My predicament: how to address people in different cultures

The way of addressing people varies from culture to culture. It unveils the addresser’s upbringing and showcases the courtesy and respect for the addressee. It also demonstrates the progress of relationships among people. Addressing improperly will lead to disapproval from others and find yourself in a cruel predicament in social life. Unfortunately I have experienced such depressing predicaments in foreign countries.

Six years ago I went to University of Edinburgh in UK for three-month language teaching training. One of my tutors was named John Smith, a serious-looking middle-aged English gentleman who was always dressed formally for his course. When I met him for the first time, I called him Mr. Smith according to my knowledge of westerners’ name culture. Unexpectedly the gentleman frowned at my way of addressing him and told me not to call him Mr. Smith. Perplexed, I knew I couldn’t call him John since it was the first time for us to meet and did remember the warning: Don’t call westerners their first names unless you are asked to. After class I asked a British native for help and she told me they called him John or Dr. Smith. Later I carefully addressed him Dr. Smith. After a few weeks, he asked me to call him John. What a reserved English gentleman!

This year I got another opportunity to study abroad and I came to Singapore. Most Singaporeans are Chinese ethnic and addressing properly them is not a problem with me. However, I still got into trouble in this aspect. I took a course tutored by a respected professor in the department of the English language whose name is Mohanan Karuannur P. When I first saw him, I was very confident in addressing him Professor KP. Quite out of my expectation, he strongly objected to it. You can imagine how baffled I was. It seemed that I was wrong again. Consulting classmates, I found they called him KP or Mohanan. I talked with KP the other day and asked him the reason why he disliked to be addressed as Professor so much. He told me it was MIT’s culture from where he graduated. In MIT all students and teachers were equal to be addressed by name so that every student would be courageous to challenge any authority. No professor on campus. Out of a sudden I was aware that culture was not confined to nations.

Compared with the counterparts in other cultures, I think most Chinese care less about the way of being addressed as long as respect and courtesy are taken into consideration.  In the case of me(I think my case is representative to some degree in China), I have outgrown the pet name by my parents and the terms of endearment by my husband. All of them call me full name since my given name has only one Chinese character. My colleagues at the same age as me or older than me usually address me full name. The people who are younger than me or meet me for the first time often address me according to my occupation or my title. In Singapore I am addressed Miao, showing a sort of intimacy in Chinese culture, but I’m accustomed to it. To be honest, I don’t care much about how to be addressed.  

  Addressing people properly is not an easy job. Most people are faced with the awkward situations now and then, but I find I’m always stuck in the plight. A Malay lady named Yurni Irwati Binte Mohamed Said is a teaching assistant of one of my courses. I haven’t talked to her so far. One of the reasons is that I have no idea of how to address her.