The Forceful Hospitality of Kèqì

To celebrate my recent graduation from college, two friends from high school and I decided to spend most of the month of June traveling to China. This was only possible because one of those friends had been an exchange student at my high school and is originally from China. Through this trip, my Chinese friend was looking forward to teaching us about his home country after spending so many years with us in the States.

Trusting his fluency in both Mandarin and English, we planned out a breathtaking itinerary that included time at many of China’s most famous tourist destinations, including the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, and the Terracotta Army. However, we wanted to make sure our trip included at least a little of what everyday life in China was like. So on top of our plans to hit the guidebook-worthy hotspots, we included several days staying with my friend’s family in a rural part of China’s Anhui province.

Living with my friend’s relatives out in the village was where we experienced a part of Chinese culture called kèqì (客氣) for the first time. Kèqì is usually translated into English as “politeness” or “courtesy,” but it encompasses so much more than that. Especially toward guests, kèqì is an overwhelming, welcoming force. After a domestic flight within China to the nearest city, my friend’s uncle came to collect us from the airport. On the way to the village, he stopped at a restaurant and casually slipped away from the table in the middle of the meal to pay for all our food. This was just the beginning. After a full day meeting with relatives and exploring the village’s small downtown, this man we had met only hours before showed us to the best hotel in town and insisted on paying for a room for the three of us during the duration of our stay.

Each day in the village started out the same. My friend’s uncle would be at the hotel bright and early, knocking on our door, ready to take us out for breakfast. Then followed a day filled with the bustle of everyday life: walking through the sights, sounds, and smells of market day; getting a haircut; and taking a loop through the village outskirts on mopeds with the cousins. Lunch and dinner were spectacular, plates heaped high with pork, fish, noodles, and dumplings. For two Midwestern boys who had grown up in a culture of “West Michigan Nice,” being forceful enough to turn down a third helping when we were already full to bursting was sometimes difficult. Despite how our Chinese friend had tried to prepare us for this part of Chinese culture, the intense generosity of kèqì still caught us by surprise.

While there’s nominal freedom of religion in China, the government discourages religion in practice. Also, there are relatively few foreigners in China, and we were definitely the first two foreigners (and likely some of the first Christians) to visit the village. That thought was definitely in the back of my mind before and during our stay there. While linguistic, cultural, and political barriers would make any sort of direct discussion of faith impossible, I hoped my time there would be a model of my Christian faith and values.

Whatever kindnesses we showed during our visit, they were outdone many times over by the generosity of our hosts. Their concern for our comfort during our stay reminded me of the work Abraham and Sarah put in while unknowingly entertaining angels in Genesis 18. While my friend’s family isn’t poor by the standards of their community, their hospitality toward us was a significant sacrifice nonetheless. Eclipsing whatever I had hoped to teach through our visit, I learned a lesson in how to graciously accept a generosity I would never repay. The kèqì system works in cycles, with cyclical favors going back and forth over time. As one-time visitors, my American friend and I would likely never get the chance to return their hospitality. When we tried to come up with a parting gift to show our appreciation, we were cautioned against it. Trying to “repay” such generosity with gifts could be misinterpreted by our hosts as trying to reset the relationship back to when we were strangers, when we weren’t in their debt. “In the village, you follow the village’s rules,” our Chinese friend told us. “Not much you can do.”

When we left a few days later, it was with a new appreciation for the deep generosity of Chinese hospitality. While it’s hard to fully capture without experiencing it, I can say this: even if they’ve never read a Bible, my Chinese hosts certainly have the lesson of Genesis 18 in their heart.