I’ll admit to not really knowing jack about Chinese culture, but even within the tiny bubble of insight into that topic that’s managed to find a vacant corner in my brain, my understanding is that gifts, monetary or otherwise, put a lot of emphasis on presentation in Chinese culture. Like, $5 placed in a handmade box and delivered in a ceremonious way would be taken as super thoughtful and respectful, vs any amount - like literally hundreds or thousands of dollars - crammed into literal garbage and presented that way, would be pretty fucking offensive. Like if Bill Gates rolled up and handed me a trash bag full of used kleenex, shitty toilet paper, and $50,000 worth of crumpled up 100s, then I’d take it as gratefully as I could, put some gloves on, clean the shit off as best I could, then waddle into my bank with my tail between my legs to deposit it… but there would be no illusion that Gates was doing that out of some kind of act of kindness - that’s ‘fuck you!’ money that he would know that peasants like me can’t afford to refuse on principle.
Anyway, if the context was that of a gift, cash stuffed into a potato chip wrapper would be a similar type of ‘fuck you!’
If it was a bribe, that type of presentation would make a ton more sense, with neither party giving a shit about culture. (I guess the Gates cash-covered-in-shit analogy won’t have made much sense as a bribe either, so probably don’t take that analogy too literal lol).
…if even my dumb ass can sniff out that bullshit, I have haunch their cover story isn’t going to hold up to scrutiny from pretty well anyone.
I’ll admit to not really knowing jack about Chinese culture, but even within the tiny bubble of insight into that topic that’s managed to find a vacant corner in my brain, my understanding is that gifts, monetary or otherwise, put a lot of emphasis on presentation in Chinese culture. Like, $5 placed in a handmade box and delivered in a ceremonious way would be taken as super thoughtful and respectful, vs any amount - like literally hundreds or thousands of dollars - crammed into literal garbage and presented that way, would be pretty fucking offensive. Like if Bill Gates rolled up and handed me a trash bag full of used kleenex, shitty toilet paper, and $50,000 worth of crumpled up 100s, then I’d take it as gratefully as I could, put some gloves on, clean the shit off as best I could, then waddle into my bank with my tail between my legs to deposit it… but there would be no illusion that Gates was doing that out of some kind of act of kindness - that’s ‘fuck you!’ money that he would know that peasants like me can’t afford to refuse on principle.
Anyway, if the context was that of a gift, cash stuffed into a potato chip wrapper would be a similar type of ‘fuck you!’
If it was a bribe, that type of presentation would make a ton more sense, with neither party giving a shit about culture. (I guess the Gates cash-covered-in-shit analogy won’t have made much sense as a bribe either, so probably don’t take that analogy too literal lol).
…if even my dumb ass can sniff out that bullshit, I have haunch their cover story isn’t going to hold up to scrutiny from pretty well anyone.