Very Strange Differences Between Cultures

Those of you in England especially will know the current advertising campaign for HSBC Bank plc. For those of you who don’t, these adverts are made to demonstrate cultural differences in order to advertise the different types of loan, mortgage and bank account.

You may well think it strange for someone to write an article on one bank’s advertising campaign, and I suppose it is. This is why I am not so much writing about the campaign as much as the differences they demonstrate.

The first of the adverts was in 2004 and showed the differences between English and Chinese cultures. It has been nicknamed ‘Eels’ and consisted of an English man going to dinner with a group of Chinese men and has the narrator saying ‘in England it is considered rude not to eat everything off your plate. In China if you do this they will think you are testing their hospitality’ and so the waiters keep serving the man bigger and bigger eels and the man keeps eating everything off his plate. It is very funny, though not so when explained like this, and it is also a true fact.

Following this was the less often seen ‘Wedding present’. This demonstrated the difference between English and Maltese cultures. It was based around the fact that in England the guests at a wedding give gifts to the bride and groom but in Malta the ‘happy couple’ give gifts to the guests.

Then came the Hole in One. In the USA if a golfer gets a hole in one they buy a round of drinks in the clubhouse. However in Japan they are expected to give much larger present such as electrical goods and expensive clothes. An American man is playing golf with a group of Japanese people. He scores a hole in one. And another. And another. Each time he plays his golfing friends gain things such as new clothes, new golf clubs and even motorised club bags. After repeatedly scoring a hole in one the American player aims at the trees but it rebounds and goes into the hole. This is one of the better adverts.

Following this there was an advert about Iceland and tipping in restaurants. In Iceland it is not customary to tip waiters and a group of English and American businessmen and women keep putting more and more money down and the Icelandic waitress keeps giving it back.

The most recent advert demonstrates the difference between Englishmen and Mexicans. A man is walking through Mexico and a voiceover goes ‘In England a man values his personal space. In Mexico they don’t’. Many Mexicans approach him and stand really close and then it finishes with the man sat at one end of a long bench and a Mexican coming up and sitting next to the man, so close that they are touching.

The tagline for all these adverts is ‘At HSBC we never underestimate the importance of local knowledge’ and then they call themselves the World’s Local Bank. It seems to me that too few people know about the countries they are visiting, say on holiday. I personally like to do research before I go but many people go to a country without knowing anything at all about it. This may lead to some embarrassing episodes!!

Do you have any customs in your country which other people may think are strange?

Helen Rutherford

helenkrutherford@hotmail.com