Chinese clamour for lessons in how to serve tea and act like a duchess
HALF a century after their leaders dismissed good manners as a bourgeois cultural affection, China’s new elite are flocking to Western-style finishing schools to be tutored in politeness and how to serve British afternoon tea.
Demand for professional tutoring in the art of deportment is soaring among the country’s nouveau riche. Run in many cases by British consultants, the courses offer everything from holding a cup and saucer to how to wear a hat like the Duchess of Cambridge and how to swap their American-tinged English for a more refined British tone.
The Institute Sarita, based in Beijing, charges 80,000 yuan (£8,500) for its 10-day programmes: a “hostess” course for the married, and a “debutante” course for single women.
One pupil, Shu Ting, 49, remembers how Mao Tse-tung tried to end a 2,500year tradition of etiquette. “We used to have good manners, but we lost them in the Cultural Revolution,” said Mrs Shu, as she sat in a “beauty and grooming” class offering tips such as never wearing slippers outside the house.
“Back then, if anyone dared to pay attention to etiquette they would be called capitalists. But now the time has come to pick up manners again.” The attendees at such courses are usually drawn from the super-rich, the first genera- tion of Chinese to travel abroad extensively. However, like the wealthy Americans who flocked to Britain at the dawn of mass air travel, they have acquired a reputation for being uncultured.
China’s tourism administration said last year that the country’s image had been “tarnished” by bad-mannered tourists. In the Maldives in 2014, President Xi Jinping implored fellow Chinese travellers: “Don’t throw water bottles everywhere, and eat fewer instant noodles and more local seafood.”
However, what is taught at the institute goes beyond the importance of mere common courtesy. As well as the difference between ketchup and Tabasco, and how to pronounce menu dishes, students are drilled in how to spread foie gras and how to walk in high heels.
Its Harvard-educated founder, Sara Jane Ho – known in local media as “Miss Manners” – acknowledged there was a “gap” between China’s status in wealth and its level of etiquette, and compared the Chinese to 19th and 20th century Americans.
“Everyone thought ‘look at these American brutes – they are so unsophisticated and they are buying up everything in Europe with cash,’” she said. “Every civilisation goes through something like this. China went from nothing to in 30 years having an industrial and services revolution all in one go.”
Finishing schools for men and women have been expanding in China, with British outfits Seatton and Debrett’s establishing a presence in recent years.
As for anyone worried about what Mao might think, the tutors have a polite answer. Rebecca Li, a teacher at the institute who hails from Mao’s birthplace in Hunan province, said: “You are in control of your own image and you can control how others see you.”