Manners And What To Wear Across Cultures
What is considered inappropriate attire in other cultures?
The best thing that I could suggest is it's better not to be too uncovered when you're interacting with people of another culture. In other words, if someone from Planet X invites me for dinner, I don't want to show up in flip flops and a really low cut or too tight T-shirt and shorts. You have to use common sense. If I'm invited into a house of worship for a ceremony of some sort, I need to find out, do I have to have my head covered, and then make sure I have a scarf tucked in my purse. Things that you don't think about, for example, if I were to attend a coming of age event among the Apache, and it's very hot and we're either in New Mexico or Arizona, I definitely would not want to wear sandles without socks, because that's offensive to them. You have to do homework. You have to find out. And you don't say, "Is it OK if I wear sandles?" You would say, "Tell me what would be offensive to you when I come to supper, when I go to the wedding, when I go to the funeral. Tell me what colors would be the wrong colors. Tell me what would be offensive to you. Tell me what would be the most respectful thing to wear."
Why would I need to remove my shoes before going into someone's home?
People from the Middle East and Asia often take off their shoes, and so if I go to their house, do I take off my shoes too? Uh-huh, yes I do. In fact, one student I had was kind of rebellious. She was Asian and she had a Korean boyfriend, and she saw the shoes out in front and she didn't take hers off. Ultimately it led to the breakup of that couple. One of the reasons why people, there are practical reasons, is that they don't want to bring the dirt from the outside to the inside. When you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. But sometimes it can be almost like the sacred and the profane. The house is the sacred, and outdoors, you leave that behind and you're entering literally the sanctity of the home. So if people take off their shoes, you take off your shoes too. And if they're Japanese they'll have the shoes pointing inside towards the door. Make sure you have yours pointing the same way. And in some households, Iranian households, they have indoor shoes. Slippers that they put on when they're inside.
What are 'donkey beads'?
I think it was in the late 50s or the 60s. There was a book called “Bright Blue Beads”. I saw them; I fell in love with them. My children were very young. I saw them at the farmer's market and I told my husband, “If the children want to buy me a present, this is what I want.” So he dutifully took them over there and they bought it. They were so excited. I just loved these beads, because I loved the color. They called them donkey beads. I didn't think anything about the name. Cut to decades later. My daughter is married to someone from Iran. I put on something, as I said, I love the color, it's a really good color on me. I love the color. My son in law goes (pointing). As soon as he did that and started to laugh I realized the meaning of “donkey beads”. They're beads that the donkeys wore in Iran. As soon as he did that, I felt so uncomfortable. It was funny. I loved them out of context. He put them back into context. I felt so stupid. Oh, yeah. Here's your human donkey.
What does a green hat symbolize in Chinese culture?
The idea about the green hat being taboo is quite interesting. What it means is if you wear a green hat than your spouse has been cheating on you. A wonderful example of how that went awry was with a company with a branch in Taiwan. The company here in Los Angeles was entertaining the visiting members from Taiwan. It happened that they arrived in time for St. Patrick's Day. So the host family said "Oh well we'll do something real American for them. We'll have an introduce-them-to-St. Patrick's Day party. And of course, you know, Americans treat St. Patrick's Day even more so than in Ireland. So they had the shillelaghs, green beer, and they served corn beef and cabbage. Then as everyone entered they gave them a green hat. Well the guests, you know, were very uncomfortable about it but they still put them on because they were guests and they wouldn't say, "I can't wear this." So they wore them and the hosts thought they had done a terrific job of entertaining their international guests. But then, a short time later they received a reprimand that these folks went back and really complained bitterly because they didn't want anyone to think that their spouses were cheating on them. Well, no one would know about it from here, but it's a symbol. Now I don't know if the idea is if you really wear a green hat when it happens. I don't think so. I think it's an expression. So if you wear it, you know it doesn't matter, it's a really fixed notion about green hats meaning your spouse is cheating.
