Chinese Businessmen Learn Western Table Etiquette

Andy Mannhart, 52, sets aside his soup spoon. He then closes his eyes and listens carefully to the sounds at the dinner table. This is the moment of truth for the Swiss teacher of Western manners. Have his Chinese students truly internalized the Western manners they have hired him to teach?

Nobody has fallen asleep. Nobody can be heard spitting their food back onto their plate. Even the hearty German potato soup is being consumed more or less silently -- a challenge for these students, given the Chinese tradition of loudly slurping up noodle soups. Mannhart nods, relieved, although he does notice a few small infractions of Western etiquette.

The engineer, for example, whose head has sunk so low that his chin is almost submerged in his soup. "You have to lift the spoon up to your mouth," Mannhart warns. And then he barks out another bit of advice: "Lift your elbows and sit up straight!" In unison, all the course participants instantly stiffen their upper bodies.

Training for western tables

The more strict Mr. Manners Mannhart is when he instructs his Chinese trainees, the more satisfied they seem to be -- even if they aren't exactly used to being told how to behave at the table. In Shanghai, they belong to the upper-middle class, or to the elite. In the companies they work for, they are used to being the ones who tell others what to do -- like the woman who heads up the personnel department of an automobile company or the self-confident manager of a machine-manufacturing company. But China's path to globalization has led them all to this same place: to Andy Mannhart's course in Western manners.

They don't want to stand out. They want to guide their country's economic rise as quietly as possible. To do that, they have learned, they need more than just a few capitalistic tricks. They have to behave like capitalists. Economy, after all, is also part psychology.

When Mannhart, a trained chef and head of a company selling kitchen supplies, first visited China years ago, he had no idea that Chinese businessmen would soon be traveling en masse to the West. But it only took him a few dinner meetings in China to realize that there was a certain knowledge gap when it came to partaking of western dishes. From holding a fork to eating spaghetti ("Don't cut it with a knife!"), he couldn't help but notice the myriad mistakes in manners made by his dining partners.

So he decided to make a business out of it. Now, on the ninth floor of an office building in Shanghai, he has made etiquette his full-time job -- with exclusive courses for six to eight managers each. Even state officials and communist party members are interested in his teachings.

They are interested, despite the fact that his courses begin somewhat strangely: He politely invites the men to visit his restroom. The point is, of course, to fully prepare his students for a visit to the West. After all, even though China has been trying to address the problem of not having enough clean public restrooms for years -- including well-thought-out campaigns filling them with candle-light and aromatic flowers -- Mannhart believes changing behavior is the key. "Take care to aim correctly," he tells his trainees. "Missing does not make a good impression."

Mannhart sees the giving of such forthright advice as his calling. "Whom should the Chinese ask about how to behave during meetings with western businessmen?" he asks rhetorically.

No spitting!

The course participants aren't absolute beginners, however. Early comic relief is provided by a video he shows of a Swiss couple "misbehaving" in a restaurant: the woman is blowing bubbles with her chewing gum and the man is busily picking his nose. But it doesn't take long for the clash of cultures to make itself felt. Cell phones, for example, are important status symbols in China -- but they should most definitely not be used during official business meals.

Then the Swiss trainer begins telling of his own experiences in Shanghai, and it immediately becomes clear just how great the challenge of reprogramming his Chinese students is. He tells of subway passengers in the Shanghai subway screaming into their phones, of taxi drivers who loudly spit huge gobs of phlegm out of the window, and of supermarket customers who push and shove in a mad scramble to force their way to the cash register.

In fact, China's day-to-day life is a struggle with its history. During the period of the Cultural Revolution, many communists adopted exaggerated proletariat behaviour, so as not to be branded a "class enemy." In addition, during decades of shortages, Chinese learned that those at the back of the line often didn't get what they wanted.

It's no wonder then that Mannhart's one-day course is exhausting for many of the participants. After lunch, one manager even laid his head down on the table, completely worn out. But there is no time for a break. The rules of behavior keep coming.

"How do we make small talk at cocktail parties?" the trainer asks. And immediately supplies the answer himself: "Right! The safest topic is almost always the weather." But then, he surprises his customers with one of the day's most important tips: "Only those who know the rules of behavior can know when they can occasionally be broken," he says.