workers, in 2013 the Chinese government relaxed the one-child policy, allowing an urban couple to apply for permission to have a second child if either parent was an only child, and a rural couple to apply for permission if their first child was a female. Then, in 2015 the one-child policy was changed to a two-child policy. However, even with the end of the one-child policy, one-child families continue to be the norm.
China’s Female Etiquette Guru
Remarkably, one of the most powerful catalysts for cultural change in China since the 1980s has been one person—a woman named Yue-Sai Kan.
As profiled by the New Yorker magazine, Yue-Sai Kan, daughter of famous Chinese painter Wing-Lin Kan, was born in Guilin in 1946 and brought up in Hong Kong. As an aspiring concert pianist, she migrated to Hawaii and eventually went to New York where she found work in the fields of advertising and public relations.
From there she got into cable television, which was still very new to the viewing public, and began helping to produce a program called Looking East. The show’s popularity amazed everyone, and it ran for twelve years. She also produced the award-winning documentary China Walls and Bridges.
In 1984, PBS invited Kan to host a live broadcast from Beijing on the thirty-fifth anniversary of the People’s Republic of China. It was so successful that the Chinese government asked her if she would do a television show in China. She accepted the invitation and began producing One World. This show made Kan a household name in China and the news media credited her with single-handedly introducing American culture to the Chinese people, as well as exposing the whole world to the complexity and variations of Asian culture.
In the early 1990s, Kan was invited by Chinese friends to become involved in business in China. She chose cosmetics because despite its modern development, she felt China had no color. “The drabness has to go!” she said. “Chinese women should look good and feel good about themselves!”
Kan introduced a cosmetic line in three department stores in 1992. She then wrote a book, Guide to Asian Beauty, which became an instant bestseller. Today her Yue-Sai Kan cosmetic line is sold nationwide, and young urban Chinese women are among the most appearance-conscious women in the world.
She then wrote two more books that became runaway bestsellers: Etiquette for the Modern Chinese and The Chinese Gentleman.
Kan’s Etiquette for the Modern Chinese was aimed at informing Chinese businesspeople, diplomats, and other readers about the ins and outs of Western etiquette, and how to behave toward Westerners and in Western settings. The government got behind the book, ordering copies for its overseas embassies and representatives at the United Nations.
The Chinese Gentleman, which Kan said was sorely needed, is written in Chinese with such English chapter headings as: “How Should a Gentleman Look?” “How Does a Gentleman Eat?” “Gentlemen in Daily Life,” and “Ladies and Gentlemen.” This last chapter addresses relationship issues from dating to marriage and sex—traditionally taboo subjects in Chinese etiquette.
The book is peppered, at times humorously, with illustrations of gentlemanly do’s and don’ts. According to Kan, the book came at a crucial moment in China’s development, when Chinese businessmen were coming into greater contact with foreigners without any prior education from parents or teachers about what Westerners considered cultured behavior.
The book, Kan added, was one that men needed and women loved. She added that in traditional Chinese culture, it was always emphasized that men should be well-mannered, well-educated, treat people with courtesy, and think of others. But that this was missing from the present generations.
Chinese Etiquette in the New Global Age
There have long been varying opinions of etiquette in China. China’s “perfect” etiquette is spoken of by writers who are not really familiar with the standard of etiquette that actually prevails there, or who are engaged in a kind of soft cover-up. Other sources insist that the Chinese have one of the world’s lowest standards of etiquette.
The truth is more complicated than either of these opinions would lead you to believe. There are three facets of etiquette in modern-day China. Firstly, China has traditionally had a very high formal standard of personal etiquette among family, friends, and business associates, and generally speaking this standard still exists. But it is now less ritualistic and rigid than it was in earlier times, and is still evolving, particularly among the internationally minded younger generations.
The second major facet of etiquette in China is the “non-standard” that applies to behavior in public and toward strangers.
This can be described as informal and without set rules. Because of the etiquette demands of the Confucian code of ethics the Chinese have traditionally avoided adding to their social, economic, and political obligations by limiting the requirement for a high standard of behavior until it applies only to family, relations, school friends, coworkers, and guests. This meant that outsiders and strangers in general were more or less nonentities who were ignored. This is the reason why bumping, pushing, and shoving in crowded public situations, without apologies or even acknowledging the presence of others, has long been common in China.
And then there is the third facet of etiquette—or lack thereof—in present-day China that is generally used only by the class of men who spit, urinate, and do other things in public that are offensive to others. This is a phenomenon that has evolved since the decline and fall of the last Chinese dynasty, the many wars, and the breakdown of public order that was epitomized by the Cultural Revolution.
Among the factors that contributed to this situation were the enforced massive movements of millions of people throughout the huge country; inadequate transportation facilities; a lack of public toilets, especially in the countryside; the simple absence of any kind of tissue paper; and finally the growing level of air pollution that made nose and lung congestion endemic.
The downside to China’s surge of modernity, however, is the continued existence of industrial pollution in many cities. In Beijing this pollution is often also combined with wind-carried dust from the Gobi Desert. Having to live with this can be an ordeal for anyone. But there is light at the end of this polluted tunnel. Inspired by techniques used in Iceland, the Chinese government has initiated the first steps of a program to tap into the country’s extensive resources of geothermal heat. The first test of this project is in the ancient city of Xianyang, which by the year 2000 was one of the most polluted cities in the world. Another positive sign: geothermal pumps were used to heat and cool some of the venues of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.
On many fronts, China’s government has come a long way since the days of encouraging rough manners. Since well before its emergence as an economic superpower, the Chinese government has been sponsoring public relations programs designed to curb crude, unsightly, and unsanitary behavior in public, especially spitting and urinating.
As in many other arenas, Shanghai was a leader in this effort. The city came up with what it called the Seven Don’ts—don’t spit, don’t litter, don’t destroy public property, don’t damage green areas, don’t disobey traffic rules, don’t smoke in public places, and don’t use impolite language—intending to put an end to behaviors that had long been the rule rather than the exception.
Some government officials have even advocated the elimination of the famous kaidangku (kay-dahng-koo), or “open crotch,” pants that many Chinese infants and babies are dressed in to simplify trips to the bathroom and potty training—and that foreign news media like to display to the world. (Chinese mothers have been quoted as saying this ancient custom has nothing to do with good manners, and that bureaucrats should mind their own business.)
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