Domestics Affairs

Gifts and the politics that go into them

By Lisa Carducci (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-09-21 08:18

My doorbell rang continuously for one minute. I was busy with something so it took a few seconds for me to run and pick up the videophone. A man's voice on the other end said: "Are you Miss Lisa? I have a parcel for you."

While he was climbing up to the fifth floor, I wondered who could have sent me a "special parcel".

I could have cut the wrapping and gone straight to the box as soon as the parcel was delivered. But I preferred the pleasure of untying the several meters of tape one by one to reach a red box of moon cakes. I love moon cakes!

My first feeling was that I didn't deserve them, because I have had very little opportunity this year to work for my company. The card inside, however, didn't say "Thank you for your good work". Instead, it said: "Enjoy your holidays!" I thought: This is what a gift should be, a pleasure offered to a person you appreciate.

Every time one of my family members got a gift, she would say: "Why do you give me that (gifts)? Now I'll be obliged to buy something (for you) too and I don't know what!"

I prefer to give a gift to a person on his/her birthday, because this is the only day in a year that really belongs to him/her.

In the West, most services - related to profession or trade - are paid for. Even if you request your neighbor to change your sink, or an electrician across the street to repair a switch, he may charge you a "favor" price. But if you recommend a good piano teacher to friends for their children, they pay you back with only a "thank you".

In China, things sometimes go differently. Many people go through guanxi (relationship). Helping a friend or a company to find the right person for a job, get a contract, import goods or buy a car means that you have built a bridge.

I often tell my fellow expatriates why they should not offer money to a Chinese who does something for them. Some Chinese don't expect money and may even be offended if you offer any for some favor they have done. If you accept a free service from a Chinese, you become morally obliged to him. It's a rain check you put in his/her hand.

But what happens if you are not in position to return the favor in kind? You can offer hong bao (red envelope with money) to his/her children during Spring Festival.

When it comes to companies, the "favor" can be "returned" at banquets or weekend parties with gifts of quality liquor and/or cigarettes, or beautifully but over-packaged seasonal gifts, which actually are a waste of natural resources and a burden on the environment.

Moon cakes - it is well known - are seldom eaten but offered to others who offer them to still others. It is said that some are kept for the following year. Not all foreigners know that in China there are many little shops where you can exchange these costly gifts for others or resell them for money.

The Golden Week holidays Chinese enjoy also serve some specific purposes: ordinary folks travel back home to their families, salaried people go on holidays and companies hold parties to entertain their clients. Many urban parents, who are in trade or business, often send their children alone to their grandparents in the countryside because they have business obligations to fulfill in the cities they live.

These are occasions when most of the expenses are a waste. Money serves to impress people (look what you can get as a customer of a particular person or company), and to build new guanxi. As is the norm in the world of business competition, a company's expenses have to be more than its competitor's, which is a never-ending game.

One can be invited (or offered a substantial gift on a national holiday) because his skills or help could be required later. One can also be invited to impress other guests who would feel obliged to sign a contract later.

The more you pay, the more you get? But this is unsure, as in any game. What is sure is that holidays and parties are the times for "Mr Bribery" and "Ms Corruption". Did someone say "gift"?

The author is a Canadian scholar living in Beijing.