But I have to say that the Chinese way of paying the bill has caused many stressful meals with my husband and I and our Chinese friends. When we go to share a meal with friends, we want to relax, enjoy good conversation and have a nice time. (Here I must object to your idea that we do it just to fill the human need for food and to take care of our health—really, have you been to McDonalds lately?) But instead of relaxing, we have to keep alert and vigilant to someone at the table sneaking away during the meal to go pay the bill ahead of time or at the end of the meal facing the inevitable argument about who will pay the bill. This is not relaxing. To me, it takes away from the pleasure of the time spent together.

I fully agree with John’s look at the matter (very well put John). It seems that the Chinese pay out of the need to follow the Chinese tradition on manners. It has made me feel very guilty when a young Chinese girl who doesn’t have a lot of money pays the bill for the whole table. She has had to work very long hours to get that money and now her money is gone and she will have to work more long, hard hours to get it back. This situation can take away the pleasure of a good meal. Why should one person take the burden for the whole group? Why not share the burden?

Life can be hard and living today can be expensive. We all must work hard to pay the bills that come with everyday living. Friends can share this load. I agree with John that when money issues come in to a friendship, then trouble can come too. Paying should come from the heart and not out of the need to save face.

There are many times that I would love to get together with a group of friends for a meal but could never afford to pay for the whole group. Does that mean that we just don’t get together at all? If each one pays for himself, then we can all get together and no one person has to go home with the burden of an empty wallet and a pile of bills at home.

In the end, we just see things differently. I accept these differences. It is good to understand why each culture does the things they do. It can help to avoid misunderstandings and bring people from different cultures together.

But you are not seeing the full picture. If I have a good friend and we are having dinner, we share the bill to show we are fair and care for the other each other. It is like carrying the load together: you do it together and support each other. If we are equal we may see eye to eye (no hierarchy). I think this is a profound human value too. Secondly, if we do it the Chinese way (you pay, I pay, you pay, I pay etc), effectively we both pay 50%. There is no difference at the end of the day!

Also I think in some Western cultural mindsets, money should not be a factor in relationships because friendship relationships are about spontaneous care and love, they should not be about “I owe you a dinner because you paid last time”. Money should not influence the balance in a friendship. This is also the reason westerners don’t like to speak about their salaries: it is not because occidentals are ‘private’ as some people may think, it is because we feel it is embarrassing if our friend feels more or less value/ importance because he has more or less money. It comes from the concept that materialism is an inferior reason for friendship: relationships should not be bought but given freely and unconditionally.

Julissa

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