Things Europeans should learn from Asians

I know that the terms “Europeans” and “Asians” are generalisations, but there are some habits adopted rather by one type of society that by the other. Talking of Asians in this post, I’m referring to people I met in following countries: Vietnam, China, South Korea. As a european person, one thinks that we are good hosts which might be true within our own culture. But: If one has ever been a guest to someone in the countries named above, one feels ashamed of how guests are treated in Europe in comparison.

1) Being a good host: politeness and food.

Especially in Korea, everyone is much more polite than in Europe. When I came to visit my friend there, the entire family came to the doorway to receive  and greet me. The next thing I want to talk about is food, which is very important in Asia. Whenever people are having guests, they will not only cook an even bigger number of different dishes than normally, they will also give the best part of everything to their guest. The guest will have to savour a bit of everything and they will make sure that the guest eats a lot, especially in Vietnam. It’s seen as a shame if the guest goes home with even the slightest bit of apetite left. When I was in Vietnam and I had lunch with the family of my couchsurfing host, they even packed some leftover food (“Nem”, which are eaten on special occasions only) for me into a plastic bag because they had the impression that I did not eat a lot. I actually ate a lot and couldn’t eat any more, and I do not know how they got the impression that I didn’t. I had to reassure them like a hundred times that I can’t eat more and that it was extremely delicious. One is putting their hosts in an inconveniernt situation when not eating a lot/enough. I also ate the bitter cucumber and the dog meat. As a guest, one should never refuse all the food stuff that they’re placing it on top of your rice bowl, because this is really unfriendly. It’s like an offense, like saying that it’s not good. Being in Asia, this is not always easy as there are many things which are just really creepy food stuff for a european person. There are chicken feet in and dog meat and chicken liver in fresh chicken blood, and vietnamese salad complete with a chicken leg’s skin. Reconsider before you refuse eating things, because most people don’t know how Europe looks like, what you’re eating and what is normal for you and what isn’t. They might see you as an exotic and complicated being refusing to eat, in an unfriendly way, what is most delicious to them. Only refuse things that you really can’t eat, like the chicken blood which might be a risk for your health. I would have loved to try it though.

Anyways, try as many things as possible, but never take from a plate, placed in the middle of the table (or on the floor, depends where you are), the first. Help yourself only after someone else from the family took some of it. You need to keep your eyes open and be attentive and considerate. Eat a lot or you’re bringing your host in a situation. It’s not like in Europe where a host might give you food but does not care that much if you ate enough.

If you’re taken out to a restaurant by an asian family in order to have a meal together, they will usually pay for your food no matter what you’re trying. They won’t let you a chance to pay yourself, even if you’re insisting. Still, the worst thing you can do is not even trying; and your attempt must look serious and be put into effect if you get a chance to do so (I think, don’t pin me down on that last point, I never made it that far). In Vietnam, my hosts had probably considerably less money than myself, as there is a big economic difference between our two countries, but they still did not let me pay for the food. I felt ashamed but could not help the situation.

Europeans tend to pay for their own food each and I handled it that way when my korean friend was here. I was lucky because he lived in France for a year knowing european habits. Otherwise this would have been really unfriendly and a shame for me. Furthermore, I just cooked things for us that I would normally have when I’m alone. Being students, I did not think about doing more than that because I considered it as normal. After having visited him in Korea, I changed my ideas about this point, though.

2) They are going out of their way to be a good host.

Being a guest in an asian household might involve that someone of the family gives their room to you, sleeping themselves on a mat on the floor in their sibling’s/parent’s room. Even more so because many people are having tiny apartments. In Europe, one might give the mat or couch to the friend staying over in one’s place rather that letting the room and bed to this friend. When I had my korean friend in my place, I considered myself as very nice as I left my room and bed to him and slept in my mum’s bed in an other flat nearby while she was on a holiday. When I visited him in Korea, he slept on the floor in his sister’s room so I can stay in his. I felt greatful and ashamed at the same time. I should have taken better care of him while he was in Vienna. In Vietnam, where I was couchsurfing, the girl who hosted me made me sleep in her bed right next to her although she did not know me but for a couple of hours. In many places in Asia, people are sleeping in one bed with several members of their household. In Europe nowadays this isn’t common at all as you know, but not long ago it was: when my great-grandfather, his wife and his son were expeld from Czech Repubic, being part of an old german-speaking minority, after the second world war in 1945, they came to Vienna where my great-grandmother became the servant and soon favourite cook of an austrian noble man, Fürst Liechtenstein. He gave her a home in the attic of his palace, as they had no place to stay and they had lost everyting, including their farm. There, the entire family including an aunt was sleeping in the same bed because it was the only one they had.

3) Sharing is caring.

Food is extremely important to Asians. Especially the Chinese are having a very strong sense of community which comes from the confucian ideal of harmony within society. Sharing food is an essential gesture and they really do share their food with people that they don’t know. When I was on a train, which happened many times, I usually was in a sleeper-class compartment with a bunch of chinese people. The fact of staying in the same small place together for many hours made us some sort of a temporary community. It did not matter to them if we had any common language in order to communicate or not, people always shared their food with me, even though I had my own. I also tried to share mine, but I wasn’t successful with it, not even once. Even if I insisted many times. I just don’t get why, I really tried. When unknown people on a train wanted to give food to me, I often refused (being not hungry) but this did not help in any way. Taking it but leaving it on my lap/the tray table in front of me after eating a bit of it sometimes kept them from giving me more food. There were all sorts of things: preserved eggs (too salty to eat and having a weird greenish colour), apples (which are pretty expensive here), raw wasabi root (spicy), bamboo shoots in chilli oil (loved them), sweet bread, cold chicken feet…
I think that europeans should be nicer and share more. We’re not that interested in foreigners because we’re having plenty of them here, to a point where we tend to see it as a problem, while I sometimes did not see any other non-chinese person in western China in a day or two. It’s clear to me that people are interested in talking to a foreigner so this might have been a reason for giving food to me as well, but I think that in general, europeans are keeping things to themselves too much. They should share more and try to make other people smile more often, even if they don’t know them. I think that we are maybe too scared of possible rejection and/or being considered as weird. We should rather learn from this kind behaviour, in my opinion.

I want to add at this point that I do not totally understand this food sharing thing, maybe I’m mistaken about something. I still wanted to describe my impression. And I will ask someone competent about it asap.

4) Listening properly.

Many of the chinese people on the train tried to talk to me and I tried hard to pronounce some chinese words so I can tell them something about me (most people speaking a bit of English asked me the same questions over and over again so I assumed that the ones who didn’t also wanted to know the same things: my country of origin, my main occupation and my age). It sometimes made me sad that I wasn’t able to talk to them, because I could have learned a lot. Whenever I tried to express something in Chinese, people will listen carefully in order to understand me. I sometimes had to try eight times until I got the tones right, but they were listening to me carefully those eight times. When I was in Beijing, I tried to ask someone at a bus station in the middle of nowhere for directions. They did not understand any English and did not recognize the name of the place in Pinyin (for one sound transcribed in Pinyin there are several possible chinese caracters), so I tried to pronounce it in Chinese myself. I had to try several times and they did their best to understand me, which they finally did. Then, there were about ten people getting involved into the discussion which direction to send me to. I was astonished and embarassed because so many people got through all this just to help me, some unknown and strange foreigner, to find my way.

5) Keep calm and not making a problem out of everything.

In comparison with most other peoples of the world, europeans have a relatively small amount of actual, real problems. This is why they get nervous even over minor issues, such as a hair in their soup, someone bumping into them on the metro or the supermarket being out of butter the day before an important holiday. Many people get annoyed and become unfriendly, taking those problems seriously and having very negative approach. Also, they’re not used to fix things themselves. We should not make a problem out of evey minor issue and stay calm. That would make us a lot happier and would give more room for positive things. Being a traveler in Asia, I experienced that people that accidentially bumped into me at a street corner would not say sorry or the like, but they don’t get annoyed either. They just don’t care. It happened and no-one can change it. Why deal with it or waste words on it? I think that this is a very useful approach that makes life less complicated. As an european person, I would like to adopt that approach because I don’t see the necessity to talk and worry about things that can not be changed.

Traditional Chinese Houses in Hoi An

This gallery contains 19 photos.

In many areas in Asia, one can find traditional chinese houses. They are to be found in places where trade flourished and where waterways were connecting the different cities and countries. It seems that the Chinese people, throughout history, migrated … Continue reading →

A trip to the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) – Second Vietnam War

This gallery contains 55 photos.

When being in Hue, I joined a guided tour through the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone). This zone is alongside the parallel which separted north Vietnam and South Vietnam. While the first Vietnam War was between the french colonizers and the vietnamese … Continue reading →

The Ho Chi Minh Museum in Hue

This gallery contains 62 photos.

In litearlly every vietnamese city there’s a Ho Chi Minh museum. They are very different in size and the quality of the exhibition varies considerably. Most of the exhibits are pictures and documents as there are very few actual artifacts. … Continue reading →

The Grave of Phan Boi Chao

This gallery contains 8 photos.

Walking about on a very rainy day in Hue, Vietnam, I found the grave and a model of the house of Phan Boi Chao by chance. I was surprised to find it there and I was excited about it, because … Continue reading →

A day in super touristy Hoi An

Today, I was sleeping until 7 a.m. and then packed my stuff, washed my backpack (after yesterday’s vomit happening) and left my stuff at the hotel. Then I headed out to see the city. The highlights were the Chinese congregation’s assembly hall and an old temple that is used as a school today (it looks like a temple stuffed with children wearing funny school uniforms, like in american films). There are also a handful museums to see, like the folklore museum and the trade ceramics museum. Those are pretty nice to look at, but the captions don’t deliver a lot of information and if you happen to find a longer text, you’d rather laugh about the “quality” of the english translation. I don’t claim to write english texts perfectly myself, but in order to write a text for a museum display they should have found someone capable. It seems to be a problem that the vietnamese language has extremely few syntax rules – nearly any word oder in a phrase is possible. Not everyone understands that there are more restrictions in that sense when it comes to English =P

There are two markets in the Old Town. The rest is taken by souvenir shops, tailor shops and beauty salons/massage salons/spas. There is quite a number of hotels, too. That’s all. 80% of the city are souvenir shops and art galleries. It is actually hard to find a place to eat, if one wants to avoid the extremely westernized and over-expensive tourist restaurants. I had lunch in the market hall. I asked for vegetable rice. There are tables with women standing in the middle, surrounded by bowls filled with different dishes. When ordering something, one sits down directly at the table between the other people. The food bowls are between the guests and the kitchen woman. She puts rice on your plate or bowl and then she adds to it whatever she wants. I had water spinach and some similar plants, greyish vegetable things that I never saw before and the belly fat of a pork, cooked and put over the rice like a sauce, with the hard-to-chew pieces of it roasted with sesame. She also added some noodles to the rice which I found kind of disgusting. I payed 20 000 VND for this meal which is about 0,75 Euros. After I ate, I had a look at the japanese covered bridge which is really really beautiful. I was wandering around everywhere I wanted to. The Old Town is a World Heritage Site so there are many traditional houses. With the ticket bought at the tourist information, you can enter 5 of the sites. I saw some more, because during lunchbreak staff was simply absent. There was no-one there to control and/or cut off my ticket. I love communism…people don’t think of it as necessary to either be there or close the door 😛

After some more walking, I finally found one of those street cafés that are only frequented by locals. Those aren’t more than a woman with a small vehicle on which she has hot water, coffee making utensils and some ice and glasses. Next to that, there are some very low plastic chairs (like those we have in the garden for children) and small, low tables. You can have a very strong black coffee or a coffee mit condensed milk. They never have fresh milk and rarely they have sugar. When you order black coffee, it always comes with a glass of green tea, don’t ask me why. If you have hot coffee, the tea is hot, too. If you have cold coffee, the tea comes with ice. In most places they don’t have a fridge, so if you order a beer it is either warm or you get a glass with ice in it. They get ice in huge blocks and they have a special tools to hammer pieces off the latter. Most of the time, they keep their ice blocks in not-too-clean styropore boxes. At the street café, a young vietnamese man sat opposite me. He was astonished that I sat down between the vietnamese people (none of the fat old german tourists even thought about doing that). He started talking to me and he asked me many questions. He spoke good English and he was really interested about what I told him about Europe. I think we had a chat for more than 45 minutes. He learned his English only from picking up words and phrases from tourists. I had to explain some words to him that seemed easy to me but they are never mentioned in a classical tourist context, so they were new to him. He was really nice and good-looking too. I enjoyed talking to him because our interest for each other’s culture and country was genuine and friendly. He worked in a silver jewellery shop opposite the café but did not try to make me buy something which was a nice thing. Too many other people who wanted to talk to me only thought about selling stuff. He even allowed me to use their toilet (as there were no public ones). His name is Tinh (I hope I spelled it right) and there was nothing but friendly smiles for goodbye.

Then I wanted to walk back to the hotel,  but I lost my way several times. When I finally arrived at the place that it should have been in (in my opinion) there was nothing but another church…I actually went to the wrong church as I did not expect that there were two of them. Furthermore I was holding the map in the wrong way and also I held it the wrong way round when I arrived yesterday so the orientation catastrophe was perfect. I asked at the tourist information for the street that it was in and the lady explained to me that it is north of the Old Town (and I was west of it). I was really “proud” of myself. I made my way back to the hotel finally, picked up my backpack and went on the bus to Danang. The ticket man came and I handed him the 20 000 VND for the ticket. He said: 30! I told him, that I paid 20 when I came, which he accepted. Such a scam! :S

It’s a big issue in Vietnam that people often don’t give you the right amount of change. They just keep like 5 000 or 10 000 VND, and in case you complain, they say: ooooh, sorry!
Today, I had to complain twice at the post office in order to get back all of my change. This is really annoying. Take care and count immediately.

Now, I’m waiting at a café for my night train to Hanoi. I will spend the day in Hanoi (to see the french quater) and in the evening I will get on the next night train to Lao Cai – the border to China!