Did you know that the difference between Chinese and Western culture results in a difference in business etiquettes as well? When two parties meet for the first time, shaking hands is a priority. In China you can obtain a lot of information from shaking hands. First, when looking at etiquettes, you have to wait until the boss stretches out his hand. The one who pays the visit follows afterwards with stretching out his hand. It is absolutely not acceptable to do this spontaneous and precede the boss. Consequently, you quickly investigate how the other party shakes hands. When doing this, you have to take two things into account: 1. Are the fingers separated from each other or tightly clenched? 2. Is the palm of the hand open or bended? If the fingers are separated and the palm of the hand is open, it means the other party feels happy. If the opposite is the case, it implies the other party does not feel so happy. The convention when exchanging name cards is that you take one from your pocket and hand them over with two hands. Before business conversations officially start, it is best to ask about additional plans of the other party. In this way you can get an idea of how much time is left to talk. On the basis of the time schedule you can adjust the content of what you want to say. Did you take all these tiny details into account?
