Keep looking in Hong Kong - or should you?

When I went to a speaking course, the number one lesson hammered into me was to look at my audience because it creates a link between me and them and makes them feel at ease.

As it would so happen, just a week after finishing my training, I found myself in Hong Kong on a business trip. Sitting in a Dim-Sum parlour with a Chinese colleague of mine, I put my newly-acquired skills to the test and told him a story, never taking my eyes off him, but always keeping myself focused on his face and regarding him with a friendly smile. And fondly enough my expression was met with an ever widening smile.

It took me the better part of the meal to realise that the smile was just as forced as my eye-contact and that it was in reality an expression of extreme discomfort. In Hong Kong (and large parts of Asia), unwavering eye-contact is considered to be aggressive and a sign of distrust, my friend explained shooting only fleeting glances at me after I had told him about my training and why it was that I had thought it right to stare. Then we both laughed looking down at the table.


Look left and right on the Hong Kong Travel Guide.