I Stand Corrected (29 page)

The call came the next day, with a shrill ring that sliced through whatever calm I had willed into place. The man on the other end spoke impeccable English.

I must be in serious trouble if they’ve brought in someone who
speaks better English than I do
, I thought, and I began to measure the distance between my phone and the American Embassy.

No, he told me, he was not the censor. He was a representative from China’s Committee for Educational Reform, a branch of the Ministry of Education.

“We have been following your progress,” said the man.

“Well, yes, thank you,” I said, remaining on guard.

“Would you consider creating a deportment curriculum for children in China’s public school system?”

I asked the man to repeat himself. Not because I didn’t hear him the first time, but because I could not fathom what he had just said. He confirmed the unfathomable: that the Chinese government—or some part of it—was asking me to teach Western manners to Chinese children.

My reaction swerved from confusion to astonishment and landed in a guttter of indecision.

I sought out colleagues for their advice. The government’s request was surreal enough to inspire disbelief even among those who knew me well. True, I was a successful businesswoman, but I was hardly a spokeswoman for convention. My life featured a wide range of unorthodoxies that might well have helped me defy the laws of plausibility. How would I justify to the Chinese that which I find difficult to explain to Western colleagues? And did I really want to spend more time in China where there would continue to be unanswerable questions about its future?

More times than is probably sensible, I have been lured away from where I was by the unexplored of somewhere else. During the time I was writing my book in China, I discovered that China, the most paradoxical of nations, is not an easy place. In fact, with its remoteness and its newness, in its vagueness and its explicitness, China can be called unreasonable.

I am a reasonable person. It is in my nature. And because I came by it early, I’ve had years to observe that reason is often a repository of predictability with very little adventure to be found within its boundaries.

Nothing about agreeing to write a Western comportment program for Chinese children was remotely reasonable.

It was incongruous.

It was comical.

It was the last thing I expected.

And for all of those far more intriguing reasons than reason itself, I agreed to it.

Most conversations reach an obvious end when both people speaking to each other are ready to move on
. If that is the case, the polite thing to say is “I’ve certainly enjoyed talking to you.” If, however, you have been speaking to someone for a great while and wish to find an exit from the conversational cul-de-sac, smile at the person, extend your hand, and—even if neither is true—say, “Thank you for such an interesting conversation, but I think I should mingle with the other guests before I leave.”

ON CHINA

Bonavia, David.
The Chinese
. London: Allen Lane / Penguin Books, 1981.

Doolittle, Justus.
Social Life of the Chinese
. London: Sampson Low, Son & Marston, 1866.

Du, Yongtao, and Jeff Kyong-McCain.
Chinese History in Geographical Perspective
. London: Lexington Books, 2013.

Fenby, Jonathan.
The Penguin History of Modern China: The Fall and Rise of a Great Power, 1850–2008
. London: Allen Lane / Penguin Books, 2008.

Ji, Zhaojin
. A History of Modern Shanghai Banking: The Rise and Decline of China’s Financial Capital
. Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 2003.

Werner, E. T. C.
China of the Chinese
. London: Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons, 1919.

ON ETIQUETTE

Post, Peggy, and Peter Post.
Emily Post’s The Etiquette Advantage in Business: Personal Skills for Professional Success
. New York: Harper-Collins, 2005.

Tuckerman, Nancy, and Nancy Dunnan.
The Amy Vanderbilt Complete Book of Etiquette
. New York: Doubleday, 1995.

I am indebted to Rebecca Carter, Lynn Nesbit, and Nan A. Talese.

My dutiful thanks for the coverage of China during my year living there by
The Economist
, the
Financial Times
, and
The New York Times
. Less factual but nonetheless insightful was
China Daily
.

My gratitude goes as well to the Athenaeum Club library in London and to the Society Library in New York.

My thanks are also due to friends and colleagues who have been generous with their expertise, time, and encouragement. In China, to Angela Chen, Jaime A. FlorCruz, Gilliam Collinsworth Hamilton, Jackie Huang, Heidi Park, Li Qin, and Sheri Yan; in London, to Matthew Evans, Susannah Fiennes, Victoria Greenwood, Mathias Hink, Michael Immordino, Tessa Keswick, Caryn Mandabach, Andrew Nurnberg, Deborah Owen, Kevin Pakenham, Ed Victor, and Xue Xinran; in New York, to Blythe Danner, Annabel Davis-Goff, John Fulvio, Cecilia Mendez Hodes, Gilbert C. Maurer, Kim McCarty, Michael McCarty, Frances Mitchell, Priscilla Morgan, and Pascal Volle.

Eden Collinsworth is a former media executive and business consultant. She was the president and publisher of Arbor House Book Publishing Company in the 1980s. In 1990, she launched the Los Angeles–based monthly lifestyle magazine
Buzz
, after which she became vice president and director of cross-media business development at the Hearst Corporation. In 2008, she became vice president and chief of staff of an international think tank. In 2011, she launched Collinsworth & Associates, a consulting company, which specializes in intercultural communication. Her Chinese-language book
The Tao of Improving Your Likability: A Personal Guide to Effective Business Etiquette in Today’s Global World
became a bestseller in mainland China.