Gift etiquette

[Zichao]

This has been a perpetual agony ever since I first came to China. Anyway, I'll be finishing a 4 month internship in a Chinese company next week, and I'm wondering what's expected of me in terms of thanks/gifts.

I'm going to get one guy who really helped me out a bottle of Scotch (all the way from 家乐富...), but I'm not sure about the others - the boss, for instance, and the lady who arranged my internship. When people in the office have got married/had babies/etc. they've brought in sweets for the whole office (50 people, most of whom I don't know) - should I do this? Or just for my section? I don't think I'd be able to invite people out to eat - I've never yet been able to get past the refusals to let me pay

[rlf1286]

I've been living in southern China for over a year, and I've found that fruit is always a solid gift, so maybe this would be appropriate for the lady who arranged your internship.

Hope this idea helped!

[Daan]

Be sure not to give them pears though, as that would be offensive! There might also be other kinds of fruit that would be inappropriate as gifts, but I can't recall any at the moment. Anyone else?

[xianhua]

I've never yet been able to get past the refusals to let me pay

The solution I have found is to get there before anyone else and pay before you eat. The staff have never expressed surprise so I'm guessing it doesn't happen infrequently. Obviously it will only work with a reputable venue, as a slightly less honest place may decide to decrease the meal quality having got the money.

[lzreading]

I would just bring a lot of cakes, cookies, fruits to the office as a big thank you to everybody in the office. Or if you can afford it, invite everyone out after work to have dinner and then spend the rest of night at KTV.

[bniu1]

for the part of arguing who pays the bill, I offer three times and if they keep persisting, i'll stick 'em with the bill. I'm not going to waste my energy in deciding who pays. (or I may be just really cheap, )

If I really should pay, towards the end, i'll excuse myself to go to the restroom and then quietly pay. If i'm in an upscale restaurant in certain parts of china, i'll leave a tip. It's starting to catch on in certain areas and I also hate carrying small chinese change. I make money in US dollars, and I would rather not have a stuffed wallet full of bills that maybe doesn't even add up to 75 cents.

for gifts, I find gifts that are really "un-refuseable". These are gifts that the host really has no reason to refuse. I gave a few of my cousins ipods to use, they all had good use for them, and I got them cheap (gotta love amazon.com).

for relatives who kept trying to give me money, I knew they were all pretty poor and I wasn't about the accept their money (which also isn't much to me when you think in terms of dollars), but I didn't really know how to refuse, so I just accepted it, when I saw my parents, gave it to them and let my parents deal with it as they saw fit.