Not a bad place to be

Pouring rain outside. Grilled BBQ chicken and English tea inside. Laptop open to the front. Jazz/funk band practicing behind.

Not a bad place to be.

Kowloon, Hong Kong

"I never had a chance to say goodbye." Why Chinese people don't say goodbye before leaving forever.

I have noticed a disturbing trend during my years in China and it's one I wish would change but ultimately never does: Chinese people don't say goodbye.

I don't mean say goodbye as in, "it's late so I'm leaving the office to go home so goodbye." I mean as in, "I'm moving away and starting a new job so I may never see you again so goodbye."

It's customary in the West for people to have going away parties or at the very least say goodbye to everybody in the office before leaving their position. Maybe contact information is exchanged with the promise of meeting up later in life for a drink.

Not so in China. Very often at work you won't see a coworker around for a week or two. When you finally ask where he or she is, you find out this person moved to a new city or got a new job. Surprise!

This has happened almost every time a semi-close colleague of mine has moved away. I never find out until I ask about the colleague a few weeks after last seeing him or her. And this isn't just something I've experienced. More than one foreigner has expressed similar frustration. Only one time before can I remember a goodbye dinner for someone leaving a company. The rest of the time I'm lucky to even find out a day before and be able to say, "good luck in your future endeavors."

I just asked a very good Chinese friend why this is the case and it seems there are two central reasons. The first is personal. Unless you are very good friends with the other person, they may not feel enough attachment or friendship to consider saying goodbye. Yet I have had less of a friendship with American/Western colleagues in both the US and China that said goodbye before transferring or leaving, unlike many Chinese colleagues who I had better relationships with but never received a goodbye from. So there is a definite difference.

The other important consideration is HR. My friend explained that at many companies, the Human Resource department may not want departing employees to speak to loudly about their departure and to instead leave quietly and quickly. HR departments fear that current employees might feel uncomfortable about their work at their current company if they hear of others leaving to work elsewhere.

So maybe it is an institutional cause (don't make HR upset) or a cultural cause (it's not polite to speak about your departure as it might make others uncomfortable). Whatever the reason, I'm always disappointed to find out a colleague has left after the fact and not have had the chance to say goodbye. Maybe it's my problem and I'm the one being too emotional about it.

Writing this post makes me sad :.(