Wagnerian epic of social mishaps.
It began at the church’s altar, where Candida, Gilliam’s godmother, vowed to what she called the “Jew-God” that she would provide spiritual sustenance.
“If there is a God,” said Robert as we left the church, “this crowd has pushed him to his limit of tolerance.”
The group of attendees walked to our apartment a few blocks away for the reception. Gilliam needed a nap after his ceremonial responsibilities. One of the guests suggested that since she wanted to use the phone and the phone was in the room with the crib, she would watch Gilliam until he fell asleep. Having written a heavily reported piece scheduled to run in
The Washington Post
the next day, she spent an hour in the nursery conferring with the paper’s fact-checker.
When, finally, it occurred to me to look in on both of them, I found Gilliam happily chewing the no-longer-needed marked-up typescript pages the woman was discarding in his crib. The crib’s headboard was a graveyard of Post-its, the result of her methodical approach to answering the fact-checker’s queries.
After sending the woman from the nursery, I peeled off the Post-its, waited for Gilliam to go down for his nap, andreturned to the front room to find Jonathan locked in animated debate with another guest. Jonathan’s cake fork had been lifted off the side of his plate and was waving in the air. It lashed out to make an impassioned point, tearing the veiled hat of a woman standing near.
“Make amends and replace her hat,” I said to Jonathan after the damage was done.
“I’ve done her a favor,” he insisted. “She looked like a beekeeper. And anyway, I’m the least of your problems. You should check out what’s happening in the kitchen.”
Turning my attention to our small kitchen, I realized it was emitting sobs.
One guest had pulled another aside to report that her unfaithful husband was cheating with a spectacular range of women.
After everyone finally left, my father observed, “I’ve never met more self-absorbed people.”
It was his polite way of saying they were all impolite.
In a metaphorical sea of self-involvement, my friends are often storm-tossed by waves of anxiety. Piled into one room, they evoke the chaos of Géricault’s
Raft of the Medusa
. It is also true that my friends were behaving with various degrees of rudeness at my son’s christening—which enabled me, years later, to explain Western rudeness to my Chinese publisher by setting benchmarks with examples that measured levels of offense.
→
LESSON 14
UNWITTINGLY RUDE BUT FORGIVABLE TO A POINT:
· Poor table manners
· Smoking in someone’s home without asking permission first
UNCONSCIOUSLY RUDE BUT RUDE NONETHELESS:
· Spitting or belching
· Asking people about their marriages
· Speaking loudly on a cell phone
· Blocking a busy entrance by standing directly in front of the door while chatting with a friend
· Cutting in line
DELIBERATELY RUDE AND DESERVING OF REBUKE:
· Shouting obscenities at a person
· Calling into question the honesty or capability of a person in front of other people
“So, what should you do when someone is displaying the first or second level of rudeness?” asked the Chinese editor.
My advice might just as well have been offered to Westerners.…
→
LESSON 15
Being considerate prevents you from being rude . Sadly, it does not prevent others from being rude to you. If you are on the receiving end of bad behavior, consider the situation before reacting, and don’t automatically take it personally. Sometimes the offender has had a bad day or is unaware he or she has offended. Take a few breaths and ask yourself if it’s worth a confrontation. If you do decide to say something, even about the offense of casual rudeness, keep in mind that how you say what you want or need to say makes all the difference. When correcting an intrusive display of rudeness, better that the tone of your voice should be gentle and not
It began at the church’s altar, where Candida, Gilliam’s godmother, vowed to what she called the “Jew-God” that she would provide spiritual sustenance.
“If there is a God,” said Robert as we left the church, “this crowd has pushed him to his limit of tolerance.”
The group of attendees walked to our apartment a few blocks away for the reception. Gilliam needed a nap after his ceremonial responsibilities. One of the guests suggested that since she wanted to use the phone and the phone was in the room with the crib, she would watch Gilliam until he fell asleep. Having written a heavily reported piece scheduled to run in
The Washington Post
the next day, she spent an hour in the nursery conferring with the paper’s fact-checker.
When, finally, it occurred to me to look in on both of them, I found Gilliam happily chewing the no-longer-needed marked-up typescript pages the woman was discarding in his crib. The crib’s headboard was a graveyard of Post-its, the result of her methodical approach to answering the fact-checker’s queries.
After sending the woman from the nursery, I peeled off the Post-its, waited for Gilliam to go down for his nap, andreturned to the front room to find Jonathan locked in animated debate with another guest. Jonathan’s cake fork had been lifted off the side of his plate and was waving in the air. It lashed out to make an impassioned point, tearing the veiled hat of a woman standing near.
“Make amends and replace her hat,” I said to Jonathan after the damage was done.
“I’ve done her a favor,” he insisted. “She looked like a beekeeper. And anyway, I’m the least of your problems. You should check out what’s happening in the kitchen.”
Turning my attention to our small kitchen, I realized it was emitting sobs.
One guest had pulled another aside to report that her unfaithful husband was cheating with a spectacular range of women.
After everyone finally left, my father observed, “I’ve never met more self-absorbed people.”
It was his polite way of saying they were all impolite.
In a metaphorical sea of self-involvement, my friends are often storm-tossed by waves of anxiety. Piled into one room, they evoke the chaos of Géricault’s
Raft of the Medusa
. It is also true that my friends were behaving with various degrees of rudeness at my son’s christening—which enabled me, years later, to explain Western rudeness to my Chinese publisher by setting benchmarks with examples that measured levels of offense.
→
LESSON 14
UNWITTINGLY RUDE BUT FORGIVABLE TO A POINT:
· Poor table manners
· Smoking in someone’s home without asking permission first
UNCONSCIOUSLY RUDE BUT RUDE NONETHELESS:
· Spitting or belching
· Asking people about their marriages
· Speaking loudly on a cell phone
· Blocking a busy entrance by standing directly in front of the door while chatting with a friend
· Cutting in line
DELIBERATELY RUDE AND DESERVING OF REBUKE:
· Shouting obscenities at a person
· Calling into question the honesty or capability of a person in front of other people
“So, what should you do when someone is displaying the first or second level of rudeness?” asked the Chinese editor.
My advice might just as well have been offered to Westerners.…
→
LESSON 15
Being considerate prevents you from being rude . Sadly, it does not prevent others from being rude to you. If you are on the receiving end of bad behavior, consider the situation before reacting, and don’t automatically take it personally. Sometimes the offender has had a bad day or is unaware he or she has offended. Take a few breaths and ask yourself if it’s worth a confrontation. If you do decide to say something, even about the offense of casual rudeness, keep in mind that how you say what you want or need to say makes all the difference. When correcting an intrusive display of rudeness, better that the tone of your voice should be gentle and not
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