Modesty & Personal Space in China

As part of GATE's academic requirements, we had to write a blog entry about cultural disconnect we experienced. Given I have less than 2 days between returning & packing/moving for my internship, I'm copying & pasting that for now as an update =)


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I’ve been extremely fortunate in my lifetime to have already visited over 15 countries -- from my parents’ homeland of India, to choir tours in Europe -- so I had assumed I had seen it all from the best to the worst conditions, to the places most similar to the US in culture, to those who are the polar opposite.

However, after our time so far in China, I’m not sure I will get used to the following behaviors listed below. I’ve been thinking about this daily and was trying to figure out how best to relate them. Though they are somewhat different, I see them as fitting into an overall theme of a different sense than the US of public modesty & personal space:

• Open pants for small children, revealing their bear bottoms.
• Hacking/coughing/clearing sinuses/spitting in public.
• (at least women) Using the squatting stalls with the door open / doing clothes back up (e.g. zip/button/pantyhose hoist/tuck) once out of stall in front of others.
• In-your-face selling/following someone around/ yelling / grabbing your arm to get your attention to buy something on the street or the store.
• Aggressive wait staff service at large restaurants, diving in to grab plates, shove new food into the center, or putting remaining food on your plate without asking in effort to clear the table quickly.
• Unisex bathroom areas.
• Grabbing/touching your arm and/or yelling to get your attention to sell wares, be it on the street or in a row of shops.
• Men, regardless of physical fitness, lifting up their shirt up to expose their belly to cool off / air out…. be it at a temple, a night club, or the middle of the street.
• Cramming into elevators.
• Shoving to see something instead of waiting.
• Walking whenever/wherever on the street, regardless of vehicles 2 millimeters away…or being the driver who cuts it close to pedestrians.

Individually, each of these instances were a bit jarring to me at first. Upon repeat experience, I’m still not used any of these behaviors. My own ICE profile last August showed me to be more reserved rather than direct or expressive, so I know I’m not as forward as many, so expected to be easily ruffled by people who are (but usually I’m able to adapt eventually).

Given China’s Cultural Dimension plot that we saw in class, showing the country lower on assertiveness and higher on institutional collectivism, in-group collectivism, and power distance, I honestly expected more of the opposite than the list of experiences above.  With all the talk of a harmonious society, I expected a more reserved, quiet culture, respecting personal space and perhaps shy about their bodies.  These behaviors above seem more selfish to me – that is, not caring about your impact on others, and just doing what you need to do to get by rather than thinking of the collective whole.

Stepping back, although my initial reaction was that this must be about disregard for others and focus on ones self, upon more reflection it may be more about simply not really caring what others think. That is, it’s less about the impact, and more about being concerned with the small things, which the opposite of our society where the smallest behavior can become dramatic experience. Americans also have a history of modesty – we are well known for being more conservative and modest than European countries in terms of media programming and open discussions.

I think each instance can be broken down to better understand the deeper reasons behind what we’ve all experienced. For example:

Open pants for small children – though somewhat horrifying to American germ-aphobes, one could see it as a mix of convenience as well as teaching responsibility early. If a small child no longer can “go” whenever they want in a diaper, but know they don’t have to fight with pulling up & down pants, they can learn to do it on their own. It’s more of a stricter take on pull-ups – rather than feel it be wet and treat it like disposable underwear, there’s no back up, so they have to learn fast.

Aggressive service and selling – we all know China has and is still going through a lot of economic change, with more and more people having access to wealth (though the wealth disparity is its own issue).  That said, if the name of the game is to make a name for yourself and help your business make money, you would do whatever it took to be successful. So, in terms of being super efficient, keeping food moving / clearing a table quickly means more potential customers. Yelling and grabbing in a crowd of passing tourists means there is a higher chance of catching someone’s attention, maybe 1 out of the 10 people that hear you, than if they just walked by your stall or you on the street when your set up looks similar to everyone else (perhaps even your tone of voice or the reaching out to grab/touch is your only means of differentiation).

Disregard for personal space – whether in crowds at popular attractions or the proximity of cars to pedestrians in the street, we probably feel many violations of our “personal bubbles.” However, in a developing country of over 1 Billion people, there are more important things to worry about than having your own space. We have the luxury in the United States of extra space in general – bigger rooms, bigger cars, bigger streets – with less people. But even in cities like New York, where the population is growing bigger and space is getting more crowded, these behaviors are becoming more and more common.

I do recognize that my time in other countries and in China amount to instances less than 3 weeks, which is no where near long enough to fully understand, appreciate, or get acclimated to a culture.  There are probably more reasons and more background to many of these occurrences than I can try to pull out from my limited experience here. I’m curious to see how others have reacted, if they have at all, and what they may think of these experiences.