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| "A Culture is like an Onion!" |
The First Layer: Appreciation ("Your Chinese is so good!")
As I continue to live and serve in Taiwan, certain parts of Taiwanese culture I learned at the beginning reveal themselves to be more complicated than they first appeared.
Years ago, during my previous stay in Taiwan, I felt like Taiwanese people were very generous with compliments. People often commented at how I was good at using chopsticks, how my Chinese was impressive, etc. I felt it was just a way to be polite, especially to a guest in their country.
Another missionary commented once that if your Chinese gets really good, you stop getting compliments. His theory was that people stopped thinking of you as struggling to speak the language and needing encouragement, and simply focused on communicating with you, or even that if your Chinese was really good, they would start comparing you to themselves or other native speakers and not feel excessive praise was warranted.
The Second Layer: Realization ("Oh, it's Just Saving Face")
He may have been right, but I think there is something else in play as well. As I think back on the times I've been complimented, sticking to the examples of using chopsticks and speaking Chinese, there are usually two special situations where someone will most frequently offer a compliment (obviously in many parts of the world if you do something well someone might notice and compliment you on it; I am speaking of situations where cultural factors are more obviously at play):
1) You are a foreign stranger
Compared against the average stereotype of a Westerner, any 'waiguoren' in Taiwan who can use chopsticks without dropping things all the time, and speak even a few intelligible sentences in Mandarin, is already ahead of the curve. The bar is typically very low for anyone who "looks like a foreigner" (ethnically non-Asian based on appearance), so you get a free chance to fly high over it and impress someone the first time you meet them. After that they know you, and will probably tone down the compliments as they now expect it from you.
2) You fumbled
As Westerners the first example makes sense. Meeting someone at your work for the first time and witnessing they're fluent in Mongolian or skilled at origami, a compliment might come reflexively. It might not be so special in Mongolia, or Japan, but outside of those countries, and if they aren't from there, it's the kind of accomplishment that naturally garners some praise.
But in this second example of when people compliment you in Taiwan we encounter some significant cultural differences. For me, it began with noticing a funny discrepancy in the times I got compliments, in that often I felt like it came not at a time when I felt particularly fluent in Mandarin or adept at chopsticks, but when I was struggling. I might almost drop a piece of food, or barely manage to get my brain and mouth in sync to get all the right words out to express myself, and it's right then that someone smiles and compliments me on how good my chopstick skills are, or how good I am at speaking Chinese.
It confused me until I remembered the idea of "saving face" in Chinese culture. A lot of politeness that adults show to each other in Taiwan revolves around helping each other to "save face." It's an inheritance from the honor/shame aspect of Chinese culture which is still strongly influential in Taiwan. Saving face can either be positive (something done or said to "give face" to someone, honoring them), or negative (avoiding words or actions that would cause someone to lose face, or incur public dishonor).
Sometimes that looks like what we're familiar with in the West, trying to help someone get through an awkward moment gracefully to spare them embarrassment, or complimenting them in front of others to build them up, but sometimes it can happen in ways that are surprising, or sometimes even irritating, if one doesn't take the extra mental step of remembering what's going on behind the scenes.
[The Books aren't Always Right: While studying up on Chinese culture before coming to Taiwan, I read in a culture book on the topic of saving face that it was normal for people to not react when something was dropped and broken, and not come to help someone pick up what they dropped, in an effort to save them face and pretend they hadn't done anything potentially embarrassing. I can say from experience that neither of these scenarios are so extreme in Taiwan: a number of people will turn around to look if a dish is dropped loudly in a restaurant (but some will smile reflexively, to cover the embarrassment), and someone will often run to help a person who has dropped things, the one being helped typically thanking them profusely. I don't know if the mainland is different, or if that describes Chinese culture decades ago, but rubberneckers are alive and well in any part of the world I've visited thus far...]
So in the case of compliments, then, they are often not compliments per se, but a polite way to get past the awkwardness of a mistake or struggle in performance.
The Third Layer: Understanding ("I Guess that Actually Makes Sense")
Having realized this, I was tempted to be vaguely resentful: so in the end people were not "really" complimenting me, in fact they were doing something nearly the opposite--acknowledging that I'd messed up. From a Western perspective, it's less like an acknowledgement of merit, and more like whipping out febreeze and spraying it around in the awkward silence after someone has a bout of flatulence: in a sense it magnifies exactly the embarrassment the gesture was meant to cover/relieve.
In Chinese culture, however, there is a tacit collective understanding that mistakes or failings which everyone is willing to overlook or graciously cover for are like the tree that falls in the woods with no one around to hear it. No ears, no sound-no acknowledgement, no shame. Everyone covers for each other, if you have a good relationship with them, and the problems don't exist. (Which is one way that sometimes in East Asian cultures small problems can become enormous issues, but that's a topic for a different post)
A similar situation arises with making cultural mistakes, something I blogged about previously. While I typically want to be told when I commit a cultural faux pas, so that I can avoid making the same mistake next time, my friends might try to help me save face by not saying anything. We therefore have a somewhat humorous impasse: to me, being a good friend is telling me what everyone else already knows so I don't keep acting improperly and being the only one who doesn't know it, and to them, being a good friend means pretending I didn't do anything wrong so that it's not awkward. (Friends who understand you are trying to be a student of the culture and are good at explaining those things are very valuable)
This also explains the observation at the beginning, that as one's Chinese improves, the number of compliments you receive for it diminishes. You don't need as many compliments, because you are making fewer mistakes! Like so many things, it only seems counterintuitive until you understand the reasons behind it.
The Fourth Layer: Responding in Kind ("Do Unto Others...")
In the end, when one begins to become more familiar with the reasons behind the way people act, there is always a choice to be made. You can judge the cultural habit, and decide whether you approve or disapprove of it, or you can judge the motive behind it. In this case, trying to help you save face is definitely a friendly action. It's following the Golden Rule; what they would want you to do for them, they are doing for you. And that's the most you can ask of anyone.
So, one reaches a deeper layer of the cultural onion: learning to understand why people do what they do, and appreciating the good motives behind the action. Then instead of confusion, stress, or resentment, there is gratitude. That is also a necessary step to reaching the next layer down: learning how to help others save face, but doing so in a way that not only corresponds to the culture, but to the often counter-cultural teachings of Christ.
Think about the excruciating extent to which Jesus, as an honored teacher, let alone the Son of God, willingly lost face, allowing Himself to be publicly humiliated and dishonored as far as humanly possible, out of His love for us.
As He taught us, we must often, rather than saving face, turn the other cheek.
