Companies

Making the right impression on society

By Andrew Moody (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-08-30 16:01

Image consultant offers counseling on social mores to Chinese executives with new-found wealth

BEIJING - Laurel Herman believes China's new rich entrepreneurs need to improve their social manners if they are to impress their counterparts in other parts of the world.

British image guru Laurel Herman now offers courses for Chinese entrepreneurs wanting to learn how to behave in certain social situations. She said:"Some Chinese don't eat in the way we are taught in the West. We see eating with your mouth open as rude. Eating a chunk of meat off your fork or smoking between courses would not be seen as good either." [Photo/For China Daily]

The internationally-renowned image consultant believes habits such as eating with one's mouth open and smoking between courses will not go down well in Western society.

As a result, the etiquette guru is about to set up classes in London aimed specifically at the Chinese market.

The courses, which Herman says would be a 'prestige product', will be aimed at teaching the new rich how to behave not just in restaurants but at cocktail parties and even during a night at London's Covent Garden Opera House.

Table manners

"Some Chinese don't eat in the way we are taught in the West. We see eating with your mouth open as rude. Eating a chunk of meat off your fork or smoking between courses would not be seen as good either," she said.

Herman, petite and suitably immaculately presented, was speaking in the lounge of the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Beijing after a week of training executives how to improve their presentation skills.

She has been working for her company Positive Presence, based in London, whose clients include Deloitte, Citigroup, Barclays, Credit Suisse, the Bank of New York, Thomson Reuters, HP and IBM.

However, she will soon be launching a new separate company offering courses for Chinese entrepreneurs wanting to learn how to behave in certain social situations.

The programs, which will utilize highly-specialized trainers and involve 24 different modules, will guide attendees through a maze of different social situations in the country.

They would be aimed at avoiding social gaffes such as pouring lemonade into one's Chateau Lafite 1959 vintages, for which some Chinese entrepreneurs have developed a certain renown.

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"Chinese entrepreneurs when they become wealthy often go out and buy yachts, cigars and wine but what they don't realize is that they are being seen as crass," she said.

"It is just the same in the UK when people from less well-off backgrounds become wealthy. They often don't know how to behave."

Herman said the aim of such courses, which she says would be "expensive" because of the high caliber of trainers involved, would be to give people the social confidence just to blend into the background.

"I think if people hadn't been through that social situation before they would be embarrassed sitting with another top executive at a box in Covent Garden, for example," she said.

"Feeling comfortable and knowing what to do at a cocktail party is difficult if it is something you have never experienced or seen before."