CULTURE SHOCK - Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University

The Chinese also consider it good luck to give things in pairs or even multiples. So ifone is bringing oranges, it is advisable to take along six or eight, instead of an oddnumber. The host will often give back part of the gift to the giver (as in the case oforanges), as a way to return some of the good luck to you.The one gift that one should avoid giving to a Chinese is a clock. In Cantonese,“clock” is a homophone that means “to go to a funeral” and may be construed aswishing death upon the person. Likewise, it is considered bad luck to give sharpobjects such as a knife or scissors because it represents the severing of a friendship.From available verbal information this seems to be a belief shared by many westernpeople. Flowers have traditionally only been given to those in hospitals, or worse, atfunerals. However, this is changing with the times, but the notion of presentingindividual flowers in even numbers still applies.South African Cultural CharacteristicsSouth Africa is undergoing one of the most exciting phases of social and politicalchange, the very nature of which will alter the social structure that has existed for 300years. Old laws have been thrown out and the racist beliefs they underscored arebeing whittled away by new-found values and knowledge (Rissik, 1994:1).Consequently, South Africans are discovering that the generally deep-seated moral orethical values that make up the backbone of almost all societies in the world arecertainly prevalent across the board in this country too. It is only the cultural orreligious differences, superficial by comparison, that identify various groupsdifferently and create exciting cultural diversity.GreetingsThere are ever so many different ways of greeting people in South Africa and muchof it depends on the culture and language of the person or persons concerned. But asa general rule, one should greet people whenever and wherever possible - 99 times17