The Chinese sales girl got very excited and asked her collegue for help and they packed tea in boxes, and boxes and boxes ... meanwhile I turned around and saw my confused mother trying to stop the girls and behind the counter I saw happy busy working sales girls.
I understood right away, what had happened, when I heard my mother saying : No, TWO, TWO !
The Western gesture for TWO is the Chinese gesture for EIGHT !
You must know the following :
Chinese use one hand, five fingers only, to count to 10. And especially when shopping in the grocery markets they use their fingers.
And counting to ten the Chinese way goes like this:
Chinese figure gestures
Chinese characters for 1 to 10 and pinyin writing
Below alternative gestures for 10 :
So, my Mum had ordered EIGHT boxes of tea, thinking she had asked for only TWO. Well, she did ask for two, in her English - but with the Western gesture for two which is the Chinese gesture for eight.
9 comments:
Culture shock again...
Hi Suzie, thanks for visiting my blog. Shopping is one of life's difficulties, isn't it? It comes up a lot on my blog.
Is Dragonwell the same as Long jin tea? We had a holiday in China about four years ago and that was our favourite tea. Gorgeous. Can't find it in Bangkok, sadly!
To JJ Beattie,
The Dragonwell has long flat thin green leaves. Looks almost like needles. Maybe some other expert will comment here, please ?
When in BKK, I think, I will do a shopping trip to BJ !
And will bring tea for you !!
thanks for sharing
i didn't know the finger gestures are so sensitive in Beijing :)
Learning something new every day...Thanks for sharing!! Greetings from Brasil!!
www.viegraphique.com
That is really cool. I wish I would have saw this before I traveled through China. It didn't cause any incidents like the one that happened with you, but it would have been good to know.
Thanks for your comments.
It feels good if my time spent on creating posts was usefully spent !
hmm I would have to disagree... in my experience, at least from an American standpoint I have always gestured the number two with my middle and index fingers extended. The Chinese gesture for two should be the same way. I have spent about a total of a year and China and know that the number 8 is gestured as in your pictures though. It would be an interesting study to see how different cultures gesture numbers differently.
I think that's a *German* gesture - not a 'western' one.
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