I was on a panel last night talking about travel writing. Afterwards a woman who had spent a lot of time in Goa came up to add her thoughts on Going Dutch. In her experience, she said, people generally don't go in for saying 'please' or 'thank you' in India. 'Sorry' would hardly ever be heard. And if you give someone a present, the custom is not to thank the giver, but to put it immediately away.
All this ties in interestingly with what I said in the book about 'please' and 'thank you' not being at so much of a premium in much of Africa as they are here in the UK (The Magic Words, p.50); also about presents not being opened in front of the giver in the Far East, particularly Japan, where there is always a danger of the receiver 'losing face' through disappointment (You Really Shouldn't Have, p.65).
Does anyone out there have similar experiences with 'please', 'thank you' and 'sorry', not to mention differences in ways of receiving gifts around the world...
Going Dutch in Beijing by Mark McCrum
The book is a lighthearted guide to manners, attitudes and customs around the world. Why shouldn’t you offer to split the bill in China, blow your nose in a handkerchief in Japan or make the ‘thumbs-up’ sign in Iran? The often surprising answers are all here. This website is the interactive bit. Feel free to join in with comments on these stories or up to date intercultural insights of your own...
About Me
- mark mccrum
- Mark McCrum has visited six of the seven continents (not Antarctica) and written travel books about Southern Africa, Australia and Ireland. He has been mugged in Rio, picknicked on a glacier in Chilean Patagonia and has lunched with the King of the Zulus (a strict teetotaller whose manners were impeccable). He lives in London, where people love to queue.
3 comments:
for Pakistan I can definitely concur... there is no Urdu equivalent (as far as I know, and as far as common usage goes, anyway) for the word "please." the feeling behind the word is therefore expressed via the way in which the request is termed, asked, etc. (i.e. - more "pleadingly" -- similar to the conditional "would you" used in many Latin languages). even for sorry, the closest thing you can say is "forgive me," which -- when you think about it, is subtly different...
I stopped reading your book at page 15, "The finger", when I realized you really didn't know what you are talking about.
At first I wondered, "Where did this guy grow up? Couldn't have been the U.S." (Have you ever been here?). For grievous of all errors, to assert the finger "universally" means "Fuck off" is just plain wrong, wrong wrong.
Here in the United States, it means "Fuck you." There is a big difference.
"Fuck off", here, means "Go away (forever), stop bothering me." Roughly akin to "Go fuck yourself." which has the added suggestion of what to do with your time after you have fucked off. Said normally to annoying people with whom the end of your rope you have reached; soon-to-be-ex wives, dishonest business associates, etc.
"Fuck you" has no definition. It means what it means and everyone knows what it means. You can say (or gesture) this insult at just about anybody in any situation, with or without wishing them to leave your environs. This phrase is much more forceful and dangerous than the namby-pamby epithet with which you ordain your finger.
As to the finger's association with an erect penis, that's just palaver and wishful thinking. The finger means "fuck you" and that's it - never a penis, flaccid, erect, or otherwise rears its ugly head. It's a finger, goddammit.
In India, "Thank you" is generally not used much with people you know well. This is considered very formal. Indians feel that one should not be formal with family and close friends.
In India, family is very important; what you do for your family members is considered" duty".
However, with globalisation things are changing a little.We Indians are getting highly individualistic!
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