Meeting face-to-face in China
For the Chinese, the first face-to-face meeting is game time. Beneath the friendly hospitality, you are being watched intently. They want to know what kind of foreigner you are.
As they say, familiarity breeds contempt, and the Chinese, in the major cities, have become very familiar with foreigners (less so in the second- and third-tier cities, but there you will encounter stereotyping based on what they have heard about foreigners and how you deal with them).
To read the latest Dispatches From China column, click here.
