Chinese won’t open gifts in front the guests, so you should not open the gifts immediately after you receive from a Chinese.

Americans may spend $50 for a gift, which is very small amount of money compared to their income. Chinese usually spend a lot more money on gifts proportionally to their income. Chinese sometimes weight friendship according to how much you spend on their gifts. If the gifts are too cheap, they will think you do not respect or care about them. This has nothing to do with corruption. When they receive expensive gifts, they won’t say thank you to you. They will wait for another opportunity to give you an expensive gift to pay you back. Sometime, this becomes a funny loop. Chinese do give cash as gifts. Most wedding gifts are cash in a red envelop.

Chinese are family and friends oriented, so they may have trouble to trust a stranger. If you gain trust from one Chinese person, you will gain trust from many. They do not treat strangers well, but they treat their family or friends very well. So if you want to do business with Chinese, you have to personally know some Chinese somehow. The term is known as Guanxi.

Chinese spend a lot of money on their clothes compared to their income. They often spend one or two months income to buy a shirt or jacket. Some people judge people by what they wear. They may dress up to buy groceries. You may not pay attention to you beat up T-shirts, but in China, if you wear a T-shirt with holes on it, people will think you are very poor.

Chinese like to bargain, so the vendor’s prices always have room for bargain. Never pay the prices they ask for except in department stores.

Chinese bank systems are not developed. Most people do not have credit cards. They pay almost everything in cash.

Chinese do not like to obey the rules. People hardly follow the traffic lights. I went back China last summer and the only person who was waiting for the green light was me.

It is quiet common to see two girls’ hand in hand on the streets. They are not gay. They are just friends. Sometimes girls like to show friendship.

To manage Chinese is very different from managing Americans. Most Chinese are hard working people, but they will not speak out their minds. If you want to learn the truth from them, you have to gain their trust.

Be aware, Americans are trying to learn Chinese culture, at the same time Chinese people are studying American cultures. Sometime, Chinese will try to behave in what they think is an American way when dealing with Americans based on what they have seen on TV or other media sources, and may not necessarily be an accurate.