"Fight" for your right to be polite

Bill time = "fight" time

In China you have to “fight” for many things. When at a restaurant with some Chinese friends at pay time, for instance, you have to fight for the bill. You have to play this polite “bill game”:

-I will pay!

-No I will pay!

-No, I will!

-No, this time it’s on me!

-I insist!

-I insist too!

….until that one person who’s supposed to get a treat eventually (but reluctantly) gives in. It’s all already made up, but you still have to put on this show in order to show good character.

Then there’s the whole “哪里哪里，nail nail” “不敢当 bu gandang” (= polite ways to brush off a compliment), “oh no no no!” thing going on, that you should engage in (in order to be polite) every time someone gives you a compliment:

-Your Chinese is really good!

-Nali nail! Not at all!

-And that’s a wonderful dress you are wearing?

-Ah, this old thing? Oh no no….

….And so on.

We all know this, and it’s cool. I don’t necessarily like it, but I’ve gotten used to it (I actually do it in Sweden too, which is driving my friends insane: “Geez Jonna, can’t you just say ‘thanks!’ when I tell you that your jacket is nice? You don’t need to tell me it is old and that it was real cheap and whatever. Just say thanks for crying out loud!”).

One that should not be forgotten is when you visit a Chinese friend’s house and s/he asks you what you’d like to drink. The answer is given:

-Oh, nothing! Don’t bother! I don’t need anything! （随便吧， 别麻烦， 不要了）

(Although in real life you are dying for a coke).

S/he’ll still present you with a drink and you’ll reluctantly accept it.

OK, so so far so good. I can do all this. In fact, I not only can, but I DO all this. Every day, more or less (especially the bill-war and the “nail nail!” I don’t visit Chinese people’s houses too often but when it happens I politely behave accordingly) 

What occurred to me yesterday when I was on the bus, however, made me realize that the bus is yet another place where you have to push a little bit extra in order to see your polite behaviour pay off.

There I was, sitting comfortably at my seat when an old lady walked on the bus. There were no seats left so she had to stand. My heart melted when I saw her and I got up, tapped her on her shoulder and told her to take my seat.

-Oh no no no! She replied (although her old face broke into a huge smile. I don’t know if it was my offer or the fact that I was a laowai that she liked the best).

-Please, take my seat! I tried again.

-No no no! I am getting off real soon! Actually I am getting almost straight away! I don’t need to sit, but thank you, thank you!! She said, and waved me away.

For some (stupid) reason I decided to believe her and sat down again, feeling the eyes of every single passenger of that bus being on me. Not quite sure what I did to deserve that kind of attention, after all, it is quite normal to offer old people your seat.

However, soon I realized that maybe I should have been a little bit more persistent with the old lady, and not only settled for her: “oh no no no! I can stand” –reply. Because, this lady did not get off the bus “immediately” like she’d told me she would. Instead, she stood clinging on to a pole for the whole ride, and got off only a few stops before me. I felt so bad when I saw her almost losing her balance every time the bus turned (those buses are real crazy over here. Do buses don’t have to follow speed limits in China?).

Then when I got off I realized that maybe you have to engage in the same sort of “nagging” conversation in order to get an old person to take your seat? Maybe I should have simply gotten up, told her over and over again, and eventually gone to stand somewhere else, leaving my seat free for her? Well, I guess next time I have to try that. I have managed to give my seat to old people before, but at first they always try to tell me they don’t want it, and then they laugh and smile (probably because I speak Chinese) but I still feel like a winner when I see them sitting down. Anyways, I guess the bus is yet a new place where you have to engage in over-politeness in order to get through. Because even though they are telling you “no no no!” what they really are telling is is “sure, OK, if you just nag a little bit I’ll take it”… right?!