Whenever someone criticizes China, particularly with regard to manners, a debate breaks out. Some people are quick to talk about ‘cultural differences’ and argue that Westerners should not impose their customs on another country. Other people take the opposite stance, saying that Chinese are ‘backwards’ (or sometimes worse). Typically someone throws out the ‘barbarian’ or ‘uncultured’ label, which personally seems like a lazy argument.

Not all of the activities that people find offensive—or at least objectionable—fall into the same category. For example, urinating and spitting in public are serious health hazards, and can fairly be labeled as things that need changing. On the other hand, when I posted about people sleeping at work last week, one reader argued that it was much like a Spanish Siesta, and that foreign companies have the responsibility to come to terms with local culture.

In this latter case, I would argue that it is not ‘cultural’ in that it is not sanctioned, nor accepted, by anyone. Places like Spain accept this idea and businesses close down for a few hours each day accordingly. It has been incorporated into the culture. Additionally people will often work later to make up for the lost time. However, in a typical Chinese company workers show up at 9AM, leave for lunch exactly at noon (returning exactly at 1), and take off right at quitting time. No extra time is permitted for napping. Besides, three-hour lunches have mostly become a thing of the past, much like the three-martini lunch in New York. I am not trying to get too caught up in this one example, but you can see that not all cases are the same.

The primary question becomes: Do people attribute these perceived offensive actions to ‘cultural differences’ because cultures are fundamentally different, or instead because they are afraid to be seen as ethnocentric? Perhaps an example can highlight this point.

A few years ago I had a Mexican friend who got offended when Chinese merchants put her change on the counter rather than in her hand. She used to tell me how ‘rude’ they were, but it did not seem offensive to me. From my point of view she was over-reacting but perhaps we simply had different cultural perspectives. For Mexicans this is extremely inappropriate, but for Americans it is not a big deal.

Would I be offended by someone loudly burping at dinner, while someone from an Arab country might feel it is appropriate (I have been told burping at the end of the meal in Arab culture indicates that you have enjoyed yourself. Please correct me if that is not true. Either way, you get the point.)

I cannot help but feel at least certain beliefs are universally held across societies and no amount of cultural relativism will convince me otherwise. Some people say that food safety or environmental standards are not rooted in Chinese culture, but this seems a bit bizarre. They were not Western concepts until problems began to arise in society. While there were no health inspectors in the early 19th century, no one ever thought it was reasonable to poison out of neglect. The idea that food should not kill a customer is a universal truth, and no matter how much the tuna fish sandwich incident gets hushed, it is still just as unacceptable in China as anywhere else.

So my question to you is this: When is something a legitimate criticism of Chinese society, and when is it an imposition of Western ideas?