Interesting Etiquette Knowledge and a Terrifying Self-Introduction (Vocational Skills Training, Day Three)

This article was extracted from my early NetEase blog. NetEase Blog is no longer operating, but looking back, these words are still quite interesting, so I decided to move them over as intact as possible. Mainly as a record; after all, it was a long time ago, so the quality of the writing, images, and links may all be affected.

This article was originally published on July 29, 2009. I was about 20 years old then and was in university.

Today's class was quite interesting: business etiquette knowledge! It sounds very professional, but once I actually came into contact with it, it felt like some etiquette knowledge from everyday life. Still, it was indeed difficult enough!

The first etiquette knowledge we learned was standing posture. This looks relatively easy, and in reality it is still relatively easy, hehe.
There are three kinds of standing postures for men. The first is the figure-eight stance: hands placed in front of the abdomen, left hand on top, and the two feet spread out in a figure-eight shape. This one is very easy. Later came the parallel stance: the feet are a bit like the posture of standing at attention, and the hands are the same as in the figure-eight stance. The last one is standing with feet apart, which is harder to describe… To put it plainly, it is the kind of posture instructors taught during military training, with legs apart and both hands behind the back.

The second etiquette knowledge was sitting posture: men can only sit on 2/3 of the stool, women 1/3… and a whole pile of extremely troublesome rules.

If the teacher had only taught these on the podium while we did them below, it would seem very easy. But the teacher used a killer move: everyone had to go up to the podium one by one to do it… This part was okay and did not have much behind-the-scenes fun, but the bowing later made us laugh until our faces were deformed… Bowing is already not a commonly used posture, and many people do not know how to do it. Add to that suddenly being asked to follow some awkward rules, and all kinds of strange movements appeared on the podium. It simply made us laugh so hard… Later came hugging. The teacher hugged the students one by one, and someone actually used the knowledge of hugging a tree to hug back. That hug was no small thing; our faces were deformed from laughter again… Everyone could not help but admire it.

Several commonly used forms of etiquette ended in this kind of happy laughter. In the extra 20 minutes afterward, the teacher also asked us to go on stage and do a 50-second self-introduction. It looked easy, but when you really stand in front of a pile of people, it is not that easy. Most people spoke for around 20 to 30 seconds.
But the terrifying teacher actually made the person on stage stand there until 50 seconds before coming down… In this way, the whole thing became a terrifying self-introduction. Especially when you had finished speaking, the classroom was completely quiet, and dozens of pairs of eyes below were looking at you. That feeling was as terrifying as it could be…