So I recently went to a conference in Singapore and as the audience walked out for the mid-morning break, my eyes came across this …
2 samosas, a pot of chilli sauce and a strawberry … all covered in cellophane.
Jesus, how depressing … even more depressing than going out in Nottingham on a rainy Wednesday night.
Because I’m a sick bastard, I hung around because I wanted to see who would pick it up and eventually – once most people had walked back into the conference room – a Western man sheepishly walked up to the table, grabbed the food off the counter and ran away … as if being seen with it was the equivalent of being seen in bed with a sheep.
And I found that interesting.
No seriously, I did.
Because as much as China operates by group acceptance – meaning peer acceptance dictates much about how people act and interact with life – here was a Western guy operating in pretty much the same way.
And here’s the thing …
While there are many things that are different between Chinese/Asian culture and the West, a lot of the big stuff that people talk about isn’t as different as many like to say. In fact, in my experience, the really different stuff is found in the little things – the stuff many ignore because on face value, they think it’s the same as their own frame of reference – but when you dig deeper, you realise the cultural and contextual differences mean they’re miles apart and appreciating and understand that is the difference between cultural resonance and repulsion.