Grammar and Tones

When my mate wants to hang out with me and asks if I wanna come over on Thursday for a pizza, I might either say “sure!”, or “no, I gotta floss my cat”. And no offence would be taken. After all, when I invite my mate for something, he might say “no, I wanna play video games all night alone on my couch”. Everyone knows that you are not always in the mood to hang out with your friends – or family, or colleagues, or anyone.

In Chinese culture, this would be considered unacceptable. In China, it is common to entertain guests – this could be colleagues, friends or family – by inviting them for a lavish dinner around a big round rotating table. From my perspective these gatherings are not really my definition of fun – lots of people, the majority of which I wouldn’t really know, lots of drinking Chinese spirits (and I don’t drink), the food is very… Chinese, the conversations are very… Chinese.

Mission impossible

I’d really rather go to the local noodle shop with my wife. So the mission is called: “rejecting the dinner party invitation in a polite way”.

If I just said “no, thank you”, this would be taken as a direct offence. It would be translated as “no, I’ve got better things to do than meeting you!” After all, if you’ve got time than surely you’d rather have a nice dinner with your friend than sit at home and floss your cat or play video games.

So you generally don’t decline an invitation. If you really don’t want to go, I have to put some effort into your rejection. You have to explain why you can’t – not why you don’t want to.

You may have a doctor’s appointment – but better make sure that you can explain what malaise this is for and why your doctor just can’t find any alternative appointment. Otherwise, it’s gonna sound like an excuse. Which it is.

You may have a work meeting. Conveniently, it is very common in China that bosses will ask their employees to do work or attend meetings even on a Sunday night. This works in your favour. But make sure you’ve got an explanation what this meeting is about, and why it is so urgent, and make sure to complain sufficiently about your boss that he is unwilling to give you that evening off even after you asked him five times. Otherwise, it’s gonna sound like an excuse. Which it is.

You may have your uncle from America come over, and coincidentally he is only staying in Beijing for one night, and it happens to be that one night when your friend invited you to his boring dinner party. This is a risky one, because you better send your friend a photo of you and your “uncle” in front of the Great Wall on that evening. Otherwise, it’s gonna sound like an excuse. Which it is.

There is invariable some questioning and back and forth of the details of why you just cannot attend your friend’s boring dinner party, even though there is nothing you would rather do. Your excuse needs to be convincing and detailed!

The right level of credibility

The ironic thing is that your friend will also have days when he just doesn’t feel like attending your boring dinner party. Then the onus is on him to prove why he cannot come, while convincing you of how much he would like to come.

Your friend’s washing machine broke, and the only time the plumber can come happens to be just that evening of your boring dinner party. You give him some suggestions about other plumbers that you’ve had good experiences with and that might have time. He says that he’s good a very particular type of washing machine and there’s only one company that can fix it. By this time you know that your friend just doesn’t want to come. His excuse is just about sufficiently convincing that it might be true. But you better don’t probe more, otherwise you will bring your friend into a very awkward situation – you don’t want him to lose face by admitting that his washing machine does indeed work like a charm. You reassure him that it’s totally fine if he doesn’t come, and he schedules a message on his phone to you on the day of your dinner party saying “I’d love to join you later but that stupid plumber seems to have no idea how to fix that washing machine”.

Everyone knows about these sort of excuses. Everyone does it. Again, most of my experience comes from my in-laws, but I have witnessed many discussions about what excuses to tell friends of the family to reject their invitations, and which invitations will be better to accept in order not to cause too much of a fuss.

Honesty vs politeness

To be totally honest, this feels dishonest to me. Both of us know that you don’t want to come, both of us know that you’re telling me excuses that are just not true, and both of us know that I’m doing the same. Let’s just be honest about it, if you wanna floss your cat, then go and floss your cat, it doesn’t mean that our friendship is over. Another day, this will make my life easier because I don’t have to make up credible excuses to reject your invitations. If you honestly tell me that my dinner parties are boring, then at least I know, I can do something about it, and I know that you are honest and upright – qualities that I value in a friend.

The discussions I overheard in my Chinese family, however, where about their friends feeling disappointed or rejected or hurt. They would much rather like their friend to feel welcome, accepted and valued. If you tell them about your fictional doctor’s appointment and how much you would love to come to their dinner party, your friend of going to feel happy about it, and that is a good thing. In a way, it is an act of kindness to tell your friend a white lie.

I’m not very good at this. Even by Western standards, Germans have a reputation of being overly direct and harsh. In the beginning – in fact the very first time I met who would later be my parents-in-law – I made an instant bad impression by telling them that I didn’t want to join them to eat their home-made dumplings, but I’d want to do something unimportant like going to the cinema.

Later, when living in China, I made attempts at the Chinese way. But it was difficult to find the right level of credibility. Sometimes I’d make vague excuses like I had to finish some work, but then I couldn’t answer why it had to be that particular evening, exposing my excuse so that the host would be even more offended. Sometimes I’d overdo it and give lots of explanations and details of why this particular day just wouldn’t work and I’d get entangled in a web of lies until I didn’t even know myself what I was saying anymore. Sometimes (with close family members) I’d go full German and say “sorry, I really don’t feel like going, I just wanna stay home and have a rest. Please don’t take this as on offence, I know that you feel the same sometime, and I just want to be honest with you and safe both of us the time of making up excuses that neither of us believes.”

The later invariably led to hurt feelings. But it also led to mutual understandings. The mind understands the logic behind it, but the heart doesn’t feel the emotion behind it. With my Chinese family, we slowly came to a point where we understand each other: they understand that I sometime don’t want to join, but don’t want to tell them excuses. I understand that they are “lying to me”, but that they have good intentions behind it. But our hearts still feel the pain. This is normal. The mind can be re-trained faster than the heart. But over time the heart slowly follows and the feelings of rejection grow smaller and smaller on both sides, though they will never totally disappear.