Note: Transcript fully created by automated AI
[00:00:00] Jesse Lin: Hi everyone. I’m Jesse Lin
[00:00:01] Angela Lin: And I’m Angela Lin. Welcome back to another episode of, but where are You really from? Uh, happy Holiday season, y’all. If you haven’t noticed, I don’t think we coordinated. But Jesse and I are both wearing red and his background color is green. So you’re like literally Christmas right now.
Actually did this, you purposely did this.
[00:00:19] Jesse Lin: I did that on purpose. Yeah, I did that on. Good for
[00:00:21] Angela Lin: you. I didn’t wear this on purpose, but I, I’m happy we have a little holiday moment. So because of the holidays, we are doing a mini around. Gift giving in terms of how it’s different in Asian culture compared to in Western culture.
And today we’re gonna be talking about how in Asian culture, of course, people also can give out of gratitude and like as a personal connection to somebody. But there are a lot of instances where gifts are being given out of kind of like formality or expectation. And there are restrictions on kind of rules about how you are supposed to both give and receive.
So that’s what we’re jumping into today.
[00:01:07] Jesse Lin: You already touched upon the first thing that when you receive a gift in Asian culture, you’re supposed to refuse the gift like a couple of times before you begrudgingly accept it. And it’s kind of this like fun charades game because eventually you’ll have given the gift to basically everyone and they will have given a gift back to you.
But every time you have to pretend and be all like, no, like you can’t do this. Like it’s such an imposition. Don’t need to do this. Like I don’t want you a gift and you kind of do that like this, like little show like back and forth until finally you’re like, okay, like I won’t politely accept your gift and you will receive a gift from me next
[00:01:48] Angela Lin: time.
How many times is your normal kind of like back
[00:01:52] Jesse Lin: and forth? Usually when I get gifts from other people, like family members, my parents are there. So I will do like two refusals and then I’ll look at my mom
[00:02:02] Angela Lin: and I’ll be like, oh, that’s a hilarious, I’m like, is it funny? Is that enough? Is that enough?
[00:02:06] Jesse Lin: I’ll, okay, here we go.
[00:02:08] Angela Lin: That’s funny. What about, okay, so that’s what’s family though. What about just like in general, like if a friend. or a coworker or something, try to give you a
[00:02:16] Jesse Lin: gift. If it’s a really close friend and they’re just giving me like a random gift, I’m like, oh, like you really shouldn’t have, like, I’ll still accept the gift.
Cuz I think that it’s a little bit different. Like I feel like it’s kind of rude to be like, I don’t want your gift.
[00:02:29] Angela Lin: I feel like that’s already a, like a key difference. Is that in the refusals or lack thereof? Are there for different reasons? Like, I feel like in Asian culture, the refusal is often. Because you don’t wanna appear greedy or like too, kind of like grabby.
Grabby. So then you’re supposed to be kind of like courteous and like polite. Be like, oh no, no, no, I don’t deserve this. And like also to kind of raise them up of like, oh wow, that’s so gracious of you, blah, blah, blah. You know? Versus like you just described in the kind of western context, it is kind of rude to refuse a gift unless.
So out landed, I don’t know. I’m trying to even think of an example where you would refuse a gift, but it’s like, you know that because in Western culture, usually a gift is because they’ve like spent some time to think about like, oh, I want to give them this thing because of X, Y, Z, and I’ve like put this thought into what they might like.
So then to refuse that is kind of like refusing this really heartfelt like intent. And that would hurt them more. Just receiving it.
[00:03:36] Jesse Lin: You can let me know if you feel otherwise, but I think there are like certain set holidays and occasions in, in what I’ve experienced in being with my parents about Asian world where you like must give a gift and it generally will be like this kind of thing.
versus, I feel like with my friends, for the most part, most people don’t expect to receive gifts for most occasions. I would say, I
[00:04:03] Angela Lin: mean, I think it depends on the, the relationship you have with someone. Like I agree with you that like sometimes you do set out like, oh, we we’re just not gift people or like we, or we definitely are gift people, but like, A, as like a general rule of thumb, I think, for example, like a Valentine’s Day, it’s pretty common that like if you’re in a romantic relationship to expect some sort of gift giving.
At least that’s how the mainstream media portrays is that like everyone who’s in a romantic relationship gives something to each other, like box of chocolate, some flowers, whatever it may be. Right? Well,
[00:04:35] Jesse Lin: I do give something for those occasions, but I, I, I think it’s different because for. Part. What I tend to like to do with other people is to share like an experience with ’em.
So it’s like I don’t give like exactly things to people usually. That’s
[00:04:49] Angela Lin: still a gift though, is it? Yeah. You still spent money on it. It’s still something they’re receiving.
[00:04:55] Jesse Lin: I guess It is a gift, but the gift is not like an object. .
[00:04:59] Angela Lin: Well now we’re kind of veering into like a world where I’m kind of rebutting our hypothesis of Western and eastern culture being different because I’m on the same page as you.
Like. That’s actually how Ramona and I usually give gifts to each other as well as experiences because we don’t like accumulating things necessarily. Um, however you mentioned that in Asian culture it’s often. . Not only do you refuse, but there’s also like a kind of reciprocal, or maybe you didn’t mention this, but we were just talking about this in our like pre, pre-recording, but like there’s also often an expectation of, I’m gonna reciprocate with something later because you gave me something.
But when it comes to things like experiences, like a meal out, I do think that is where kind of western culture might shift back into like similar to Asian culture, because we go Dutch all the time in. , like if you’re out with your friends and you have a meal and you usually split, right? You’re like, oh, let’s just like all throw in our credit cards or whatever, split even.
But if somebody, if like one of your friends, you go out with him or her to dinner and they’re like, oh, I got you. Like, I’ll get this one. Then it’s pretty Oh, okay. Like you, it’s kind of, it’s not expected, but like you should get them the next time. Right? Like that is a Yeah, that’s a thing, right? Yeah. In Western culture, when it comes to a, a shared.
Experience, maybe. Mm-hmm. , and maybe that’s not seen traditionally as a gift, but it is still something you’re spending money on that you have like given to your friend or whoever it is.
[00:06:27] Jesse Lin: I guess it’s still a gift, but the context is specific. . So I, I don’t know if I necessarily will reciprocate.
[00:06:38] Angela Lin: Yeah. Yeah. I don’t think western people expect a reciprocal.
You got me next time I sing that the person receiving will usually want to reciprocate, I don’t know, an Asian culture. If you’re supposed to ex. Respect a reciprocal gift. I think the burden’s usually on the person receiving the gift, that they feel a responsibility to reciprocate with a gift more than like, I’m giving you this gift so that I get a gift back.
I don’t think that’s necessarily how Asian people operate either.
[00:07:06] Jesse Lin: No, I don’t think so. But I do feel like there is an expectation that if you receive a gift, you should be giving a gift to the person at some point in the future. Well, like I think Red Envelopes is a good example of this because A, as a younger person, you are expecting to receive the gift, but then when you get older, you are expected to give gifts to younger people.
So there definitely is kind of this like give and take expectation where you’re, when you receive something, it’s expected that you would like pass it on on
[00:07:37] Angela Lin: because of how the culture has taught you. Mm-hmm. . Yeah. Gift giving is supposed to be. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Um, and something since we’re on the top about red.
Envelopes something we looked up , because, but I, I’ve heard this as well, is that when it comes to money giving, one of the etiquette things that you’re supposed to do is if you’re gonna give money back, it’s supposed to be of equal or higher value than what you received. And it’s just kind of funny to me because I, I understand it, it kind of in principle, right?
But for me, it just cheapens it a little bit because red envelopes, let’s, let’s just be real. It’s just money. But you’ve just put it in. Like package, but it’s still just money. You gave money. So then it’s kind of like, okay, if someone gave you money out of like kindness or whatever and you just give it back to them, aren’t you just kind of like canceling out, bring it back in their face?
Yeah, I, it just doesn’t from a Western standpoint. Right. I understand there’s like different things that feed into that thought process, but from my perspective, it’s always been a funny thing to me to. Wrap my head around when it comes to money as a gift. Hey listeners, wondering how you can support us.
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[00:09:17] Jesse Lin: It’s a tricky position to be in to do that. Like one for one thing. And I think it’s all, it also speaks to, at least for my experience, like there is a little bit of like saving face almost, where you’re like, I can do, I can, I can be as magnanimous as you can.
Like we are on the same level kind of situation. Like this happened to me once, but like I had a kinda like a family. That, that’s almost like family hadn’t seen them in like forever. Like they hadn’t seen my, my mom in forever. And I think I told you this story before, but when we met up like forever, forever time had passed.
But she gave me like a re envelope that was like couple thou, maybe like a thousand dollars or like a little bit more than that. And my parents were like, this is like ridiculous. And I was like, could we reciprocate? I could literally just give the money back. But like it also puts like, A little bit of pressure onto like, how can we like give something that is of equal kind of like value in exchange?
And that’s why I think when um, that auntie sent her sons to come study here, my parents were like, oh, come live with us for like however lunch want.
[00:10:24] Angela Lin: Oh yeah, you did mention that. Wow. Yeah, so there’s
definitely
[00:10:28] Jesse Lin: like pressure to try to like to, to offer something that is like equal
[00:10:33] Angela Lin: value. Okay. Well let’s switch this a little bit.
There’s also other little etiquette points or like weird things that we want, or not weird, but like different from a western Eastern context we wanted to talk about. Seniority is something that is like big into Asian culture, whereas like if I was in a American office setting, it just wouldn’t be the same.
One of the articles he sent. Said like if you’re gonna give gifts in an office setting, like you have to give the most senior person the gift first, and it should be the highest value gift of all the gifts and you can’t give the same gift to everyone in the office. Versus like in the US I feel like it’s very common, like.
If you are at all going to give gifts to anyone in the office, it’s pretty common that you ING has the same shit. What else was different from an etiquette standpoint that we wanna highlight?
[00:11:21] Jesse Lin: I think something that’s also different is that, at least from what I’ve seen so far, my parents very rarely give like actual things to people.
It’s usually money. I think there were like a few situations where my mom actually purchased something for someone, but it was like wedding registry type thing, or was like the person was like, we. X. I will say that I think the key exception here, and maybe this is the other etiquette thing, is like how closely connected we are with that person.
Cause I do remember in some situations she didn’t buy, like she didn’t give the person cash. She just was like, oh, I remember this person said they wanted like this. Slippers or something, and she got them slippers. But I, I don’t know if that’s just like her, her changing her way of doing things after living in America and taking on a slightly western approach or like the actual etiquette of it.
But yeah, usually it’s money and if it’s not money and it’s a physical thing, it will be something that, like someone specifically asked, or it’s like something for someone that you don’t really know that well and that you just want to get them something that’s like a little like
[00:12:25] Angela Lin: nicety thing. Okay. Um, and then I think the last thing that’s like kind of different is that there are taboos around like specific things you are not supposed to give.
Some of them are like, okay, words in a lot of Asian cultures. The, the four words can sound very similar to other words. So then it’s like, yeah. So four you mentioned is A, is the unlucky number. In a lot of Asian cultures it’s essentially the equivalent of 13. In western culture, it’s like unlucky cuz it sounds like death in whatever language it is.
So you’re not supposed to give things in fours apparently. And then there’s also. The umbrella thing, which I was like, oh, I had to like think about that a little bit because in Chinese it’s like . So I guess it is like you’re like shattering. You want, you give it, it means you’re like trying to like shatter or like dissolve your friendship or relationship with that person.
But I was like, who’s gonna give an umbrella? It’s. Bizarre. It was like, who’s giving a umbrella as a gift? But, um, something that I did recently learn. I mean, I think I read this before, but I recently learned it because I’m taking Japanese class while I’m here in Japan. And so there’s all these like scenarios I read and one of them is like a weird gift giving situation with flowers where it’s supposed to be some like westerner who’s like, oh, for someone’s birthday I gave them flowers and everyone laughed at me.
why did that happen? And the friend was like, what, what kind of flower? Or he said like, I gave her a gift and, and everyone started laughing, why? Why do you think this happened? And the guy was like, what was the gift? And he was like, it was flowers. And he was like, what kind of flowers? And he was like, Chris moms.
And he was like, oh, Chris Moms are specifically only bought to be put on graves at funeral. So that’s like a specific thing I did learn here in Japan. But um, in the article you sent and read about the taboos, it apparently also just applies in general. So like white and yellow flowers, I guess are like common funeral themed things, and so you’re just not supposed to give those versus, like in western culture, I mean, I, I guess it would be strange if you gave just like a bouquet of white roses, but if your bouquet has.
You know, a couple white flowers in there, or like a singular croce bump or whatever. Like, nobody’s gonna be like, Ooh, like not supposed to give this. I don’t think we have that kind of thing.
[00:14:43] Jesse Lin: Yeah. I, I just think the significance of these things is, is not as universal cuz. , you know, the population here is not as monolithic as it is in Asia.
So like I’m sure that there are certain, you know, in certain cultures, like there are certain things around what kinds of colors and and things of that nature. But I think being in a country where there’s so many different people mixed around, there’s no expectation that somebody would. out of your, outside of your culture, or maybe even inside of your culture, depending where they grew up, would know that.
Well,
[00:15:15] Angela Lin: I think these were kind of like the key things. Some of the key things that we saw that are kind of like pretty different or interesting. You wouldn’t, yeah. Interesting. When you compare west, Versus East when it comes to the idea of gift giving, but we wanna throw it back to you all listeners.
Number one, have you experienced any of these types of things in your experiences with either family or friends from the motherland or then you coming from, you know, Asia and coming into the US and having this kind of weird, like expectations being different or do you have something else that was like an expectation taboo, something different that.
Heard or abide by that we did not cover because I’m sure this is just kind of like top, most prominent things, but there’s probably a bunch of other stuff in, in specific cultures that it’s like not okay or certain expectation. Let us know in the comments because it’s always interesting to learn about other people’s experiences and don’t come back next week because this is the last episode for a little bit.
It’s the end of the year. It is the end of the year. We hope you all have a very happy, healthy, cozy,
[00:16:31] Jesse Lin: cozy,
[00:16:32] Angela Lin: warm, cozy holiday season and into the new year. We’ll be back sometime in the new year. We need a break. We’ll let you know when we’re coming back. Um, but until then, listen back on our old episodes.
Engage with us on social media and just live your life. Y’all ,
[00:16:50] Jesse Lin: enjoy your life. Enjoy the holiday.