Sometimes I think 客气 is the order of the day here.
(客气 overload can lead to ridiculous situations where you end up going to a restaurant nobody wanted to go to because nobody wanted to look selfish by going to the restaurant they wanted if nobody else wanted it. So you go to a restaurant everyone hates to satisfy everyone. Sure, you don't have to be Chinese to experience this, but this kind of thing is actually the goal of 客气 as opposed to some kind of accidental resentment-causing situation. You go away thinking, Mission accomplished! instead of, Isn't there an episode of Seinfeld about this kind of bullshit?) — Cracked
I actually had to persuade Alicia on her birthday on Friday to pick what kind of food she wanted. Not what restaurant, that was hopeless. She picked a restaurant she doesn't enjoy but her younger sister does, or at least she thinks her younger sister does — 客气 from a 鬼佬 no less — and I finally managed to talk her around to 寿司, which she does like after three hours of persuasion and pretending I wanted 寿司. (Which I did, actually, but that wasn't the bloody point. I was seriously jonesing for some 卵焼き but that wasn't the point, the point was it was her birthday, it comes annually, and she should get some say in the food. Hello.)
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Date: 2010-08-08 01:49 pm (UTC)(客气 overload can lead to ridiculous situations where you end up going to a restaurant nobody wanted to go to because nobody wanted to look selfish by going to the restaurant they wanted if nobody else wanted it. So you go to a restaurant everyone hates to satisfy everyone. Sure, you don't have to be Chinese to experience this, but this kind of thing is actually the goal of 客气 as opposed to some kind of accidental resentment-causing situation. You go away thinking, Mission accomplished! instead of, Isn't there an episode of Seinfeld about this kind of bullshit?) — Cracked
I actually had to persuade Alicia on her birthday on Friday to pick what kind of food she wanted. Not what restaurant, that was hopeless. She picked a restaurant she doesn't enjoy but her younger sister does, or at least she thinks her younger sister does — 客气 from a 鬼佬 no less — and I finally managed to talk her around to 寿司, which she does like after three hours of persuasion and pretending I wanted 寿司. (Which I did, actually, but that wasn't the bloody point. I was seriously jonesing for some 卵焼き but that wasn't the point, the point was it was her birthday, it comes annually, and she should get some say in the food. Hello.)