Reciprocity is a key Chinese concept. It’s automatic, compulsory and omnipresent in all aspects of Chinese society. I have a French teenager son. He wanted to offer a gift to his mentor by the end of an internship. I suggested him to do it before the assessment. “Why?”, he asked. “To make your mentor happy and give you a nice evaluation”, I said mindlessly. Eyes wide open, my son responded stiffly: “Gift is to show my thanks, not to get a better assessment !!”
I felt embarrassed. It illustrates one of the cultural differences. In China, a person who offers a gift, very often, expects something in return. Gift is, without generalizing, an invitation of a favor. It’s a cultural behavior. Not in the West where gift is a gift, most of the time, just an expression of pleasure or gratitude.
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