By Craig S. Smith

　　Shanghai: A WashingtonState agriculture official who was touring China a few years ago handed out bright green baseball caps at every stop without noticing that none of the men would put them on or that all the women were giggling.

　　Finally, a Chinese-American in the delegation took the man aside and informed him that to wear a green hat is the Chinese symbol of a cuckold.<注1>

　　It is the bane<注2> of the business traveler in an unfamiliar culture: making a comment or gesture that is meant to be friendly but that offends or embarrasses the hosts. Mocking a man's masculinity is only one of the inadvertent slights that visiting corporate executives and government officals can make in China that serve to emphasize the cultural gaps they are trying hard to minimize.<注3>

　　Happily, such cross-cultural faux pas are no longer deal killers.<注4> Globalization has narrowed the cultural divide, and these days the Chinese are experienced enough in dealing with foreigners to shrug off indiscretions.<注5> Even stabbing chopsticks into a bowl of rice and leaving them there (an act of hostility among Chinese because it signifies death) would be laughed off (nervously) by locals unless it was done with obvious intent.<注6> What really matters is a friendly attitude and a patient manner.

　　Even so, the worst gaffes<注7> still leave a bad impression and the right gestures still earn respect.

　　One rule of thumb<注8> is understand the Chinese worldview. Don St. Pierre Jr., who has spent his adult life doing business in China, recalls a Canadian winemaker telling Chinese reporters in Shanghai that he expected his "ultrapremium" <注9>wine to do well in China because it had done well in Japan and the two cultures had so much in common.

　　Resentment of Japan runs very deep in China, particularly in Shanghai, which was bombed and occupied by the Japanese during World War II. The Chinese regard Japan's culture as derivative of their own far more ancient traditions and bristle at Japanese notions of superiority.<注10>

　　St. Pierre nudged<注11> the winemaker beneath the table, but by the time the man had stopped speaking, the room was quiet enough to hear a Champagne bubble burst. The damage had been done, St. Pierre said, even though the wine-maker had hired an expensive international public relations firm to brief him on what he should and should not say. "which shows how useful that advice can be,"St. Pierre added.Duncan Clark, a consultant based in Beijing, says locally hired secretaries are generally a better first line of defense for multinationals. He recalled that during his days at Morgan Stanley in Hong Kong, the firm ordered expensive clocks to give as gifts commemorating the closing of a deal. The firm's local staff caught the mistake: to "give a clock"in Chinese sounds the same as "seeing someone off to his end."<注12>

　　With thousands of years of accumulated cultural snippets to sift through, an outsider cannot hope to catch every potential pitfall.<注13> The Chinese language is filled with embarrassing puns and unlucky homonyms that at best can cause snickers behind a foreigner's back.<注14>

　　Besides clocks, giving umbrellas is taboo because doing so is homonymous with a phrase that means the person's family will be dispersed. Books, too, are unlucky presents because "giving a book"sounds the same as "delivering defeat."<注15>

　　China's many dialects multiply the risks. Shanghai natives chuckle at Va Bene, an expensive Italian restaurant that recently opened in town, because the Italian name meaning "it goes well"sounds like Shanghainese for "not cheap."<注16>

　　Color is another cue that can send an unintended message. One multinational company giving gifts from Tiffany replaced the white ribbons on the jeweler's famous robin's-egg blue boxes with red ribbons after the company's Shanghai employees pointed out that white in China signifies death, while red is lucky and is used for celebrations.

　　Picking numbers for everything from product prices to telephones is also tricky. Avoid 4, a homonym for death in Chinese, and load up on 8s, a number that is pronounced the same as "Making money"in the southern Cantonese dialect.But even an experienced Sinologist like Clark was mystified when his Beijing workers objected to pricing a product at 250 yuan. It turned out that in northern China, calling someone "250"is to say the person is nuts.

　　Clark's confusion illustrates the regional diversity of cultural quirks in a country as big as China.<注17> In the south, people tap two fingers on the table to say thanks, but people in the north might think the gesture is just a nervous tic.

　　On the other hand, a few generalizations apply across Asia. Most seasoned business travelers from the United States and Europe caught on long ago to the tradition of indulging in small talk and meandering toward the main point rather than getting down to business right away.

　　They have also come to appreciate the importance of "face"in Asian societies. Scott Seligman, author of "Chinese Business Etiquette: A Guide to Protocol, Manners, and Culture in the People's Republic of China"(Warner Books, 1999), says face is the most important concept for foreigners in China to master.

　　"It's not that we don't have a concept of face, but the Chinese raise face to high art,"he said. "It's a fragile commodity in China that can easily be lost."

　　Seligman added, "the trigger doesn't have to be extreme. You can contradict somebody in front of someone who is lower ranking and cause the person to lose face.

　　Even the simple act of saying no to somebody can make that person lose face."Journalists are not immune. This reporter once made a gaffe by suggesting in a way intended to be complimentary that a central government official across the table was "probably too young to remember"some minor event in the past. In the context in which it was said, age-obsessed Americans would have taken the comment as a flattering suggestion that they looked too young to remember whatever historical reference was being made.<注18>

　　But in China, where age is revered,<注19> the comment made the official and his entourage blanch, apparently wondering whether it was a veiled insult suggesting the man was too junior to warrant respect.

　　Bob Kapp, president of the U.S.-China Business Council, says his advice on how to avoid blunders<注20> in China has not changed in 30 years.

　　"Be modest in demeanor. Listen well. Preach little,"he says. "Watch how others do things and follow suit."<注21>-

　　阅读感评

　　叶向阳

　　有了文明就有了禁忌(taboo)，而且文明越久远，积淀下来的禁忌肯定也就越多。禁忌可以反映在行为方面，但更多的是表现在语言上。跨文化的禁忌比较一直是外语教学的关注点。记得上大学的时候，英语老师总是强调中英文化的差异，而最常用的例子即是风俗习惯的不同，尤其要留意各自的禁忌。

　　同样，西方人为了更富有成效地与中国人打交道，也越来越关注这个东方独特文明的禁忌。以上原文就是以“老外”的亲身感受为基础总结出的经验教训。

　　文章说，一位美国官员在中国旅行时，为了表示友好，每到一地就发放绿色的棒球帽，结果无人领情。他不知道戴绿帽子在中国还有一层意思：妻子与人偷情。

　　作者最后还引用美中商会会长的话，说诸如此类的禁忌或错误三十年来在中国没有太大变化。

　　由此可见，中国的禁忌除了部分来源于历史文化的积淀外，更大量的是由于谐音引起的不吉祥联想。曾有人说，为什么法国的Peugeot(译为“标致”)汽车在中国销售不佳呢？在我的家乡温州“标致”车就更难看到了。因为“标致”与“婊子”谐音，而在温州就更分辨不出了。谁愿意说自己爱“婊子”并要同“她”朝夕相伴呢？中国文字的单音节决定了其众多的同音词，而中国方言的复杂性又使话语充满了陷阱。看来，讲中国话太难了。

　　那么，讲英文容易吗？先举两个例子：

　　一位五十出头的美籍女教师应邀去中国同事家做客。主人的四岁女儿用英语向她打招呼：“Hello, Auntie!”——这是妈妈教她遇见外籍成年女士的问候语。但这次妈妈却忙着教女儿改口：“No, no, not Auntie. Say Granny!”美籍女教师的反应却不以为然：“No, not Granny, please. Just call me Auntie.”女主人以为这是谦虚，就进一步说："But that's not polite for her. You're so much older than I am."美籍女教师红了脸，还是坚持：襃ust have her call me Auntie; I'd prefer that."某位中国先生想恭维一位近五十岁的德国女士，说：“You must be very beautiful when you were young.”“But I am still young!"德国女士反驳道。这位中国先生真是弄巧成拙。

　　以上的尴尬均出于我们中国人不了解西方人对于年龄的态度。与西方人交往，在年龄问题上要特别小心，尽量避免涉及。属于此类禁忌的还有收入、对方财物的价格、婚姻状况、政治态度、宗教信仰。英语中有句话：“A man's home is his castle”。意思是一个人的家是神圣的，不请勿入。以上列举的几个方面均属于个人私生活，随便打听就相当于“闯入”他人的“castle.”。

　　近年来，西方人对所谓的襰exist language and racist language”非常敏感，已成为主要的禁忌语源。像美国这样的女权主义盛行同时又是多种族国家的政治家们在讲话时更是神经紧张、如履薄冰。一句不慎，可能就丢了千万张选票啊！对于“sexist language and racist language”最敏感的无疑是弱势群体，如女性、黑人等。现在有些英语语法书或词典上规定，当指代对象性别不详时不用“he”，而用“she”；会议主席是女性时，不用“Madame Chairman”，而用“Chairperson”；当然还未见到把“mankind”改为“personkind”甚至“womankind”的，也许总有那么一天吧，谁知道呢？

　　其实中国的知识女性也开始关注此类话语。如一位中国妇联的官员就“解析”过朱总理的一句答记者问。当香港“美女”记者问到中国妇女的地位时，朱总理说：“我挣的工资都交给了我的夫人，她的权力比我大。”妇联官员认为朱总理的话并不说明中国传统的男主外、女主内的两性地位已得到根本改变，因为女性并未摆脱“家里的，内人的”处境。

　　种族主义语言一般是针对有色人种，尤其是黑人的。如Blacks—nigger, boy(称成年黑人)；jews—kikes; Poles-polacks; Chinese—chinks; Japanese—japs等等。其实中国人也有类似的话语，如把西方人称为鬼子(devils)或洋鬼子(foreign devils)；若是其他外国人就加上“前缀”，如“日本鬼子”“黑鬼”等等。就说后来较为中性的“大鼻子”“老外”等等，听了也很难让人舒服。

　　以上可以看出跨文化交际的艰辛以及文化习得的困难。外国的语言与文化似乎条条框框到处是“地雷”。其实，各种民族的禁忌最终都要归结为文化传统与价值取向，只要抓住这个关键就可用逆推法举一反三。当然，如能在异国的环境里“Be modest，listen well, watch how others do things and follow suit”，那么要达到“When in Rome, do as the Romans do.”就指日可待了。更何况，随着全球化、地球村的出现，各国文化也在不断交流中趋向融合，许多的禁忌在淡化，在理解中逐渐消失，话语也就更加方便自由了。

　　当然，为了“列车不出轨”，同时避免引起他人的反感，我们必须对彼此文化的禁忌做到心中有数，并让自己适应它们，但也不能因此就教条化。就说戴“绿帽子”吧，它一直是当代中国军人的uniform；八十年代以前军装流行的时候，各种绿帽子在中国男女老少的头上满天飞；即使是现在，如果搭配得当，“绿帽子”一般也不会让人产生那种极端的联想。还有，在西方也并不是绝对不能谈年龄等个人话题。如果你真的“憋不住”，非要把有关的情况搞得一清二楚才能进入实质性的交谈，那么只要讲求策略，还是可以一试的。比较自然的方式是先谈谈自己，设法就此引出对方的情况。西方人特别是美国人不是还有frankness、innocence的一面吗？有一位英国人说：“A Chinaman cannot say No”，原因是“It tends to cause others to lose face”。也就是说：中国人不单自己死要面子，还很顾及他人的面子。以上原文作者大致持同样的观点。几年前有一本畅销书叫《中国可以说“不”》，似乎中国刚刚学会说“No!”其实，即使中国作为一个弱国，在近现代“不”的声音还是经常听到的，只是表达的方式并不总是如此直截了当而已。至于中国百姓说“不”就更无法统计了。西方人有时为了万一受到对方的拒绝时给自己留点面子，不是也问些诸如“You couldn't perhaps post this letter at your convenience for me, could you?”这样的问题吗？在外交上，不管是东西方，这种“beating around the bushes”的话语就更多了。因此，就像现在中国的衣橱里偶然会有绿帽子那样，西方人也并不总是像理论上描述的那么铁板一块，正像一位英国作家所说：“You simply must scrap all your theories about another race, and just open your eyes and ears and see what you get...Remember, understanding begins where familiarity leaves off”。