The 8 Fastest Ways to Offend a Chinese Person

Unfortunately, Chinese people are not known for being polite: We talk loudly, don't wait on lines and we rarely respect other people's personal space. I am not even going to talk about the spitting, shoving and staring. Despite being quite rude, Chinese people can also be easily offended.

Here are the 8 Fastest Ways to Offend a Chinese Person:

1. Gift a Clock:

Certain gifts that may be harmless in Western culture will deeply and instantaneously offend a Chinese person. For example: when you gift a clock to a Chinese person, you are basically telling them that you are counting down to their death. This will automatically put you on their sh*t list. For other bad gift ideas, click here.

2. Serve Food with Your Used Chopsticks:
If you want to gross out a Chinese person, take the chopsticks you've been eating with and start serving everyone. The polite and hygienic way would be to use separate serving chopsticks or the unused end of your chopsticks to serve others.

3. Invite them to Dinner and Ask them to Go Dutch:
If you have ever been invited by a Chinese person to dinner, you'll notice that they will almost always pay for the bill. This is a part of the Chinese culture which means if you invite a Chinese person to dinner, they will expect you to do the same. If you ask them to go dutch, they will most certainly pay their portion but don't expect them to accept your invitation the next time.

4. Badmouth Mao Tse-Tung:
If you are with someone that is from Mainland China, do not say anything bad about Mao Tse-Tung (also written as Mao Zedong). He is beloved by the Chinese people so even if you have undisputed dirt about Mao, it is better to keep it to yourself. Unless of course your aim was to offend. Citroen, the French automaker, did just that (click here for the story).

5. Imply Japan is More Superior than China:
Japan and its people are a very sensitive topic for the Chinese. During the 2nd Sino-Japanese War, Japan committed many atrocities concerning the Chinese people (i.e. Nanjing Massacre). These abuses have left a huge scar on China and have been dramatized in countless Chinese tv shows and movies (i.e. Ip Man). The Chinese people have a negative sentiment towards the Japanese and any mention about the Japanese being better than the Chinese will deeply offend.

6. Not Drinking Enough:
This is probably more prevalent among men. If you go out with a Chinese man for drinks and he toasts you to go bottoms up ("Gan Bei!"), you better go bottoms up. If you don't, you WILL offend him and he will begin to question your manhood. By not drinking the same amount or more, you are telling him that you do not respect him enough to drink the same amount he just drank when he toasted you. This was one of the main reasons why I could not live in China - my liver couldn't handle it. I will detail the etiquette of drinking in a future post.

7. Point Out Their Mistakes: 
You've probably heard about this thing call "face". Chinese people will do everything in their power to not "lose face" and to save the face of those around them. When you point out a Chinese person's mistake, you've basically humiliated them by shining a spotlight on their error, which prevents them from saving face. This is extremely offensive and it doesn't matter what your intentions are. I have to admit that I have been guilty of this and I have seen the immediate change in the person's attitude towards me. Even to this day, I think he holds a grudge against me.

8. Slant Your Eyes with Your Fingers
This is perhaps the fastest way to offend a Chinese person. 

This is offensive!

If you know of any other ways to quickly offend Chinese people or if you are a Chinese person that keeps getting offended by something in particular, please leave a comment.