China A to Z: Everything You Need to Know to Understand Chinese Customs and Culture

Animals

Despite Chairman Mao’s best efforts to stamp out traditional beliefs during his decades of totalitarian control, many Chinese traditions have persisted, perhaps none more strongly than the Chinese belief in good luck. Numbers, certain alignments of days in a given year, the number of strokes in a written character, homonyms, proper feng shui—all can bring good luck. And since it seems auspicious to begin a book on such a note, we have decided to discuss some of the most visible signs of luck in China today, which are embodied by animals.

Foremost among these are the dragon. Dragons represent the Chinese nation, the emperor, and, at the popular level, grooms. Images adorned with dragons (the male) and phoenixes (the female) are commonly used as gifts for newlyweds as they represent wealth and prestige. Dragons are also believed to rule over the five elements that control one’s fate. There are dragons in water, including lakes, rivers, and the ocean. Dragons also live in the earth, and when angered—usually by corrupt officials—they cause earthquakes, a sign that a dynasty or a government is about to lose its Mandate of Heaven and be overthrown. Dragons can control fire, with its ability to both sustain and take human life. Other dragons rule the sky and clouds, proffering or withholding rain from farmers’ crops and even bearing augurs for the fate of battles. Finally, celestial (or heavenly) dragons have been thought to impart gifts to mankind, including the earliest form of the written Chinese language, supposedly given to the legendary emperor Fu Xi (c. 3000 BCE). In fact, in some versions of the legend, Fu Xi is half dragon, half man.

Real-Life Dragon Facts

Scientists have speculated that the Chinese concept of the dragon originated with the discovery of dinosaur fossils in northern China. These bones were locally called dragon bones and have been ground into powder for use in traditional medicines. Dragon teeth, which are also used to treat ailments, are be lieved to be fossilized ivory from prehistoric mastodons and latter-day elephants, which used to roam the land.

Some animals are good luck because their names in Mandarin sound very similar to lucky words. For example, images of bats adorn Chinese traditional art, architecture, embroidery, and porcelain. Far from being seen as the vampiric and frightening creatures of the night as in Western culture, bats are instead harbingers of wealth and prosperity, because their Chinese name, bian fu, sounds like the Mandarin words for to become wealthy (even though the written characters are completely different).

Similarly, fish are lucky because the pronunciation of their name, yü, sounds just like the word for surplus or plenty. Thus, images of fish are used to adorn everything from New Year’s cards to scroll paintings, and live fish tanks with bright goldfish in them can be found in the fronts of Chinese restaurants throughout the world, as all Chinese wish for an abundance rather than a scarcity of money.

Monkeys hold a special place in the Chinese imagination. While dragons represent power, monkeys are seen as clever creatures, and in fact, in China’s most famous folktale, translated by Arthur Waley quite simply as Monkey (also known as Journey to the West), the infamous, mischievous Monkey King represents the Chinese nation, and his monkey subjects the Chinese people. Myriad films, television series, puppet plays, operas, and books have been written about the adventures of the Monkey King, who is entrusted by the Jade Emperor in Heaven to aid a devout monk to bring Buddhism to China, aided by the goddess Guan Yin. The Monkey King fights but is never vanquished by many monsters, and he represents a spirit of adventure, mischief, cleverness, loyalty, martial arts prowess, and ultimately kindness—all qualities that the Chinese people value in themselves.

Finally, the twelve animal signs representing the years according to the ancient lunar calendar are traditionally believed to bestow upon babies born under their signs certain lucky qualities. According to legend, the Lord Buddha invited all the animals of the world to a banquet. The first twelve to arrive were rewarded when he named a year after each, in the order in which they appeared in his heavenly palace. The first in the twelve-year cycle is the rat. The rat’s lucky qualities include a survivor’s instincts and a way with money. Next comes the ox, whose steadfast nature allows ox children to plow through adversity and attain their goals. Tigers, known as King of the Forest because the markings on their foreheads resemble the Chinese character for king, are strong-willed and powerful, enabling them to succeed in life. Rabbits are refined, elegant creatures who will enjoy the comforts of life because their charm will allow them to get their way. Dragons of course are the embodiment of power and leadership potential. Snakes, unlike in Western culture, are seen as wise creatures whose intellect makes them formidable in all their endeavors. Horses are swift, strong, spirited animals, hard to tame, with wild hearts that will allow them to pursue exciting lives. It used to be considered bad luck for girls to be born in the Year of the Horse, but this is no longer the case. Sheep (also known as rams or goats, as the Chinese character represents all three animals) are artistic, charming, mercurial, stubborn creatures who pursue their path in life with refinement. Monkeys, as described above, are clever, mischievous, and much beloved by Chinese parents. Roosters are detail-oriented, verbal, perhaps a bit bossy, but they know they want to rule the roost and will do their best to succeed. Dogs are loyal, strong, and patient. And babies born in the Year of the Pig are sometimes considered the luckiest of all, as pigs represent wealth, an easygoing nature, and a life of abundance.

Architecture

Perhaps nothing is as startling to both Chinese and foreign visitors alike as the rapid changes to the skyline of China’s cities. In its efforts to modernize its cities, the Chinese government has embarked on a redesign campaign that is unprecedented in world history. City planners estimate that 95 percent of Shanghai’s pre-1949 architecture will be completely replaced by the time the Summer Olympics arrive in Beijing in 2008. Only the historic Bund on the Huangpu River (known as the Waitan in Chinese) and part of the French concession’s historic architecture will be completely preserved. In Beijing, twenty-five thousand workers have labored around the clock for years to build the new sports stadiums and Olympic village on the city’s northern border, while within the city, the historic hutongs—the winding alleyways lined with courtyard homes—were being razed to make way for new highways, high-rises and shopping centers.

As a result of the building boom, China consumed 55 percent of the world’s concrete and 36 percent of all steel produced in 2004. And there was more construction taking place in Beijing in 2005 alone than in the whole of Europe for the previous three years, according to the BBC.

A large number of the contracts for China’s new architecture are going to foreign firms, both a source of pride and a scandal within the country. Chinese architects are embittered that their own designs are considered inferior or at least less prestigious than the work of non-Chinese firms. For these foreign architects, China is a land of dreams, according to a New York Times Magazine report. The Swiss firm Herzog and de Meuron, hired to design the new Olympic Stadium (dubbed the Bird’s Nest by Beijing locals for its unusual scraggle of exposed beams), exults that China is a land without inhibitions when it comes to new building projects. The more radical, the more likely the government will approve the design in an effort to seem not only modern but cutting-edge, even avant-garde.

The new Shanghai Heritage Museum (designed by Xing Tonghe), shaped like an ancient bronze fifth-century BCE ding cooking pot, stands next to the neon-lighted Grand Theatre, with its curved roof that evokes nothing so much as a skateboarding park (built by French firm, Arte Charpentier and Associates). At first glance, the juxtapositions of style are rather dissonant. But when Shanghai natives are asked how they feel, they most commonly reply, The two buildings show we are both traditional and modern, Chinese and international.

Other projects are less enthusiastically received. In Beijing, while locals love the Bird’s Nest stadium, as it evokes the expensive Chinese delicacy bird’s nest soup, and the futuristic Water Cube, which will house the water events, the National Grand Theater (designed by Paul Andreu), built in the late 1990s under then-president Jiang Zemin, is dismissed as the Egg for its ovoid shape. Meanwhile the sinewy Beijing airport (designed by Lord Norman Foster) is thought to resemble a dragon’s body and thus is viewed positively.

Sometimes foreign firms’ efforts to evoke China’s past backfire. The China National Offshore Oil Corporation’s headquarters in Beijing was intended to resemble a Shang dynasty (3500 BCE) vessel, but alas, to locals it looked like a giant Western-style toilet bowl. A skyscraper in Shanghai designed by a Western firm (Kohn Pedersen Fox) was likewise panned when the architects decided to put a giant circle at the summit to relieve wind pressure. Local authorities nixed the design, which was for the Japanese-owned Mori Building Company, because they felt the circle evoked the Japanese flag. (The project went ahead after the architects changed the circle to a less-politically incorrect trapezoid.)

International critics tend to favor Western architectural designs over older Chinese ones, which often feature traditional tiled roofs with upswept eaves placed at the top of a modern skyscraper’s rectangular column. These critics dismiss such buildings as big roof or big hat designs. Cultural critics expressed alarm when Beijing’s city planners hired Albert Speer’s eponymous grandson to oversee the redesign of the city. Where the Chinese saw clear central lines and avenues that evoked Beijing’s imperial past, many in the West were reminded of Hitler’s penchant for the grandiose.

Perhaps the changes to China’s cities can best be summed up by the thoughts of their residents.

In Chongqing, amid a sparkling new suburb of generic white rectangular skyscrapers built to house the growing population, a local guide who worked for the city government offered his opinions on all the changes to his city. To many foreign tourists’ eyes, the stilt houses built along Chongqing’s mountainous terrain and the ancient city wall (both of which were being demolished) were far more charming than the generic cinder-block-style housing projects now being erected. He disagreed heartily. Chongqing is like that statue, he said, pointing to a courtyard statue of a large-boned naked woman astride a lion. A traditional face but riding the lion of modernity.

On the other hand, a scholar from Nanjing University had a very different opinion when asked how he felt about China’s foray into the architectural wonderland. We have a saying: ‘For ten years the government destroyed the countryside,’ he said, referring to Mao’s disastrous deforestation projects, communes, and neglect of public works like dams. ‘For the next ten years, the government is going to destroy the cities.’

Banquets

Banquets are the single most important way that Chinese greet friends, business colleagues, diplomats, and even enemies. If it’s a truism that all the real business is done outside the boardroom, for example, in pubs in England, on golf courses and squash courts in America, or during after-work drinking binges in Japan, where potential partners and rivals can interact informally and size each other up, then in China this type of relationship-building is done with banquets.

As a result, whether you go to China as a student, a tourist, a businessperson, or a returning family member from overseas, you will experience a banquet.

They differ from Western banquets in that the tables are round, not rectangular, so there is no visible head or foot. That does not mean that seating is egalitarian. Traditionally, guests of honor were seated with their backs to the wall, the hosts (or most junior members of the host’s party) with their backs exposed to the door. The legend behind this is that once in Chinese history a devious king invited his rival to a banquet, supposedly in a bid for peace. While they were eating, an assassin stepped inside the room—unseen by the guest, who had his back to the door—and stabbed the unsuspecting guest to death. From that time onward, to show true friendship, the host must have his back to the door. (Naturally, among young people, families, and close friends, such formalities need not be observed.)

Banquets are often served in private rooms within larger restaurants. One, this affords privacy. Two, this helps the host save face in case a rival banquet at a nearby table should have fancier food. In fact, many junior executives prefer to pay extra for the private banquet rooms simply to avoid any possibility of getting into an expensive ordering rivalry with a neighboring table.

Banquets in the West generally follow a set pattern of dishes, with hors d’oeuvres first, followed by a salad, perhaps a soup, main courses, then a dessert. Chinese banquets will have different kinds of foods depending upon the region and the occasion. Expect that there will be many, many courses. Traditional hospitality requires that the guests be offered far more than they could possibly finish eating. Therefore, it is wise to eat a little of each course rather than heartily indulge or you might not make it to course twenty-seven.

Banquets also are generally served family style, in which platters are placed on a lazy Susan that rotates in the center of the round table rather than an individual plate of food being given to each diner.

Typical menus include a set of cold dishes to begin. These might be cold boiled and salted peanuts, crunchy jellyfish noodles, sliced vegetables like lotus root or greens, one-thousand-year-old eggs (which are not really that old but are hard-boiled and prepared in sauces so they become dark and translucent), flavored seeds, sliced cold meat, and local delicacies. The next courses will most likely involve hot foods. Nowadays the Chinese like to mix Western specialties with traditional dishes, so it’s not unusual to be served escargot sautéed in clarified butter as one course, then Chinese-style sea slug or giant prawns or lobster sashimi, then a series of beefsteaks. Raw salads have also come into vogue although once Chinese balked at eating anything uncooked. Most banquets include at least one soup, which is unlikely to be served at the beginning of the meal because soups are used to change the palate or else to finish a banquet so that one’s stomach is completely full. Little sweet cakes might also be served to change the palate in between courses. Their arrival does not signal the end of the meal by any means. Various kinds of tea also are used as palate cleansers. A whole fresh fish is considered essential for most banquets unless various other seafoods have already been served, such as whole crabs, whole prawns, eels, and so on. Fresh cold fruit generally signals the end of a banquet.

Most Expensive Banquet Dishes

Shark fin soup

Swallow’s nest pudding

Shark stomach

Abalone dishes

Peking duck

Exotic animals

Banquet Etiquette

Even if you really don’t feel like eating something, take a sample for your plate or rice bowl. As the guest, you will be expected to be served first or serve yourself first. If you don’t take a sample, your hosts will feel awkward and will not be able to take a sample either. Servers will come and replace dirty plates with clean ones so you can let the server simply take away something if you really don’t want to eat it.

Often your hosts will make a series of toasts. Hold your glass with both hands, one flat on the bottom, the other around the base of the cup. It’s not necessary to clink glasses as one does in the West. Simply raise it with a smile toward the person making the toast then to other senior officials then to the more junior members and take a sip. If you must make a toast, simply say something friendly, such as a thank-you to your hosts for their hospitality and the lovely meal or the beautiful city you are visiting or a generic remark about your appreciation for the friendliness of the Chinese people. No need to make a business pitch, such as Here’s hoping you choose our company and we all become very prosperous. Generic works best in these situations.

If you really don’t like alcohol or you have an ulcer, let your hosts know and you can make your toasts with bottled water or soda pop. Women are not expected to drink as much as men. You can touch the glass of alcohol to your lips without even drinking, in fact. If you are a man, try not to drink a lot with each toast as there may be many, many toasts, and getting drunk is a distinct possibility. Also, if you down your alcohol, this will put pressure on your hosts to do the same, and it might put them in an awkward situation. They might have a full day and night of work to attend to after the meal or a long commute or they may have to write up notes about the meal for their company. Don’t inadvertently turn a banquet into a drinking contest.

Sometimes your hosts will actually put food onto your plate or rice bowl. They are giving you the choicest bits and you should thank them. Make a pretense of eating, even if you don’t really want to. It’s a polite gesture. If you notice that someone’s plate is empty or he or she seems to like a particular dish, spin the lazy Susan slowly in that direction and urge the person to have some more. Your encouragement for others to eat more is considered polite.

Banquets will end rather abruptly. Don’t expect any serious business to have been discussed. The banquet is a formality, a requirement of being a gracious host. It’s not the place where decisions are made. However, your behavior will be observed, and your trustworthiness as a human being also judged.

Banquet Nightmares

Most Chinese do not yet have any understanding of the Western concept of being on a diet. After one hundred fifty years of war and political struggles, the Chinese associate being too thin with being unhealthy. Most Chinese are proud to put on a little girth. (Unfortunately, China now has the second highest obesity rate in the world, behind the United States, so attitudes at some point will have to change as unhealthy eating patterns brought upon by new prosperity will lead to health problems. However, that day has not yet come for most Chinese.)

But if you are on a diet and you are at a banquet, there are some things you can do to keep from blowing your diet at every meal. First, let your hosts know you have certain food allergies or food restrictions. Blame your doctor. Your Chinese hosts don’t want to kill you even though they might be serving you an extremely high-cholesterol meal and you have heart disease. A very effective means of saving their face and your diet is to take what is offered, eat (or pretend to eat) a tiny bit, and then say, Oh, this is so delicious, but I mustn’t eat more. My doctor absolutely forbids it. But I just wanted a little taste. Your hosts will feel that they have given you a secret pleasure but they won’t insist you eat more of something dangerous to your health.

How to Avoid Eating Unbearable Things

Another situation might arise where you are served something you just frankly cannot bear to eat. It might be those fried eels with their little faces staring up at you from your rice bowl. Or fresh young quails on a stick that appear to have been fried in oil while still alive, judging by the death grimaces on their faces. Or maybe snake just isn’t your thing. Here being a foreigner comes in handy. You can feign chopstick incompetence. If they put something on your plate and you can’t bear it, move those chopsticks like crazy but just drop that stuff before it ever reaches your mouth. Your hosts will be so embarrassed for you, you will become truly invisible. If perchance your hosts should send a server from the restaurant your way to assist you, simply whisper to the server to please take your plate away. The server won’t lose face—he or she didn’t order this food, after all. Thus, it’s a culturally safe way to get rid of something you just don’t want to put into your mouth.

A banquet is not a good time to lecture your hosts about what you consider appropriate to eat. For example, you may find shark fin soup personally offensive. But until you know your hosts extremely well and you can all talk about personal matters with ease, denouncing the Chinese practice of eating shark fin soup midbanquet is not going to help anyone. It’s too late to save the shark, it will embarrass your hosts, and your behavior will most likely be read as immature as opposed to rational and convincing.

If you are in a more informal situation, such as on a tour, let your guide know about food preferences early on, such as vegetarianism or allergies. If something unpleasant comes up later on the tour, which you didn’t anticipate, you can always bring up that you have a restricted diet. One family friend of ours was served Peking duck at every single lunch and dinner banquet he attended on a three-week tour of China. As a result, he never wants to eat it again as long as he lives. If you find a similar pattern happening to you, tell your guide that you need to vary your diet and your doctor will be upset if you eat Peking duck at every meal because it is very rich. Ask for