Who should greet first?

[roddy]

Any half-decent HR department will listen carefully to his questions, offer helpful advice, and move his file to the 'weirdo' drawer. It's bad enough he's come on the Internet to ask, he can't go asking real people why he's not getting greeted.

[Silent]

Edit: Just thought of this to make my point clear. I actually think if the issue continues to bother the OP even after he has tried to greet/talk to the Chinese workers, then it is better for the OP to discuss this privately with HR to understand if this is a real issue or not instead of assuming that this is a Chinese cultural thing when it might be something competely different.

To be honest a chat with a shrink seems a better idea to me. There is one guy in a company that doesn't greet him. A guy he has no real relation with. Probably you're right, I won't understand and its a typical USA thing. Maybe it's better to have a chat with a lawyer and sue the lad for causing mental damage?

[bububu]

Folks,

Unfortunately, it looks like I haven't expressed myself clearly enough, coz the issue is really not of the size of complaining to HR or sueing anyone. I am not even insulted by anyone - actually, I would say that he is pretty friendly with me (we do have eye contact, for example) - just don't greet me formally. But I really get some positive energy every time we meet.

I just found that behavior unusual (among many other unusual things, which Chinese people do), and decided to ask here, if it could be understood from the cultural viewpoint. In fact, I am shy myself, and often miss the right moment to introduce myself. This may be the reason as well.

Also, I really get frightened by words like "discrimination" and "complaining to HR", "sueing" etc. I strongly believe that people should solve their problems without using such tools and words.

It might be good to point out here that form my observations, Chinese improve significantly the overall atmosphere in any workplace, where they are. This is certainly a cultural thing.

Anyway, I got your ideas, folks, and will try to apply them. Thank you very much!

[creamyhorror]

The guy's probably just shy and reserved. Don't worry about it, and don't attribute it to Chinese culture. That's our view in a nutshell I think.

[xiaocai]

Hello bububu, welcome to Chinese -forums.com! *shake hand

Hey, just wanted to prove that not all Chinese people are like your colleague.

[Matty]

Ignoring anything above...

Think less, it's probably nothing, thinking is the number one cause of misunderstandings.

It could be as simple as he used to be over excited at one time and yell "hello" at foreigners on the street and got totally told off by one (I've felt like doing this a number of times) and now he's scared to say hello to foreigners.

Maybe he's shy as many have suggested.

A good idea would be one day to say hi and ask him if he'd like to have a beer and something to eat later. If he says he's busy, he really might be, don't read into it too much - people sometimes can really be busy. I feel bad when I tell other people I'm busy and worry the read too much into it when I really had no choice.

Actually he may be scared of speaking English, I know a lot of people who seemed scared to talk to me until I spoke in Chinese and then the words just flowed out once that pressure was off.

The pressure of a foreigner staring at you a lot and not saying anything probably doesn't help the situation either.