Lily looked so depressed that my father changed his mind and gave it to her. At this time, she became very cheerful.

That's the way it is. In the face of hospitality, my father finally found it difficult. For Lily, it seems that only when there is far more to offer than to demand can she show herself, "Look! How good I am to you.

once, I went to Yixing, which is about two hours away from Shanghai, for a week, accompanied by my colleague Dandan, our boss Angela and Angela's son Ben. Because Dandan's mother is from Yixing and Angela is Dandan's boss, Dandan's mother arranged a black Audi A6 and a driver for our trip with great courtesy.

When the bus was about to leave Shanghai, Dandan, Angela and the driver took out snacks directly, but everyone brought enough snacks for the whole car. A polite argument started:

When Dandan took out the potato chips of Joy, Angela refused and took out peanut butter chaos, and then the drivers refused and took out several bottles of oolong tea for everyone.

the whole carriage is full of joy and three words: eat mine! Eat mine!

In the end, of course, the boss Angela won, and then we all quietly enjoyed the peanut butter chaos and drove on the G2 highway.

actually, I want to say, can I just have some oolong tea?

An hour later, Dandan called her mother and told her that we had all eaten and there was no need to prepare dinner. Then her mother said, ok, just prepare some snacks.

When we arrived, Dandan's mother didn't prepare anything, but invited us directly to the best hotel in Yixing.

It turns out that the "dim sum" she prepared was eight famous delicacies in Yixing, such as turtle in Taihu Lake, lily petal soup, diced chicken with chestnut, wild bamboo shoots and so on. She even specially ordered a garden salad with mayonnaise (a kind of western sweet sauce), saying that it was specially prepared for foreign guests.

After a full meal, she served us at least five "snacks".

interestingly, westerners and Shanghainese in Shanghai have a reputation for being stingy.

action, not words

I felt uneasy when I started to fall in love with Jane, because she wouldn't say anything sweet or flirtatious that I expected to hear from a girlfriend.

once, when I returned to Shanghai after a week in Indonesia, she didn't say anything like "I miss you" or "I'm glad to meet you", but just as usual, we met in the company cafeteria. When I told her "I love you", she only nodded her head in reply, and I began to worry, does she really love me?

but at the same time, she has done countless thoughtful things for me without any special reminder. She bought me clothes in OLD NAVY. She took a silly photo of us with an old Polaroid camera and bought me a photo frame watch with rabbit ears.

When I had a birthday party, she blew up many balloons and hung them everywhere. She went to a Mexican restaurant to buy potato chips and fresh salsa sauce. She even arranged a wheelchair so that a friend with a sprained ankle could come.

It doesn't seem to be enough. She cooked a very delicious dinner for me, with delicious red wine and fragrant candles, and drew an oil painting for me and quoted the words in the short message I sent her a month ago that I forgot myself. I was worried because she said too little!

My Chinese teacher, Su Wei, is a complete activist. One Christmas, I came to see him by train from new york.

Although I only had two hours, he drove 41 minutes to the railway station and 41 minutes back just to show me his new house, give me a book, a box of jasmine tea for my mother and a big bag of pistachios to take back to China.

After graduating from college, Su Wei opened his house to his favorite students and said, "This is your home"! Every time I visit, his wife Liu Mengjun always cooks a big meal, and there is always a bed in the guest room so that I want to stay there for one night.

I asked casually if there was any orange juice. Since then, I always have a bottle of orange juice in the refrigerator.

Su Wei is unique among my university professors. He is very concerned about students' lives and continues to be a friend and mentor to support them after graduation. As a novelist, teacher and poet, he is better at expression than Jane, but his actions are still in the lead.

Confucius said: A gentleman is slow in words, but quick in deeds. It is a perfect description of Jane and Su Wei.

three introverts and sincerity

Our colleagues in China prefer to keep quiet in unfamiliar social situations. They think, "I don't want to stand out" or "I don't want to say the wrong thing", which makes the team lunch very boring.

Melissa, the manager of our American office, tried to make the Friday happy hour held by employees in the company more sociable, but most employees just took a bottle of beer and popcorn and went back to their desks instead of socializing.

It seems that this is a waste of time, which makes Melissa often waste money.

this is almost the opposite of the extroverted personality of Americans. Americans seem to have such a script for these situations: "Hey, how have you been recently", "What were you doing" and "What did you do at the weekend".

Of course, usually they don't care what the answer is, and they may be thinking, "Oh sorry, Mark! No one wants to hear about your bicycle trip, but this kind of scene will bring people together and promote new contacts.

These two attitudes, introversion and extroversion, prudence and sincerity, and casual chatting, will bring different results.

The first attitude leads to less intimate friendship, and this group and that group are all kinds of small groups over time. And the second one will bring many acquaintances. Didn't Confucius say, "He who has no friends is worse than himself"? How can they do this?

On the other hand, small conversations can open the door to friendship, although these "friendships" are usually confined to insincerity. Generally speaking, Americans may be more extroverted, which may make them less lonely.

Of course, China also has his own dishonest social etiquette. Around all kinds of banquets, toasts and gifts, you can see all kinds of insincere pandering and taking part in accidental amusement. But even if it is not a sincere friendship, there is at least a strong bond of interdependence.

4 This is not Boston

Where we come from determines how we should get along with others.

I grew up in an environment where friends pay their own bills and manage their own time carefully, and only when they encounter a real crisis will they show their strongest feelings, otherwise they will be ashamed.

Through the silent code of the Internet, we can share with each other comfortably, have a small talk, or sarcastically say "Nice to meet you" so that we can socialize without getting too close. People here can also be generous and surprising, but first you need to say what you need.

These friends I made in China once made me wonder whether this is the best or the only way to get along with people. They tend to do more than talk, and express their concern through considerate actions rather than words.

too many egos may be lonely. The best aspect of China culture is to promote intimate relations, people behave generously in a conditioned way, express their concern with actions rather than words, choose sincere language and give all their ideas to their friends. People support each other, and most importantly, they do it without bargaining. What would you do if you only gave more to feel happier?

The barrier between strangers may be high, but once you cross that wall, everything can be shared.

When I cross the barrier of "friends" with China people, they usually become as close as westerners I have known for many years.

Angela, who is traveling with us in Yixing, is a senior human resources manager, but she treats her employees like her children. She invited Dandan and I to climb mountains and hike with her teenage son, and held dinner parties at her house from time to time.

My Chinese teacher Su Wei knows my love life better than my parents.

My colleague Lincoln, let's go swimming naked together, and then we will go to Lamian Noodles to ask for two noodles and talk about politics and history.

As a special level of friendship, it is not like a "relationship" between two individuals in China, but more like a fusion of two lives.

The ideal boyfriend in Shanghai will do laundry and cook for his girlfriend, and of course pay all the bills. Just like my American roommate John learned to do all this for his local girlfriend Sabrina.

Constant WeChat contact is necessary, and matching "couples' clothes" are not uncommon. Even the "dating" itself implies a step towards a stable marriage. The expansion of the western girl-catching culture is still limited to young professionals like the central city of Shanghai.

Of course, the deepest bond is the relationship between parents and children. One day, Jane asked her mother what she would do if she died. Her mother said, "Oh, I'll kill myself".

PS: In China, we believe in not talking to strangers, but in the United States, on the contrary, you must say hello when you meet strangers on the road. Not saying hello makes people feel that this person is furtive and insecure.

Therefore, China people who come to the United States for the first time are easily confused. They think Americans are really hospitable.

Actually, in America, people say, "How are you?" Most of them don't care whether you are really good or not. It's really just a greeting, just like when you meet someone you know but are not familiar with in China and ask, Have you eaten? Everyone knows that this doesn't mean that you are going to treat.