Cultural Differences

Our plane left late last night. We were scheduled for a 7:40pm departure from Shanghai to Chengdu. But the typhoon strength winds and rains which beat Shanghai yesterday afternoon left no one surprised that flights were delayed late into the night.

One benefit of flying long trips with relative frequency is access to lounges. So we spent a long evening in the Shanghai Airlines business class lounge at the Pudong Airport, gorging the girls on fried rice and juice and people watching. We had plenty of time to people watch.

Culture can be a surprisingly difficult thing to get your head around. I have always felt difficult to offend - as an American, my offense radar is pretty low. But my American culture beacon still blinks brightly, expecting everyone around to meet my low standard. In China, this rarely happens. So as we waited in the business class lounge last night, we sat near a very loud group of tables. The people at each table sat no more than a few feet apart from each other, but still chose to elevate the dynamics of their conversation. This loud conversation quickly began to feel raucous and rude to us - like a drunken BBQ on an American lake. We quietly discussed our judgment - these people must be newly rich, having clearly not learned any manners. Its amazing how people here just don’t consider the people around them.

But soon the entire room turned to watch an even more noisy conversation. On the other side of the lounge, one individual held a very heated conversation with a woman working for the airline. She was soon accompanied by security and plenty of people talking on little walkie-talkies. The angry man yelled frequently, but he was quiet whenever the walkie-talkies spoke.

At first, we dismissed the angry man as another person without much sense. And we dismissed the onlooking room and occasional participation by the onlookers as typical Chinese gawkers - people here love nothing more than to watch, and take sides in a fight. We became increasingly concerned as the argument did not let up, and the people in the room did not look away.

Soon the man next to us - the one we had judged as uneducated and newly rich - used English to ask if we could understand what was happening. He then explained that Shanghai Airlines had delayed his flight over 4 hours, with no explanation or new plans. No one knew what to do, and felt quite angry after such a long wait. Our newfound sympathy for this man and his compatriots led to a lovely conversation with him. He had traveled extensively across the world as a professor of environmental protection, and had done much work in the United States.

We enjoyed his company, and immediately felt humbled by our assumptions. The people in this room did not act without manners or class. They acted as Chinese people - and nothing more or less.

Our flight eventually delayed to 11:30pm with an expected arrival in Chengdu of 2:30 in the morning. We gave up the wait and stayed in the airport hotel, hopping the first plane out this morning.