By Bay Fang (USnews.com)
Updated: 2006-04-10 17:19

In a conference room at the Four Seasons hotel, a cultural transformation is occurring over tea and cookies. Eight Chinese adults take turns standing uncomfortably on a chair, while a bossy Japanese woman looks them over one by one and gives them a grade on their appearance. A middle-aged Chinese executive with permed hair climbs unsteadily onto the chair. She wears an all-purple outfit with a big plastic pink flower pinned to her bosom. The teacher tells her to get rid of the flower and replace it with a real white one. There are urgent whispers all around.

"In China," one student pipes up meekly, "white flowers are for funerals." The teacher shrugs and rolls her eyes.

"Forget about 'in China'!" she snaps. "Let's learn the international way. As rich as you are, as successful as you are, you're all going to have to learn to be more international."

In real life, they are successful executives, wealthy and well educated. Some are millionaires. But they all have one thing in common: They are too Chinese.

"I came at the right time and the right place," says the instructor, June Yamada, a brassy Japanese woman wearing a baseball cap and a gold lamé jacket. "It's world famous that Chinese have bad manners. Society is progressing very fast here, lots of money is being made, but people have not caught up. Who will tell them that you don't blow your nose or belch in the middle of dinner but June?"

As China prepares to host the 2008 Olympics, even the government has realized that China's manners may not have caught up with its malls. While the cities may look world-class, full of glitzy showrooms and skyscrapers, their residents are still lagging when it comes to international standards of decorum. The Shanghai municipal government launched an ambitious campaign at the end of last year called "Be a Lovely Shanghainese," which entreats its citizens to follow such international protocols as urinating directly into toilets. Etiquette schools such as the June Yamada Academy are profiting from this push, as well as from the desire of Chinese yuppies to do the "right" thing when it comes to interacting with the rest of the world.

Goodrich Ho, a portly Shanghainese businessman in his 50s, started taking classes when he began looking for an international partner for his bookstore business. A successful chain with over 20 outlets around China, Bookmall Co. was ready to expand. The only problem was its owner.

"I didn't know how to dress to receive foreign visitors, how to behave at dinners," says Ho. "Shanghai will hold the [world] Expo in 2010, and millions of foreigners are coming to the city. We need to have more training in manners."

Ho has now already taken every one of the classes Yamada offers and plans on turning around and teaching it all to his 200 employees. "In my generation in China, we never learned these things," he says, leaning forward and taking a suck of his watermelon juice. "That you serve ladies first. That you can't spit out your bones. That you should match your clothes." He gestures proudly at his dark blue suit, light blue shirt, and patterned blue tie. "June taught me that men shouldn't wear many different colors. I think this outfit makes me look a little more sophisticated, and I know how important first impressions are to business. Once, to class, I wore a blue jacket with black pants, and they picked on me. I'll never do that again!"

All this training does not come cheap. The classes cost up to 925 yuan (US$115) an hour. Wannabe socialites pick among international table manners (which includes "Menu Reading" and "Do's and Don'ts Around the Table"), finding Mr. Right-Miss Right (which includes subjects like "Different Values in Males, Females, and Foreigners"), or "The Ultimate Power Studies of Being a Lady or Gentleman." Yamada also runs classes for children, teaching them such fundamentals as how to use a knife and fork, and has over 100 private students, who pay 20,000 yuan (US$2,500) for eight hours of intense tutoring.

Back in the conference room, Yamada shows pictures of Greta Garbo, Rita Hayworth, and Richard Gere, then contrasts them with pictures of Chinese people with bad haircuts taken from magazines.

"It took Japan 20 years after the war to stand on its own feet," she says. "China is still a developing country. Many of these people only started making money two or three years ago. Their parents never taught them to close their mouths when they're eating or not to pile their plates really high at buffets. They need help."