Free Custom «China Corner Restaurant» Essay Paper

Culture is defined as a set of beliefs, behaviors, objects, and other characteristics common to people of a certain group. Groups define themselves, conform to values in their society, and contribute to the society. Culture, therefore, includes language, values, norms, behaviors and materials that are transferred from one generation to another.

Cultural norms are behaviors that are normally found in the certain group of people. The behaviors are always learned from people, such as parents, teachers, friends and others who believe and behave in a way similar to their organization culture. Whereas some norms may be beneficial to an individual or community, others are not. Cultural norms always determine how an individual behaves, and they can at times be fully attached to an individual that he or she might not be aware of certain behaviors (North Central Regional Educational Laboratory). Cultural norms vary across the different communities. Americans, for example, maintain direct eye contact when talking to another, while Asians do not. Asians see the norm as a sign of respect and politeness.

In the everyday life, cultural norms usually determine how people interact socially. This document looks at social interaction and cultural norms in China Corner restaurant.

China Corner Restaurant Description

China Corner restaurant has spacious rooms with leather sofa sets and brown painted tables. The floor contains white tiles that symbolize peace. Beside the entrance is a wooden poster notifying people that the floor is sleeper. This means that the hotel cares a lot for people and does not want its customers to slip. It has decorated its doorway with thin red strips and diamond-shaped papers written in black and gold Chinese characters. Red color symbolizes prosperity. In Chinese culture, red is a symbol of truth, joy and sincerity (Mark).

The walls are painted in blue, symbolizing peace with dragons engraved at every corner of each room. This indicates the Chinese lunar New Year. At two points in the hotel, there are sculptures of horses installed, surrounded by basins of water. Surrounding the building are red and yellow beautiful flower beds. The flower beds also surrounded a sculpture of a famous priest of the Tang Dynasty of China, Tang Xuanzang. At the main entrance of the hotel is a marital door god, Tu and Yu Lei, which is believed to protect the hotel from theft and robbery.

Values are what people consider as important in their society including homes and work place. They are what people use to measure what is good or right. Values are always accumulated from childhood and are what people learn from parents, teachers, leaders and role models.

Honesty is one of the key values in Chinese culture. China Corner restaurant upholds the value of honest to all their stakeholders. It treats customers with dignity and ensures it tells customers the exact truth about what they offer. If it offers fast food with a lot of cholesterol, for example, it would tell customers and list it in the products’ ingredients. It would rather remain with few customers and tell them the truth. The same thing applies to the prices of their products and services; it does not exploit customers as it charges fair prices. There is a common trend in many restaurants nowadays; they would tell a customer that they have a meal even when they do not. They would then go and purchase the food from another restaurant and serve it to customers, as if it was theirs. This habit is not in China Corner restaurant’s culture. If they do not have a certain meal at the moment, they tell a customer and direct him or her to a place which offers the meal.

As the saying goes “cleanliness is next to Godliness,” China Corner restaurant values cleanliness. Its environment is clean and green.  All workers from management to subordinate staff wear white clothes. This is an indication of how clean the hotel is. The hotel also offers clean food on clean utensils. Customers are advised to wash their hands with a disinfectant soap placed at the entrance of the hotel before eating any meal.

Whereas competition is important to businesses, the restaurant believes in peace, and maintains a harmonious relationship with others. While other competitors use dubious means to stay top in the market, China Corner restaurant attracts its customers by offering high quality products and services. Quality service is the basis of their competition.