Folklore Form/Genre: Chinese gesture/mannerism       Informant: Kun Li

Name: Pointing Tea Pot Spout Towards Someone           Place of Origin: China

Date Collected: 11/4/2018

Informant Data:

Kun Li was born in Hamburg, Germany in 1996 and was raised in a Chinese household and family. He moved to Beijing, China when he was five, also the age when his parents taught him about manners and gestures especially in a social dining setting. Kun is a senior at Dartmouth College, where he studies Economics.

Contextual Data:

Social Context:

I collected this gesture from Kun Li when interviewing him in Baker Library. I met Kun during my freshman fall in the Global Village Living Learning Community, where I learned of his interesting upbringing in Chinese culture despite being born in Germany and moving to China when he was five. I have not been in the same circles as him on campus since then, but it was interesting to touch base and reconnect as seniors, particularly on a subject that brought us together our freshman fall in Global Village. I asked him if he knew any negative gestures in Chinese culture, to which he replied that in China, people don’t typically use many gestures because large and direct motions are seen as rude. Instead, gestures are subtler and never directly at someone for the purpose of insulting them to their face. One of these such gestures he mentioned his parents teaching him was one that is practiced in a tea setting, in which there is a host and several guests. He recalls being in these settings later on in life. He says that even today, if he sees a tea pot spout pointed towards someone, he will turn it away from them. He told me that this isn’t because of any superstition but because it is an important part of his upbringing, culture, and folklore that he still respects and has become habit.

Cultural Context:

Again, having tea is a common social setting like getting coffee is in other parts of the world such as the U.S. Whether you are the host or a guest, presentation and good impressions are important. Subtleties in the way the tea is served, consumed, and even placed on the table can have implications and can be interpreted.

Item:

When the tea pot is set down on the table, if the spout points towards anyone, this is seen as a rude gesture. This is similar to pointing one’s finger or chopsticks at someone. It is seen as rude. Therefore, people often put the tea pot between them and the person next to them, shifting the spout to point to the space between them. That way, it cannot point towards anyone across the table.

Transcript: 

“You don’t point the spout of a tea pot towards anyone because usually that is rude. So what people do is that they put it between you and the person next to you and point the spout in-between. So it doesn’t point at anyone.”

Informant’s Comments:

In the setting of drinking tea, he will correct others and point the spout of the tea pot away from people to avoid this rude gesture when he notices it. It is mostly done on accident, but he tries to correct it when he can because he thinks it is a subtle but important thing to do.

Collector’s Comments: 

I find it really interesting how small subtleties in a culture can be very important and stick for so long. The idea of respect and not pointing is really big in China and includes modes of pointing that range from things like simply pointing a finger at someone to pointing chopsticks and tea pot sprouts.

Collector’s Name: Seamore Zhu

Tags/Keywords:

• Gestures
• China
• Insulting
• Tea
• Mannerism