South Africans and POLITE behaviour

I am amazed to think I have been away from SA for more than five years and I have virtually forgotten how many South Africans behave. More than four years of that time has been spent in China and I am starting to acquire various habits, including standing up for the Chinese, some of whose customs and behaviour strike the westerner as different and peculiar, if not downright bizarre.

“Yeah, yeah,” (note: no longer ja ja or ja nee) I say to the Brit Geoff in a diner called The Spot not far from where we live on Beijing West road. “ ‘They’ always refer to me as lawai (foreigner) wherever I go, especially at the school I teach at and a taxi driver once kept friendlily calling me lawai to my face instead of xiansheng (mister). But the bloke (note: no longer oke) was really just friendly, wanting to know all the usual things, like how long have I lived in China, what is my job, where do I come from … ”

Geoff promptly shook his head and clenched his jaw slightly. “They are arrogant. You are just not as good as them as far as they are concerned … ”

“To be honest, they are really shy and uncertain among lawai, and the Chinese English teachers are not confident with trying out their English around me … ”

Geoff’s face scrunched up as though he had just bitten into a lemon. The conversation bumbled along like two Bumper cars, both drivers trying to keep things polite.

“But in terms of their culture,” I later demurred again, “I think…”

“They have no culture. Nothing whatsoever to offer the world. Good God, they invented paper and all they could think of was to make kites and lanterns. For that time in history the invention was the equivalent to the internet.”

I personally rather liked the idea of kites and lanterns. Kites could be a warning or emergency signal, a herald, never mind the hours of fun lying on your back watching the bird-like toy drift about. Lanterns help people see danger and turn the night into a colourful, mysterious fairyland for children.

“And then there’s gunpowder. They invented that and all they could think of was fireworks.”

As if inventing weapons to kill people was somehow more “evolutionary” or better. (I am not knocking the British here, Geoff just happened to be one.) Fireworks made me think of the marvellous childlike nature of many Chinese. And no culture? The symbolism in many Chinese characters is wonderful. (See my “The magnetic symbolism of Chinese characters”).

Oh, I digress: South Africans and politeness. But I am actually trying to give you a background to what it felt like to walk — for the first time in roughly five years — for a brief get-together at a local pub (Oscars) with some South Africans, namely, fellow blogger Bert Olivier, his wife and another university lecturer whose name I cannot remember. They could not have realised that chatting with them was like falling into a warm bath and at the same time it was something of a shock. I cannot quite put my finger on the flavour of South Africans’ manners, but I shall try, speaking from the distance five years affords.

SA social behaviour — sure we have our boors, thugs and malemanoids — sometimes borders on the poetic in terms of politeness and consideration for others. Our civility certainly has the sense of the stately gesture of iambic pentameter. The polite laughs at any hint of a joke is one typical expression of Saffers as they show genuine respect for other people’s presence.

Here’s one example from my meeting with these three South Africans (the other person was an Irish lady if I remember correctly). Shanghai is having a huge make-over as she readies herself for the 2010 World Expo. Many buildings, some more than thirty floors, were covered in a green gauze and scaffolding when Bert was here in about April and had been to the Buddhist Jing’an Temple, which is near where I live. Bert asked me if the building near it covered in green matting was my apartment building, to which I immediately responded in a (polite) sarcastic tone, “Which one? There’s plenty”.

They all laughed in that polite SA manner and something tingled in me, memories from years ago of South Africans’ body language and tone of voice in conversation. This was Saffer behaviour, not British or American behaviour — who have their own versions of civility — and I had not experienced it in many years. What amazed me was the genuine way in which all of them listened to me and asked questions. There was that amazing mix of South African reserve, warmth, friendliness and genuine interest. You may disagree, but the sense of a particular flavour of SA politeness was very real for me.

We can be, in many ways, a very respectful nation, and I know some will say that is just an “imagined community” as Benedict Anderson would put it. But we are an entity of sorts and the way “we” have lashed out at the international community over the Caster Semenya affair is a deep embarrassment.

Now obviously South Africans express a variety of behaviours. The general culture or “feel” of the way people interact in the East Rand is different to people in Johannesburg North, where I lived. But there is also a sameness: a combination of camaraderie and reserve, of respect for the other’s opinion and a willingness to listen … agh, I just can’t quite put my finger on it, but that typical, around-the-braai graciousness was all there in that meeting. (Sure some braais turn into a drunken skop, ’n lekker party but at least we do the job properly with careful attention to detail.) It was in the courteous way Bert’s colleague asked me about my work. The way his wife enquired about Marion’s health (as she could not join us), in the manner she leaned forward to listen, that civil concern gracefully etched into her face.

Now of course Bert Olivier’s manners did not surprise me at all. I have read many of his blogs and he always comes across as a thorough gentleman, especially with the way he deals with some in-your-face bloggers who clearly have not understood what he is saying. I am courteous too to mature commentators but if the idiots and shallow characters turn up — they know who they are unless they are bozoners* — they will get a verbal snotklap and receive one of my prestigious awards, be it the Semi-literate Award with Distinction or the Ignoranus (spelling intended) or I just ignore them.

A paragraph back I was starting to feel like I was a teacher giving Bert & Co a school report, but, honestly, to experience South Africa’s own brand of warmth and hospitality was truly like relaxing in a warm, much-needed bath.* I derive bozoner from a neologism used in The Washington Post: “Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating [like realizing you are stupid]. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future”. I got ignoranus from the same source.