Chinese Custom

Most Chinese people have the experience of treating somebody to a meal or being treated to a meal. Weddings, funeral, birthday, even archive something can be the reason to treat someone a meal.Why Chinese people like to treat others frequently? It is not the deliciousness of the meal that they care, it is the atmosphere where friends and families get to gather together that Chinese people care for.

Chinese people is the ethnic that loves to treat others most.From paying the taxi fare to paying for the meals, they are always rushing to pay. And this looks strange for the Westerners. Correct me if I am wrong, I didn't see before any Westerners rushing to pay and it is natural for them to pay for what they eat themselves.

For those stingy misers, this custom suffer them.When everybody is rushing to pay for the fees, they will fell embarrassed for not "grabbing" the bill. But they often do not insist hard so that they can actually let others pay and not feeling embarrassed. But there is situation where a stingy miser actually meet another stingy miser.When he say he wanted to pay, the other person just let him pay. This is the bitter part for stingy misers.

Actually, is this custom really a good custom? Can we really kept in touch with friends through treating them to meals? Those who are being treated may actually feel bitter in their heart because they have to treat others back again in order not to owe them. In fact, this belief is only making us seeking for trouble. The most simple way is not treating others and not letting others to treat you. Just ignore the "treating back " customs and if everybody is like this, they will have their natural characteristics back and our society can have lesser hypocritical behavior.

-Sing Rui-