Watch your step!

Watch your step!
By William Ecenbarger

It's so easy to give offence when you're abroad
As a world traveller with more than 1,5 million kilometres under my belt, I am acutely aware of the stereotype of Americans abroad - uncultured boors, arriving with prejudices in their baggage, comfortable in a foreign land only when disparaging its inhabitants.

So I go to great lengths not to offend. But it's astounding how often I have failed.

In Marrakech, Morocco, I simply crossed my legs during an interview with a government official. Immediately, a hush descended on the room. A moment later the official suddenly remembered an important appointment and abruptly excused himself.

In Sydney, Australia, I hailed a taxi, opened the door and jumped in the back seat. The driver narrowed his eyes. There was a pause. "Where to, mate?" he finally asked in a voice that could have frosted glass.

In a restaurant in the Indian city of Mumbai (formerly Bombay), all I did was reach for the naan bread. A diner at the next table shot me a look of disgust.

I've even managed to give international cultural offence in my own home. Three Chinese journalists came to stay with me for a weekend as part of their mission to get to know Americans. As they were departing, I presented each of them with what I thought was an appropriate gift - a handsome coffee table book of photographs. They accepted reluctantly, their faces congealed with embarrassment.

IT TOOK years before I realised what was going on.

In each case I had unwittingly committed a faux pas, a social blunder. My only comfort is my ignorance. I take solace in Oscar Wilde's observation that a gentleman is someone who never gives offence unintentionally.

My interview with the Moroccan bureaucrat was cut short because in crossing my legs I showed him the sole of my shoe - a grave affront to Muslims, to whom the foot is the most demeaning part of the human body.

My Australian taxi driver took offence because I sat in the back seat rather than up front next to him. His attitude, widely shared by his compatriots, is an outgrowth of Australia's origin as a British penal colony and the prisoners' dislike of the pretensions of their British overseers.
Reaching for the bread in Mumbai? I did it with my left hand. Indians eat with their hands, and since 90 percent or so of them are right-handed their left hands are reserved for other matters, including after-toilet cleansing. Indeed, even left-handed Indians tend to use their right hand for eating.

And my misstep with my Chinese guests had to do with homonyms: words and phrases that sound alike but mean different things. The Chinese consider books to be inappropriate gifts because in Cantonese the phrase "giving a book" sounds like "delivering defeat". Other poor gift choices for Chinese people are clocks ("giving a clock" sounds like "seeing someone off to his end") and umbrellas ("giving an umbrella" sounds something like "your family will be dispersed").

THERE are many hand gestures that don't travel well either.

The "V" for victory sign was immortalised by the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in the dark days of the Second World War. The proper form is with the palm facing outward. A simple twist of the wrist puts you in dangerous cultural waters. Throughout Britain (and parts of the British Commonwealth), the palm-in V sign is the equivalent of the middle-digit salute - a calculated insult.

One explanation is that during the Middle Ages, French soldiers would permanently disarm English bowmen by cutting off their index and middle fingers, with which they drew the bowstring. Consequently, the English would celebrate battlefield victories by waving these two digits intact at the defeated French.

Visiting Australia in early 1992, US President George Bush (the elder), offered crowds what he thought was the Churchillian victory sign from his passing limousine. Unfortunately, he had his palm facing in. His gaffe made front-page news the next day. Even one of Churchill's successors, Margaret Thatcher, made the same mistake when celebrating an election victory.

I have done a lot of research on international protocol in my efforts to hone my global good manners. I know that the proper way to exchange a business card in most Asian countries is to give and receive with both hands and to read the other person's carefully before pocketing it, since the card represents the person. But many of the rules come under the heading: How-Could-I-Have-Possibly-Known-That?

For instance, how is a visitor to know that congratulating a prospective mother can backfire in Kenya? It has one of the world's highest infant mortality rates and discussing pregnancy is considered bad luck. Or that wearing a green hat will attract mockery in southern China because it's the sign of a cuckold? Superstition holds that the green-headed tortoise is unable to mate and allows a snake to take its place. Patting someone on the head in Thailand is a major gaffe because the Thais believe the head to be the highest, most sacred part of the body.

Food and drink are another minefield. In Asia, you should never leave your chopsticks upright in your food. As Chin-ning Chu, author of The Asian Mind Game, advises: "In the ceremony to honour the dead, many Asians offer food to their deceased ancestors by placing incense in the bowl and burning it as a way to carry the food to the other world. It is a common Asian superstition that to place your chopsticks in such a way is bad luck and means that this meal is for the dead rather than the living."

When drinking, before the first sip the Czechs like to look their companions in the eye and lightly clink glasses. In nearby Hungary, however, the same gesture can land you deep in the goulash. The clink of beer glasses is considered unpatriotic there because it was once the signal for a coup d'état.

NEVER give four of anything in Japan because the word for four sounds the same as the word for death. An American golf ball maker experienced sluggish sales in Japan until it realised that it had packaged its product in groups of four.

If you show up with flowers at an Indonesian home, you'll be welcomed warmly - unless you bring an odd number, which is considered unlucky. If your host asks, "Have you eaten?", say yes, even if you're starving. It's a rhetorical, throwaway question (something like "How do you do?") and the answer should always be yes.

So remember: when you jet off to somewhere exotic, you're changing much more than time zones. Watch your step - and your hands.