I have been in China for eight months now and observed different things about the Chinese people, but one of the most surprising is their modesty. Of course you can’t say that all Chinese are modest, but many of them are. Well, you would say that everywhere people are modest; however, the Chinese seem to have a rare kind of it, and it seems uniform among them. One of the ways that I was surprised about Chinese ways is when you praise a Chinese for what they are good at and the response you get is “No No No,” instead of the usual “thank you” response. They seem to react differently even to those little compliments that one would make to a person, for example telling someone how well dressed they are. It did not go without my attention, so I decided to take this question to some people that are more acquainted with Chinese culture than me. What I found out is interesting: the “no no no” answer is equivalent to the western reply of “thanks” when given a compliment! In fact I am told that replying “thanks” when complimented can come off as someone being arrogant! (Not everywhere though). Jia Wenshan, an author and professor at Chapman University in Beijing says self-denial is a traditional Chinese interpersonal ritual whose function is equivalent to the Western reply of thanks. “Many Chinese especially the elderly use that response to show their appreciation. He however noted that in China, there is an emerging class of Western trained urban Chinese who also would reply with ‘thanks’. “But that would run the risk of being viewed as arrogant.” Dr. Dong Chenyu, a social scientist at Renmin University explains how he reacted to his American friend when he told him how good he was at speaking English. “My reply was always, ‘no no no. I am not that good’,” he said. On the other hand, a non-Chinese friend would just respond thanks. And Dong attributes this to culture. When toasting, in the Chinese culture, if someone puts his or her glass a bit lower, it shows modesty. Courtesy. Another lady, an African journalist in Beijing wrote to me when I posted on social media asking people to share with me their experience when it comes to the reaction you get when you praise a Chinese. “She just smiles or waves and says no,” she wrote, giving me an example of her Chinese acquaintance whom she had complimented several times, more recently about her ‘colourful sneakers.’ Modesty seems to be have a natural inclination among Chinese. For instance, the ‘zhongyong’ belief under which Chinese neither targeted to lead nor wanted to lag behind. They wanted to be somewhere in the middle. Such originated from Confucianism, a kind of philosophical belief from ancient china. Confucianism, is a form of religion or philosophical system, which developed from Confucius’(Chinese philosopher) thoughts. “In Chinese culture, modesty is viewed as a virtue as it is an inherent part of the Chinese convention to be a person, a member of a given group or community,” Jia said. “It is part of the Confucian ethics that one has unlimited things to learn about life and society. Confucius believes the dictum of “live and learn”. The Dao or the truth is usually elusive and thus one needs to spend his life time in its quest. Also, Confucius believes in the group over the individual,” he added. Professor Jia attributed a lot of modesty to the Confucian beliefs. A question comes up here: how many Chinese practice Confucianism? Not so many follow it strictly, although it should also be noted that many Chinese to some extent have Confucian values that they hold. Yet some Chinese may not due to other faith they have. So, more than beliefs, there seems to be something more innate for their modesty. Something that naturally makes different people from different walks of life to exude some form of this modesty. editorial@newtimes.co.rw
