I bumped into a friend on gmail chat the other day. With a mix of words and angry emoticons, she told me what she considered as a great injustice at work. She was eating melon seeds after lunch in the office, something she had been doing for a while, and ‘always with civility and grace’ (as opposed to loud seed cracking and spitting out the shell). But on that day, her British boss saw it and told her on the spot that it was inappropriate office behaviour, and that she should stop once and for all. She was not happy of course, not only because it was a huge loss of face as her coworkers all witnessed it. But more importantly, her foreign coworkers ate melon seeds too. But ‘they ate it the Western way’, i.e. deshelled, or pumpkin seeds whose shell was soft enough to swallow and quite flavorful. Her boss has seen them doing it, and he didn’t think that was inappropriate.
While most of us agree that indulgent and prolonged snacking at work is something to refrain from, but where do you draw the line of appropriateness, a concept itself ridden with ambiguity and moral judgment. Sometimes, a clash between civilisations is as small as a melon seed. Something to chew on there.
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December 29, 2008 11:50 am
“She was not happy…”
Melancholy, perhaps? (I couldn’t resist.)
December 29, 2008 11:54 am
Jens,
Exactly! Why do people say ‘ no pun intended’? I say bring pun on.
December 29, 2008 12:02 pm
Nicely written JennO
I dare say that if your friend was indeed eating the seeds ‘with civility and grace’ then her boss may have overdone it a bit. Alas one would have had to have witnessed the incident to know for sure, but this seems to be another case of foreign boss good at what they do (ie. electronic engineering project management/ expediting etc), but hopeless when it comes to bridging the cultural canyon – something essential to get the best out of one’s team.
December 29, 2008 12:10 pm
matt,
You are a great canyon bridge!
December 29, 2008 1:07 pm
Hrmm… I assume that she is still taking the shells out of her mouth and depositing them in a bin somewhere. I think that it is this part of the process that would be considered inappropriate. It could considered, in a way, to be similar to spitting into the bin. Even if you have a cold and the doctor’s order is to spit, it may still be “inappropriate” behaviour, or at the very least unhygenic.
I think it’s important for anyone who is asking someone else to stop doing something, to explain why they find it offensive or inappropriate. Maybe your friend hasn’t thought about the hygene perspective in this situation.. it’s only discrimination when there is no good reason behind it.
On the topic of puns, I have heard that Americans consider puns to be the lowest form of humour but I love them, I think the Chinese refer to this as “cross-talk”? It’s like that joke I sent to you on cPOD.. it’s a play on words.. even when it’s unintentional.. it’s still amusing.
December 29, 2008 1:11 pm
I dunno, all offices have different rules. I worked in a Chinese office several years ago where nobody was allowed to eat anything, and workers were fined for breaking the rules. I thought it was ridiculous, but I followed the rules.
That said, I really don’t dig people spitting saliva-ensconsed shells out of their mouths every three seconds, so I can sympathize with the boss.
December 29, 2008 3:06 pm
LOL what a story! Boss definetly dont know difference between oriental and western psychology. Western people have less social gap so boss is not master but collegue. Asian people fell “huge loss of face” etc where it supposed to be normal situation.
December 29, 2008 3:36 pm
Funny. The topic of cultural sensitivity training came up today at the office as well. What about a CPOD channel exclusively dedicated to the topic?
December 29, 2008 5:24 pm
Most definitely Hank! I love the cultural nitpicking stuff rather than the historical cultural stuff.. daily life interests me more than what happened 100 (or even 1000) years ago to be honest.. and these little insights we get from time to time on the lessons just aren’t enough for me.
The taxi Dear Amber lesson most recently was a great one.. it just stayed on the same topic and used a multitude of cultural references.
December 30, 2008 7:31 pm
@Jenny,
As long as I don’t see her spit out the shell openly it would be acceptable. It’s the same with gum. She has to know how to get rid of it with … elegance.
Kimik
December 31, 2008 3:32 pm
perhaps your friend should do the “western thing” and have a chat with her boss about this situation and clear the air. but then again, if the British boss is like the boss in the Dilbert comic strip, then there’s no point.
January 1, 2009 4:02 pm
Happy New Year!
New year resolution: stop spitting melon seeds at office mates.
January 2, 2009 2:15 pm
But seriously now… is there much in the way of mixed nationalities in the Chinese office space? Is it “prestigious” to have a foreign manager (like it is to have a foreign native English speaker on display in a classroom, but not teaching)?
January 4, 2009 8:52 am
Sam,
I think the prestige lies more in the company that one works for rather than the individuals. And (or) it boils down to your salary.
January 6, 2009 1:53 pm
I will tell a different side of the topic. I live and work in Hong Kong and I was really shocked when I saw people opening their lunch boxes and eating right at the workstations, which leaves all different kinds of smells afterwords for the rest of the day… In my previous work (in Europe) that was considered a violation of corporate rules, eating at the work desk, but we had a really nice and spacious kitchen to retrieve. Meanwhile, there is only a 1m x 1m coffee room here.
And the boss in Jenny’s story just can be as subjective as he can towards the colleague, so probably it’s not the issue in seed-eating way?
January 9, 2009 6:29 pm
>>> While most of us agree that indulgent and prolonged snacking at work is something to refrain from, but where do you draw the line of appropriateness, a concept itself ridden with ambiguity and moral judgment. Sometimes, a clash between civilizations is as small as a melon seed. Something to chew on there.
Why do I get a creepy feeling that FULL WARS have been started by something rather more insignificant than a melon seed?? Melon seeds are at least NICE and TASTY, at least when they are roasted and have some salt added. (Is that the way they are eaten in China, or do you eat them ‘natural’? If THAT IS the case, then I’m ready to go to war against this bad habit! Raw?!?!
)
January 13, 2009 9:42 am
Jenny, let me start by saying “Happy 牛 Year!” (remember, you said bring on the puns, you did not say they had to be good).
I thought this was an interesting entry, with alot of interesting opinions. As matt_c noted, it is hard to say who was “in the right” with regards to eating the seeds without knowing more detail. But as to calling her out in front of her coworkes for this incident, and causing the loss of face”, I think that is poor management regardless of whether you are from Europe, the US, or China. Any competent manager would take the person aside and mention quietly.
I agree with Kanji that wars have been started for less, but what if someone started a war and we all refused to fight? I leave you with this tidbit to mull over: http://www.firstworldwar.com/features/christmastruce.htm
January 18, 2009 11:32 pm
Insensitive on the bosses part, but understandable. Sunflower/melon seeds (CAN) be messy, loud and any kind of spitting is innappropriate in an international work place.
Not to say she was like this, but I’ve worked in offices where my colleagues would accumulate little piles of seed husks on their desks, not something I would like a big client to see in any case.
She should ask her colleagues where they get their preshelled seeds and give them a go!
January 19, 2009 8:45 pm
I think her mistake was that she did not share with her boss
Nah, I mean as long as you do it with respect to your colleagues it is OK.
May be this melon seeds story is just a pretext and hide something else (?)
I often bring chinese snacks/candies in the office.
And everybody is happy about it; they can taste new stuff!
Note that they could not finish their HuaMei nor their dried spicy beef meat candy though…
January 31, 2009 9:22 am
Hi Jenny:
I thought we Americans were the worst about getting comfortable with other cultures; I guess the British struggle with that too. I spent many years travelling to Japan and Taiwan. The first time I went to an Udon place for lunch in Japan I was aghast at the slurping the locals used to eat their Udon (“Mom would never approve!”) But within a week I was in there slurping with the best of them. It was just the best way to eat Udon. I think people need to relax around other cultures: observe, enjoy, maybe even adopt some of the practises as your own. The main thing is to cut people some slack (go easy on them) about doing the things they grew up with. Now I have a Chinese girl friend and we learn new stuff from each other everyday: she is teaching me Chinese culture and language (along with you on ChinesePod) and she is learning American slang from me.
February 12, 2009 11:48 pm
she should have been sacked on the spot!