Culture

Still have a lot of packing to do (yeah, my flight leaves in 15 hours), but blogging about nonsense is much more fun.

I've never thought so much about cultural implications while packing before. Well, maybe when we went to Dubai, but those issues were pretty straightforward and turned out not even to apply to Russians at all. For this trip I'm thinking about the color white, red pens, business cards, things that come in packs of four, chopsticks in rice bowls. It's a lot to keep in mind.

One of the first cultural guides to China I read when preparing for this trip included the following bullet point (ok, it was a slide presentation):

• Never give a clock as a present or wear a green hat

I'd heard of the clock situation before (counting down towards death), but the green hat was new to me. Apparently "wearing a green hat" is an expression used to indicate that the guy's woman is cheating on him. Maybe this is why someone removed my brother's Jets hat and ran off with it in the bathroom at a Raiders game. He was simply helping him gain face.

Flava Flav: probably not Chinese