Ghosts, Fengshui and being Chinese with my German friend

Acclimating to America can be tough. We all know it. We all live it. There are a thousand little things that make day to day life as a foreigner in the USA difficult. For Chinese Americans in the Bay Area this takes on a certain flavor. At least we have a robust community to draw upon for reference. But even with this it is taxing to work through the mores of the dominant culture.

And that is why I found it so interesting to be over in Hong Kong recently, speaking with Ms. Christa Koch-Kessler, a seasoned hotelier with more than 20 years' experience of stylish entertaining in Asia and Europe. Christa runs an etiquette consultancy - ClassAct. While I was speaking with her about the challenges she had in establishing her operation in Hong Kong, I was struck by how familiar it seemed to me and my life in California.

Christa is from Germany. She first went to China seventeen years ago to do a short project with a large international hotel group. She arrived in 1989. “I arrived to turn around a project quickly and never left, although I never intended to stay. As a result, I never really learned to speak Chinese. I always said I was going next year, or the year after that. But in the end I never left.” She has been working in the region ever since her first arrival, and over time has developed an exceptional facility to work across cultures despite her language barrier.

“How did I survive? I learned to deal with them (the Chinese) by adopting to the way they think. To see where they were coming from and convincing them to allow me to lead. I used the way they think to secure the authority to be in charge.” she said.

I thought this perspective was amazing. Besides being an insightful look into business management in general, this really rings a bell for me, as someone who works with trying to adjust to America. We Chinese Americans are always trying to “adopt to the way they think.” And some of us are more successful than others at it. And it is important for us to have confidence in our own culture and leverage that to drive acceptance of what we do and how we do it.

Indeed, she actually took it further than I would have at first imagined. When I was discussing my new apartment in Hong Kong, she asked me if I’d hired a geomancer to check for the buildings feng shui. “Feng Shui?” I told her that I’d love to but this was not at the top of my list of must-do things for my trip. When I said that I was looking for antique furniture, she mentioned that it was rare for her to meet a Chinese person who was willing to buy antique furniture. Most Chinese, she continued, were worried that the furniture might have ghosts. Spirits somehow associated with the various pieces could be lurking about. This is like listening to my Auntie, as a child, I explained. Half jokingly, I commented that she seemed more Chinese than me . . .

Here was a woman who had really “gone native.” She had adopted local customs and perspectives in a way that was completely foreign to me. In general it’s always the case that the new comers try to adopt to the host environment, and the dominant culture. It doesn’t matter if one is a Chinese in Silicon Valley or an American in Shanghai everyone wants to fit in.

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Comments

[panasianbiz]

I wanted to give credit to you, Vida, in my blog. I read about your service in Mercury News and then blogged about it today at China Immigrants Study US Etiquette.
However, I could not find a trackback for your blog...so, I will let you know here.

Great and necessary service that you provide.

[panasianbiz]

I wanted to give credit to you, Vida, in my blog. I read about your service in Mercury News and then blogged about it today at China Immigrants Study US Etiquette.
However, I could not find a trackback for your blog...so, I will let you know here.

Great and necessary service that you provide.

[Ron LaPedis]

I just read about this in the Merc. When I lived in Shanghai in the 90's, I wrote a manual for our engineers coming to USA for training. In addition to etiquette, it had sections on getting around, how to ask directions (people assume everyone has a car), how to ride a bicycle in USA, how to line up and wait your turn, and so on. This is good work and I wish I could be a part of it.

[Vida]

Thanks Helen. Please do share with me about what you'll discover about Feng Shui through your house hounting process.

Hi, that's an interesting blog right there.

[Helen Wang]

Very good post, Vida! It's interesting to see how the westerns try to adopt eastern cultures the same way we Chinese try to adopt the western cultures. We have so much to learn from each other. I personally learned to appreciate my own culture much more after I came to the US.

My husband and I are shopping for a house now. Our realtor, who is from Taiwan, is surprised that I pay so much attention to Fen Shui. Although I still do not completely understand about Fen Shui, I believe the harmonious flow of the elements in the universe has a lot to do with our daily life, i.e. health, fortune, etc.