A Tale of Two Cultures

It was taken at my first baseball game this Tuesday. He came and waved to the audience. I said: "Ni Hao(means Hello)!" He turned back and shaked hands with me. Suddenly he put his nose on my head!

A friend from Africa told me a story. He was waiting in a long line at a fast food store. He found there was another line with no people at all. He went to the other line and bought his Hamburg.
“American is so stupid!” my friend said.
I heard a lot of this kind of opinion from Chinese. But they use”simple” instead of “stupid”. But the opinion underneath is the same: American are stick to rigid rules and never flexible.
Besides the rigid enforcement of the rule, Chinese also don’t understand why there are so many rules in routine life.
For example, one of my friends complained that she has to write “-”between the regional code when she writes down phone number. “In Chinese we just write down all the numbers with no -,” she said: “only these stupid Americans can not remember all the numbers.”
Another example is the PowerPoint. Americans always like to use PowerPoint to show their idea during presentation and emphasize the simple way of delivering idea.
In China, people are not used to PowerPoint. When they use it, they put all the stuff onto the PowerPoint, not to explain to audience, but to help themselves to remember the lines.
Chinese culture adores sophistication. If a speech sounds confusing and complicated to understand, audience may not blame the speaker but attribute to their own problem. Like, maybe I lack knowledge so that I cannot catch up with him. Thus, to show off his “sophistication” a speaker may put all the stuff together to make it more complicated.
Is it an effective speech? Absolutely not.
Yes. Many presentations with PowerPoint are boring. Typing “-”between phone numbers is annoying. Waiting in line is annoying. But these rules are not wasting of time but help to save a lot of time. Actually I think Americans are very good at inventing rules to improve efficiency.
What is more, if all the people in a country stick to routine rules waiting in line or waiting for green light to go, they will also respect other laws.
Why don’t Chinese stick to routine rules? I don’t have the comprehensive answer. However, I guess it maybe related to the central planned economic system in China. Under that system, there was no competition and it is not necessary for people to work hard.
I remember there was often quarrel on the street when I was a child. A tiny conflict like bumping into each other might ignite frenzy. The two parties could had a huge debate for one hour and even beat each other. Usually they would be surrounded by a circle of people passing by.
I always wondered why people would stop to stand there for one hour and just watched two people firing dirty language to each other.
Now I know the answer. They have plenty of time and not much entertainment. Why not watch the live show on the street?
Of course now China is changing. Go from South China to Northern China. Go to the Street and observe the way people walk. You will find the speed of pacing is much higher in South China where economy is more thriving than in Northern China.
Chinese are learning fast how to work efficiently though it is hard to change the culture.
I remember I attended a conference last year. There was technique problem when an American speaker began his presentation with PowerPoint. The American speaker had to wait until they fixed the machine.
A Chinese speaker made a speech first and he began with: We are not like Americans. We are flexible and can make speech everywhere without PowerPoint.
Then came the American speaker . He began with :
How can we provide more flexibility to people when you can not even show your PowerPoint in a conference on technology?

Americans are obsessed with bigness.

Go to Starbucks, the size of a tall cup here is the one of a medium cup in China's Starbucks. Is it a cup of coffee or a cup of coca cola? I thought of the Cappuccino I had in Italy or the Arabian coffee I had in Egypt.

Go to MacDonald, the size of the biggest cup of coca cola is twice as the one in China's MacDonald.

Go to the road. Most of the cars I see here are vans, SUVs while most of the cars in Paris are sprint.

Go to Bestbuy. The most popular cameras and computers have big screen, big memory and large hard drive.

You can find more big things in people's houses: a big kitchen room, a huge refrigerator, a big table and a big plates.

Why Americans are so crazy about bigness?

Maybe because Americans are born bigger than others? It reminds me of a dialogue I have had with a tall tour guide in Netherlands.

"Are you the tallest in your family?"

"No. I am the shortest one."

"Why are you Netherland guys are so tall? "

"Why are you so short? "

I think it is natural that Americans pursue the bigness as Netherland people are born to be tall until I met a man in Starbucks last month.

I was working on my tiny SONY VAIO when this man passed by and screamed to me.

"Where did you get this? This is what I want."

I proudly introduced my SONY VAIO to him, including all the features I think practical and cute.I let him lift the computer and be satisfied with his surprise of the lightness.

He told me he was searching for tiny computers for a long time and it was the best he can find.

"Not the best," I said:" It is already outdated. "

Then I told him the website and let him to find the newest version. He wrote down all I told him and was about to go.

"Do you really want a small computer?"I called him then introduced my Treo650 to him.

Treo is my favorite cell phone. I use it to do most of the things that my computer can do, such as writing, reading, sending emails and listening to music, recording.

Finally he decided to buy a Sony VAIO and a treo 750.

I though it was only individual case. But I was wrong. Up till now I had introduced my SONY VAIO to 6 people who came to me in Starbucks. The most interesting thing is that all the people I talk with didn't realize they could buy small computers in the States.

Dear marketing person, think of it! You can sell small goods even in a market obsessed with bigness and don't need me to do your job any longer!

Saturday Diary: Newly arrived, I can't believe they tried to scam me
Saturday, July 07, 2007

By Shamim Ashraf

Since landing in the United States three months ago from a country half-the-world away with little knowledge of American culture and with eyes and ears not attuned to American English, I have strained to understand the words I read or hear.

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Shamim Ashraf is a reporter for The Daily Star of Dhaka, Bangladesh, who is currently working for the Post-Gazette as an Alfred Friendly Press Fellow (sashraf@post-gazette.com, 412 263-1198).

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This, along with my journalistic impulse for accuracy, has made me check things at least twice since I've been here, which, as it turned out, helped save me from getting scammed on eBay while searching for a digital camera.

I have since come to learn that there are many fraudulent sellers and even organized syndicates prowling eBay and other Web sites in search of innocent buyers who might unwittingly provide personal, bank-account or credit-card information.

Trolling through the eBay auction section to buy a Nikon D200 digital camera, I found a package that included a 200-400mm lens and a 4GB memory card. I placed a bid, only to be outbid a short time later. As I was impatient to start taking pictures with my new camera, I was prepared to raise my bid.

Regular eBay Web site visitors know that you can check out a seller through features called "Ask Seller a Question" or "Contact eBay Member." So I did, but my prospective seller posted a message that said his eBay account was having problems. He asked buyers to contact him at a separate e-mail account, which I did out of my innocence, inquiring about the condition of his camera.

A short time later, the seller, who later identified himself as Alexandru, wrote that he would close the deal if I paid $800, although I had not yet asked him about the price. Eight minutes had passed when another person, named David, sent me an e-mail saying he had a similar item, with full warranty, that he would sell for $400.

How could this person know about my interest in buying a camera and get my e-mail address? The journalist in me wanted to know.

I did know that if an eBay member sends another member an e-mail, it should appear in the recipient's "My Messages" section on the eBay Web site, which is created when you first try to buy or sell an item. The two e-mails I had received from supposed sellers had arrived in my personal e-mail account.

Nevertheless, I decided to continue the conversation to see how they wanted to play this out.

In my reply to Alexandru, I said $800 was beyond my budget, and he said he would negotiate. Seeing that the highest bid had gone up to $710 by this time, I told him I could pay only $570. And he agreed!

"I'm ready to accept your proposal. I will go for 600 USD including shipping," he wrote me, saying the other bidder was a "scammer."

He didn't know that the eBay customer support unit by this time had sent me an e-mail saying that it had removed Alexandru's active listings and suspended his trading privileges. It strongly recommended that I not proceed if the seller asked me to complete a transaction outside of eBay, cautioning that such offers are likely to be fraudulent and would not be covered by eBay buyer protection programs.

My curiosity fully peaked by this point, I asked Alexandru about how I would pay him. He told me we could arrange it through eBay, using an invoice to make sure it was 100 percent protected, and he asked me to send him my full name, address, e-mail address and eBay user ID.

I later received an invoice from the "eBay Security and Resolution Center" that asked me to send the money to an address in Braila, Romania, through Western Union, adding that I would receive the tracking number for the merchandise in three days. It also said the seller had $4,174 in an eBay-managed purchase-protection account and that I could get a refund if problems arose.

Knowing that eBay does not protect payments sent via Western Union or MoneyGram, I forwarded the e-mail to eBay customer support for verification. Of course, eBay confirmed that it had not sent the invoice and asked me never to reply to such "spoof" e-mails or click on links in such messages.

In the meantime, as I was not responding, Alexandru got impatient and asked whether I had made the payment. When I told him two days later that I was unable to buy the item at the moment, he told me he would wait one week. I never contacted him again.

Before long, another alleged seller, who claimed to be from the United Kingdom, asked about my mailing address. Another started sending e-mails to my personal account seeking a private auction. Yet another, claiming to be from Eastern Europe, also wanted to know where I lived.

I was a bit overwhelmed when eBay further cautioned me about two other sellers after I inquired about their items, saying their e-mails might contain fraudulent offers to transact purchases outside of eBay.

After all this, I received an e-mail from the address that had sent me the fake invoice, and this time it was legitimate. Apparently the address previously had been hijacked by a crook.

So how is an innocent buyer supposed to know a "spoof" e-mail from one that's not? My motto is now verify, verify, verify.

Born and raised in one of the world's poorest countries, Bangladesh, I have seen all kinds of cheating and corruption but I had no idea that I would have to be so vigilant in the modern online shopping world of the United States.

Dear Ghanashyam,
So glad to hear from you!
Actually my colleagues here find it easier to call me Lou Yi than Yi or Yi Lou.
I love Nepal. I have been to Nepal for my honey moon!
We even took a wedding picture on the Himalaya Mountain.
The only thing I feel sorry is that the photographer, a peasant we found on the mountain, was so proud of the beautiful nature that he decided the mountain should be the focus not us.

Dear Lou Yi,

I enjoyed reading your blog. It reminded me of my days last year in Massachusetts. Americans had tough time pronouncing my name. They couldn't pronounce my name-Ghanashyam Ojha. It was a great fun to listen to them trying to pronounce my name. Later I told them they could call me as Ojha. I then became popular as Ojha in my newsroom, though the first name is regarded as very important in my country.

anyway, it was a fun.
Ghanashyam
Nepal
www.danielpearl.blog.com
ojha.shambhu@gmail.com

A new comment on my article about Chinese food quality in the States:

I agree with You!

Actually the food does reflect the people's social status. The so called chinese food is the contribution of the old generation of chinese immigrant.Most of them have no other skill but cooking, which is not treated as a profession way but as their own daily meal.
This situation will be improved with the real chinese cuisines introduced to states.

By Tao Lower

Lowi Mian，Sichuan Beef, or lucky cookie. These are so called typical Chinese cuisines that you can find in menus of every Chinese restaurant in the States. But I had never had them in China.
When I arrived in the States as Caijing’s Washington correspondent, the first place I went, like every Chinese tourist, was Chinatown. The first also the only trip in Washington‘s Chinese restaurants turned me into an excellent chef.
Food in Philadelphia’s Chinatown is much better, but the decoration style, the cuisines are a little bit outdated.
I am from Hangzhou, a beautiful city in southeast China which is called the heaven in the ground. In the recent five years Hangzhou developed its reputation as the heaven of gourmet for delicious food with reasonable price.
There are a lot of big restaurants of three to four floors. You have to reserve in advance or you have to wait in a long line for two hours for a table. The decoration styles in different restaurants are so colorful that sometimes I feel like I am in Las Vegas.
Hangzhou is an example of the development of China in the recent five years after its commitment to open to the world by joining the world trade organization, not only in food but everywhere.
Last month I read an article published in the New York Times which said the Chinese food in the States is outdated while the Japanese food is thriving. I don’t have much Japanese food here but I do like the Sushi in the Whole foods very much.
But why is the Chinese food outdated here? The article said that because the States doesn’t give more visas to Chinese chefs.
It may be true but I don’t think it is the real reason.
What Chinese restaurants lack are not only chefs but also enough costumers to cultivate a thriving Chinese food market in the States.
The Chinese food in Philadelphia’s Chinatown is a good example. Its costumers are two groups of people: tourist and residents in Chinatown.
Tourists, though come to Chinatown everyday, do not care much about the taste of the food. They come and go, just for exotic experience. The 5000 residents of Chinatown are the major costumers of the Chinese restaurants.
But it is just a small ethnic group, with most of its people from Guangdong and Fujian. The offspring of the railroad workers, who have been isolated from today’s China for a long time, satisfied with the authentic Chinese food. Others who swarm into the States in the recent 20 years, are struggling for survival and care more about price than taste.
Where are immigrants from other parts of China?
They are everywhere except Chinatown. The rising price of housing limited the expansion of Chinatown and Chinese restaurants.
So why not target Americans? Like the Japanese food in the Whole foods?
I don’t have the answer. But I find that Americans have their own requirement on daily food: clean, fast, simple, do not need a lot of time to eat. However, Chinese care more about taste. It could take one hour for a workday lunch in China.
Japanese find a way. The sushi, though have to be made by hand, is simpler to make, faster to eat and you can even eat it in super market.
However, I believe things will change. When more and more Chinese come from different parts of china, with new life style, fresh taste of food and eating environment , the Chinese restaurants here have to change to meet their needs.
Actually many great restaurants appear in the Maryland where Chinese move from Washington’s Chinatown. There are also many good Chinese restaurants in LA where a lot of Chinese live.
Chinese food in the States is unique, just like Chinatown itself. It is still at the edge of the American mainstream society, but also not like today’s China.
However, to be unique doesn’t mean you don’t need to go forward. Every culture needs to promote and open itself while it tries to preserve and protect itself.
What about myself?
I don’t cook at all here. But I have to go to New York’s Chinatown if I want to enjoy the food from my hometown.

How to put your name as a byline?
According to American’s culuture, I should be called Yi Lou. Because my last name is Lou and my first name is Yi.
However, I was always called Lou Yi in China. Actually my last name and first name have never been split before. I even used Louyi as my name when I first introduced myself to my colleagues in the Inquirer.
To Chinese, last name is very important. It tells the story of people’s families which may go back to thousands of years ago.
To show respect, Chinese only call senior people (both by age and position) by their last name. For example, you should call your uncle John Zhang ”uncle Zhang” but never his first name “John”.
To people who are at the senior position we also follow the same rule. If John Zhang is your director, he is usually called Director Zhang even he is younger than you.
So what about journalists?
Most of newsrooms in China follow the same name rule. Maybe even stricter. They call senior journalists “Teacher”. Because Chinese think writers or journalists are better educated intellectuals and Chinese respect education.
I was often called “Teacher Lou” when I received calls from readers or other journalists in China. But most of them called me “Lou Yi” after they met me and found I was only a young girl with naïve eyes and acne.
Caijing where I am working with is very different. In our newsroom every one call each other’s first name just like Americans. Why? I don’t know. Maybe because most of the people in the newsroom are young or because our editor in chief, the best reporter in China, is always energetic like a young girl and never wants others to warn her of her age.
However I am unique in my newsroom. Some Chinese characters have the same pronunciation but mean totally different. Unfortunately my first name Yi has the same pronunciation of another word “Yi”——means aunt. I am too young for people to call me aunt and show extra respect.
Therefore I am Lou Yi for 30 years and I wonder if I need to change myself to Yi Lou?
I tried to introduce myself as Yi Lou but felt very uncomfortable. I even thought of having an foreign first name so as not to feel weird.
Here I do the same job in the same way; wear the same clothes and eat quite the similar food (from Chinatown) as I did in China. Why should I change my name?
I asked myself and wondered what other Chinese do in the States.
“How do you call Yao Ming? ”
“Yao Ming.”
I know Yao is the famous basketball superstar’s last name and Ming is his first name.
“So call me Lou Yi.”
That is why byline is Lou Yi in the Inquirer, just the same as the one on the English version of my stories at Caijing.
Be yourself and be proud of yourself and your culture are the same as, or maybe more important than to learn to adapt yourself to another culture.
And tell you another thing of my name. Every Chinese name has a meaning. Lou means house and Yi means safe. Visit my blog and feel safe, safer and safer.

Last Wednesday I was in St. Petersburg for a seminar with other Alfred Friendly Press Fellowship fellows. After the seminar I went to the swimming pool with other two girls.
Upon we arrived at the pool I jumped into the pool and began to swim. After I swam for 10 minutes I found I was the only one in the pool. The other two girls were still lying on chairs under the hot sun.
“Come on and swim!”
They didn’t go. Most of the time they were busy with putting sun block onto their bodies, drinking, or just lying on the towel when I was swimming.
Three days later we went to the beach. The same thing happened.
Most of the time girls just lied on the towel and read fashion magazines. They only swam for several minutes during the whole morning.
I had wondered before that why Americans build the best kitchen rooms in the world while they don’t cook very often. Now I have a new question:
Why do Americans go to the swimming pool or beach if they don’t want to swim?
If they just want to lie on the chair and relax, why bother fly for such a long way to Florida? Why not just lie on the chair at their backyards?
Katie, one of the girls who went to the pool with me, said:
“Go to swim” means exactly going to swim. But ‘go to the pool’ or ’go to the beach ’ means a lot.”
I guess that maybe Americans want to split the workday and personal vacation very clearly. Maybe they work too hard so that they want to go where they don’t need to think of any piece of work.
You know what does “Go to the pool” means to me in China?
It means a large terribly crowded dumpling bowl. There are always a lot of people in the pool that you can never enjoy swimming in the swimming pool. When I swam in China I was often kicked mistakenly by other swimmers. If I don’t want to be kicked the only way is to stand in the pool like an idiot.
To men, whether from China or the States, I guess, “Go to the pool” or “Go to the beach” also means beautiful women, especially hot girls in Bikinis.
Obviously there are more Bikini beauties in the pool in the States. However, there are more and more girls in Bikinis in the pools in China.
But the traditional culture still played an important role. About eight years ago when Bikini was first introduced to China I went to a swimming pool one day and was surprised to see a girl in a Bikini. She was so brave to wear a Bikini but at the same time she was so traditional that she wore a T shirt first and then put the Bikini outside the T shirt.

Americans think to be punctual is very important. It is what I heard before I went to the States as the Washington correspondent for Caijing Magazine three years ago. I didn’t want to be late for any interview. But I am not a good map reader. So I always arrived one hour earlier. Usually I went to a nearby Starbucks and prepared for my interview there after I found where the interview would be held.
I often recited the questions to myself when I prepared my interview at the Starbucks.
One day as I was murmuring questions in a line waiting for a cup of mocha at the Starbucks close to the World Bank, the man in front of me suddenly turned around and said:
“Absolutely!”
I was stunned for a second and then realized that he was answering my question.
Anyway, I never missed any interview.
When I came to the Philadelphia Inquirer I was reminded again of American’s emphasis on punctuality. The first day Andy Maykuth, my mentor at the Inquirer, gave me a printed schedule with a list of about 30 journalists I should meet in the newsroom the first three days. Every interview lasted exactly 30 minutes.
“Americans are not human being,” I said to myself, "they are computers.”
But quickly I found that Americans are also flexible. They would also change their agenda. I felt a little bit relaxed when my schedule was changed.
And then I was shocked again.
In my newsroom, when people don’t have time to talk with you, they usually say:
“Could you wait for a couple minutes? ”
Here people account by second.
“Five seconds, OK?”
I always hear that kind of response.
But then I find actually they need five minutes.
Now, whenever I hear a response like five seconds or a couple of minutes, I will translate them into five minutes or 30 minutes.
Does that mean Americans do not stick to their word?
No. They use seconds to show their respect for others and their time. But they are too busy. During this chaotic time in the whole newspaper industry in the Internet era, American journalists have to write more with fewer people and less pay. They are competing with different media, with all the other things people would like to read, with the Internet.
They are competing with the time and for the time.
So what do I do?
Leave and wait?
No. I will do exactly the same as I did in the newsroom of my country. Go back to my desk but still watch them to see if they have time to talk with me.
In China I always chase my editor or I would be chased and tortured by them. Here I have to chase my editors too or I could not get more opportunity to learn about the American society, the American newspaper industry and tell you the tale of the two cultures.