Intercultural Communication

About a month ago, I visited Shanghai. One day, I was waiting for a friend in the lobby of a rather fancy hotel when I overheard a conversation that highlights a very interesting East-West cultural difference.

A white, male guest who spoke British English was checking out and asked to see the hotel manager before he left. The receptionist told him the manager was not in, but the assistant manager would be right down to see him. When the assistant manager arrived, he looked rather busy, but was clearly not surprised when the guest began his speech.

“I would like to make a complaint about the massage service.”

“Yes sir, what was the problem?”

“Well, yesterday, I called the front desk and asked for an in-room massage. The masseuse they sent up did not speak any English and only had an electronic translator with her. I attempted asking what kinds of massage services she offered, but she did not understand. After fifteen minutes of fiddling with the electronic translator, I finally realized that the only massage she offered was of the “special” variety, and she was not a masseuse at all! I sent her away and called the front desk report the incident, but the receptionist did not understand enough English—she only asked if I would like another one sent up instead!

This is an outrage. Is this a four-star hotel or a brothel? The hotel itself sent me a prostitute! Don’t you realize how this reflects on your business?”

The manager replied with a confused look and a weak apology. He mentioned that the hotel often receives complaints of this nature from foreign guests and that the hotel was doing everything in its power to manage this issue. However, the guest was still not satisfied. He could not understand why no one else was as disgusted as he was. At that point, my friend had come downstairs and we were set to leave. I did not hear the conclusion of their conversation, but I doubt there was one.

That incident made a great impact on me, and I think it is something I will remember for a long time. There was no misunderstanding of the facts. They both agreed what had happened, but the interpretation of the facts is where they went wrong. Both were totally oblivious to the other’s view. It is a classic example of cultural miscommunication.

Had this happened in London, it could have been a newsworthy scandal. In British culture, when one asks for a massage and receives a prostitute, it is an insult to the guest. From the guest’s point of view he/she has been cheated and insulted because the hotel assumed that he/she was looking to engage in such activities. These situations rarely occur in the West because Westerners normally the run hotels.
However, Shanghai is not London. From hotel’s viewpoint, it’s not a matter of high-class or low-class services—prostitution is simply universal service in Asian hotels. High-level businessmen in Asia expect it. Moreover, most of the guests who order in-room massages—regardless of whether they are Western or Eastern—are actually looking for prostitutes. In it’s eyes, the hotel was actually being more courteous to its guests by providing such a service.

This kind of incident might not immediately seem like a colossal cultural miscommunication, but there might be more to it. Not understanding culture could make it seem like there are irresolvable differences when there are really just different outlooks. Suppose the British guest was on a business trip to bring his firm to China. His bad experience might lead him to erroneously generalize traits about Chinese culture. From these he could make the wrong decisions, hurting both his and his Chinese partners’ business. Or, suppose the hotel continues dealing with these complaints in the same way. This brushing off of something that is very offensive in Western culture might lead the hotel to lose guests and profits.

The value of intercultural understanding, even in the most minuscule of conflicts, can have great benefits. If the guest had stopped for a minute and thought about where he was and what the cultural and business climate in China was like, maybe he would have understand that the hotel was not trying to pin him as a playboy. If the hotel manager had thought about the reasons why that complaint is received so often from Western guests, maybe he would have been a bit more sympathetic to this guest’s outrage. Being able to step back and look at an issue the way someone from the other side would is key.