Who pays the bill?

When Chinese goes to restaurant it is always ONE person that pays the bill. The typical Swedish behavior when two couples is going to a restaurant and ask for a calculator together with the bill so they can calculate exactly "fear" how much everyone shall pay does not exist over here. In stead is the problem WHO shall pay.

It is a pretty advances relation-based mechanism that control who take the bill. Sometimes it is not obvious and then it can end up with (friendly) fighting. If it is obvious, and still some other pays the bill, then it is a courteous crime. But, what is obvious for the Chinese, is not always obvois for us from the outside. If you for example are on business trip in China and are invited to dinner, and you think you are polite to sneak out and pay the bill before the Chinese, then you have made a big mistake. You have really humiliated your host and you can actually have burned your business relation. It is really this serious.

A story from the real life:

A man from West did meat a Chines lady. After a while they decided to get married. A time before the wedding it was the moment for the man to meet the parents-in-law in a restaurant. The man, that actually knows a bit about Chinese culture, did not understand that he was supposed to pay the bill, so after a while the brides father pays. The result of this was that the brides parents was really disappointed of there daughters selection of man. How stupid is he if he dont can take the bill? It was not an easy game to convince the parents that it was a culture misunderstanding.

In spite of this situation, it become a wedding. A time after the wedding they again ended up in a restaurant together with the parents-in-law. Wise of the previous experiences the man was now good enough to pay the bill in front of the eyes of her wife's parents. What he did not understand was that he now after the marriage was considered as a sun in the family, and in this situation it is obvious that the father shall pay. The fact that he now payed was a disaster mistake, because he really humiliated the father that understand the situation that the "sun" considered him to not be capable to pay for the families bill.

I can really confirm that my years with Chinese have included some hard situations when I thought I done the right thing, and after get informed that I had break some culture rules. It take really deep knowledge to know how to behave "correct" with Chinese company. It is not enough to just learn the "base rule" because it is always some exemption in the actual situation that demand an alternative act.