Expressing Emotions My chin was wounded when I fell off my bike. Seriously bleeding, I went to the school hospital and had four to five stitches under my chin. After that, I had to wear an ugly bandage around my chin and explained hundreds of times, if not thousands, what happened to my chin. I noticed an interesting fact in the company of my bandage. Some of my Chinese classmates chose not to ask what happened as if the bandage did not exist. If they did ask, they used a very careful tone, possibly afraid to hurt me again by asking. However, I was also a teaching assistant in an international class consisting of government officials mainly from Africa and Eurasia. On the first day when I appeared with the bandage, I couldn’t remember how many times I was asked about it! And the way they asked was quite different too: frowning, curious, straightforward and emotional. Probably I need more rigorous econometrics techniques to determine whether this contrast was due to cultural difference, but not other factors such as age, profession, experience or my role in the class. However, I do feel cultural difference has played an important part. Chinese expression of emotions is usually constrained and “introverted”, while some of the foreign expression is more often candid and “extroverted”. The other example would be: there are very few occasions in my memory where I have said “I love you” to my parents, but this expression seems prevalent in Western dramas. In addition, don’t expect a stranger to smile at you in China, but this may not be the case in some other countries. Culture shapes how emotions are felt and expressed. However, to what extent this difference can influence the business world remains an open question. Human adaptability to a new environment should not be underestimated. However, to what degree human behaviour can be altered by this adaption may vary from person to person.