I found this hilarious passage in the description of Indian culture in an India travel guide. Quoting below.
"It is customary to put up a token friendly argument with your host or any other member of the group when paying bills at restaurant or while making purchases. The etiquette for this is somewhat complicated. If you are someone's personal guest and they take you out to a restaurant, you should offer to pay anyway, and you should insist a lot. Sometimes these fights get a little funny, with each side trying to snatch the bill away from the other, all the time laughing politely. If you don't have experience in these things, chances are, you will lose the chance the first time, but in that case, make sure that you pay the next time."
What appears apparently funny to someone from the West or any developed country is part of our daily life. I'm sure all of us would have gone through this quite a few times.
In Japan, "Going Dutch" is called "Betsu Betsu". Which literally means "separate separate" or more appropriately in Tamil "varai varai". A group of friends or acquaintances going to restaurants order what they please and when it's time to pay, say "betsu betsu" to the waiter, walk to the counter, orally say what each ate, pay ONLY for their part and walk out. This might sound crude to some of us(I was horrified !). We are more used to the "tragedy of the commons" type of, one person paying at a time and a tacit agreement that the other people pay later(which might never happen). I've always wondered why we had to settle for a dicey system of payment which is hugely biased against altruists who end up paying more often than the rest.
But the answer may not be in altruism as most of us perceive, as much as it is on the disparity of wealth in our society. Though one person is expected to pay for expenses, the unsaid expectation is that the wealthiest pays for the rest. I took the below data from bbc website.
WEALTH DISTRIBUTION IN INDIA
Top 1%: 16% of wealth
Top 5%: 38% of wealth
Top 10%: 53% of wealth
Bottom 80%: 30% of wealth
Bottom 50%: 8% of wealth
Bottom 20%: 1% of wealth
Bottom 10% 0.2% of wealth
Source: University of Western Ontario, 2006
The above disparity of wealth will certainly exist among friends or acquaintances who go out together in India. It will not be possible to do a "betsu betsu" easily as they do in an "almost equal" Japan or any other developed country. But things are changing. With the recent economic boom, the middle is slowing tending towards the top. Does it mean that we'll also start doing "betsu betsu" ? the author of the passage on Indian culture will rewrite the advisory ? maybe not !
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Good and an interesting topic.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the equality of wealth distribution has a major role to play for the “pay for yourself” culture.
But in societies like India, inequality alone cannot account for the social behaviour.
Primarily I feel it is the concept of individuality,concept of “I”. We also have the concept
of control beyond us, externalising our actions to a higher power. We don’t say yes or no and have “let us see” approach or the inshah allah approach.
Eastern and western cultures are completely different. Personal space is very important in the west including the physical contact, boundaries. For example two male friends holding hands or putting arms across each others shoulders will have a different connotation in the western society. A good hospitality in India would be serving food for others .A good principle when there is shortage of food not where there is abundance and in fact poor people in the developed world are obese!!
There is also this altruistic component, individual and collective, where some people subjugate the common good for their own needs. For them, the satisfaction they get is more than the materialistic loss sustained. If you take marriages, we all know that it s major expense. It is not conducted with an assurance that the returns will be greater than the investment. It is done in good faith that people will come and “bless” them and the main aim is for the people to be happy especially with the pleasure of food. Imagine going to a marriage party where you pay for yourself!!
Interestingly I noticed that in Egmore, the children had a poster in the wall from school, something on the lines of “We is important and one should not say I”. A western school going child will find it strange since individuality, “I” is encouraged and qualities like independence, confidence and assertiveness are nurtured. In fact in western psychiatry, there is a diagnostic label of dependent personality disorder, where in a person does not take decision for himself and always subjugate the decisions to others!! These traits are encouraged in India especially in women and children.
A child not leaving home at 18 is a source of stress in the west, but in India,
leaving home at 36 is a stress. Even though money is a major factor, there is an emotional component as well. In the developed world, one doesn’t need their own children to look after them in the old age. It is the state/government who has taken that responsibility and in fact many choose not to have any children and prefer pets rather than the hassles of the responsibility (They need someone to look after them in their old age and hence the need for young, healthy, working immigrants).The concept of “motherhood” as something self-sacrificing is an eastern concept, I think. Breast feeding is very low in the west and children are expected to be alike adults very early on.
Regarding paying for others, there is an understanding that it will be returned.
Also if the is not reciprocated, the relationships don’t survive. In sociology, the social exchange theory states that in relationships the profits are equitable to both sides.
On a separate note, in India, my understanding is that even with the increasing middle class, the gap between the rich and poor is increasing and the statistics quoted would remain the same.
Culture is acquired from the past due to the previously prevailing socioeconomic factors. It will take time for a new pattern to acquire especially in a traditional society.
So yes, with equal distribution of wealth, abundance of resources, equality in sex, we might also be doing “betsu betsu”.
How much the economic change alters our perception, thinking and behaviour-we will have to wait and see.