Many countries and cultures have their own brands of greetings and farewells, and their own peculiar etiquette. China is no exception – especially when it comes to visitors, who are treated in a completely different manner compared with family members.

Complex, fussy rituals are followed, not only in the country side, but also in the cities, where the whole procedure may be taken to even greater extremes. All over China, there are deep-rooted, unwritten laws that must be rigorously followed. Often, a typical visit reads like a tragi comic movie script. China expert and professor of anthropology Charles Stafford knows all about the subject.

THE GREETING

In receiving a guest in modern China, it is not the greeting per se that is important, but rather the way the visitor's entire stay, however brief or lengthy, is conducted.

If a host sees his visitor from afar coming up the road, he rushes out and greets the guest in a delighted and enthusiastic manner, escorting the visitor into his house. If the reception takes place in a home in the countryside, the custom is then to invite the guest to shàngkàngzuò, or ‘to sit on the kang’ (a kàng is a large hollow brick bed that is heated by coal fire in the winter, and upon which the entire family sleeps). The done thing when asked to ‘sit on the kang’ is to grab a chair and sit somewhere else. The host brings out seeds and fruit and invites the visitor to smoke a cigarette.