The holiday office party season is upon us.  I always enjoy browsing through the articles warning what NOT to do while celebrating, namely get too drunk, seduce a coworker, mouth off in front of your boss, or the classic dance on a table with a lampshade over your head.

In China, there are different standards for what is appropriate or expected in a social situation with coworkers.  There is a great emphasis placed on guanxi, which I’ll attempt to define as close, trustworthy personal relationships.  This means that you can have a great working relationship with a colleague, but its impossible to secure that same level of trust until you bond over a drink outside of the office.  And you can’t turn that drink down, for fear of losing face.  At the holiday party for the teachers at my school in Shenzhen, the principal and vice principal went around to every single table in the room to give a cheers.  They both got pretty intoxicated, which was funny to me.

Now, for the good stuff.  I mentioned a few weeks back that my then-boyfriend Eric (another American) was working at a school with a certain. . . tactless coworker named Mr. Li.  One evening, Mr. Li took Eric out for a special dinner.  After eating, Eric said he should be getting home, but Mr. Li insisted on bringing him to another place.  The two walked into a massage parlor and were ushered into separate rooms for a massage.  Eric’s started off without incident, but soon enough, his masseuse started taking off her clothes to begin the off-color portion of the evening.  Eric (whose Chinese was limited at that point) bolted upright, saying that this was not okay and cannot continue.  The masseuse rolled here eyes and stormed out of the room (partially clothed) and a much prettier woman walked in and began to undress.  Eric left the room to inform Mr. Li that he was walking out.  Mr. Li came to the door with panic-stricken eyes to make Eric promise that he wouldn’t tell any of their other coworkers.  Then, as he had already paid for two girls, they both went into his room and he said, “I guess I have double happiness?”

An awkward situation to say the least. Good thing American colleagues don’t bond the same way.

Read more posts by Stacey

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 10th, 2009 at 3:37 PM and is filed under Asia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.