Culture
The differences that trip you up
This is not a primer on 5,000 years of civilisation. It is the short list of things visitors genuinely get wrong — the chopstick rule that offends, the queue that isn't a queue, the temple photo that shouldn't be taken. Read these and you stop being the tourist everyone is quietly working around.
- 01
The manners that matter in China — chopstick rules, tipping, queueing, gifts and face — plus the handful of things that cause real offence, and what to do instead.
- 02
You do not need Mandarin to travel China. You need about twenty words, the four tones explained without the linguistics, and a translation app that works offline.
- 03
Ordering, sharing, the lazy Susan, tea refills and who pays — how a Chinese restaurant meal runs, what confuses first-timers, and how to order without a menu you can read.
- 04
Visiting Chinese temples and religious sites without being the tourist everyone photographs — dress, thresholds, incense, photography rules and the places you should not enter.
