It’s a Saturday afternoon and you’re hanging out with a bunch of Chinese friends. Approaching mealtime, someone in the group asks: “Hey guys, what do you want for dinner?” “Hmm…Anything goes.” “Yeah, me too. I don’t mind.” “Whatever you decide. I’m not picky.” “I’m ok with anything.” These are probably the most frequent answers you’ll get within a large group of Chinese people. It seems like everyone is so easygoing. But at the same time, you wonder what everyone’s true preferences are. In Chinese, all of these underlined phrases can be replaced by a single word, suibian (随便). This word is so popular that there’s even an ice cream brand named suibian (i.e. whatever) to help you cope with difficult choices. From its omnipresence in daily conversations, you may have observed that Chinese people tend not to display their preferences or take initiative to make decisions in a group. Instead, a lot of them would prefer following the crowd and approving the suggestions offered by others first.

Suibian = Politeness?

Why is that? The most common and intuitive explanation for this phenomenon is associated with the concepts of respect, politeness, and courtesy much valued in Chinese culture. Within a large group of people, preferences and thoughts can often differ from each other, resulting in potential clashes and conflicts. It is especially the case in China where there is a long tradition of living with a big family. A smart and mature way to deal with this kind of situation is to be constantly aware of others’ feelings, show great respect, and moreover, be willing to make compromises and sacrifices. Over time, in order to live harmoniously together, this philosophy of not being self-centered is gradually formed and strengthened in Chinese wisdom. The reason why I used an example about dining to introduce suibian in the beginning is that this concept is especially amplified when it comes to ordering food. Unlike Western countries, where people have individual plates so everyone can order food that is not necessarily the same as others, Chinese dishes are normally displayed and shared by everyone sitting at the table. Consequently, the host must take every guest’s preference into consideration and cannot deliver purely based on one’s own taste. So, by performing suibian, people are trying to relieve the pressure for the host and create a more comfortable and pleasant dining atmosphere. Nevertheless, this account of why suibian is so ubiquitous in China is only the tip of the iceberg. There are at least five distinctive psychological states when people utter the word suibian. In addition to the first state I just elaborated, the remaining ones can contain some negative implications. Let’s look at another scenario.

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Suibian = “Oh, Whatever…”

At a typical Chinese home, a mom busy cooking in the kitchen asks her husband and son, “Hey, I’m preparing for tomorrow’s breakfast. What do you guys prefer?” Dad and son: “Anything is fine.” Mom: “Okay. What about sweet dumplings?” Son: “Too sticky! I hate having them for breakfast.” Mom: “All right. What about baozi?” Dad: “Didn’t we just have them yesterday?” Mom: “Fine! What on earth do you want to eat?” Dad and son: “Whatever!” Mom: (speechless) In this case, the father and the son are clearly not saying suibian out of attentive care or politeness. Moreover, you may notice how they are not actually accepting whatever Mom offers but are rather picky about the food. Here, the word is fairly similar to “whatever” in English used among young people in a kind of insouciant and impatient tone (Oh, whatever, Mom!). The underlying messages are, “Don’t bother me,” “You should know what suits me best,” and “Figure it out by yourself.”

Suibian = Silent Protest?

A third kind of mentality has a slight twist compared to the second one. You can imagine someone who is dissatisfied or disagrees with the listener, but due to factors like wanting to save face, facing an elder, or lacking the time and energy to fight back, reluctantly squeezes out a smile and replies in an ambiguous and indirect way, “Suibian, suibian.” A typical example would be, when you are tired of your mom’s endless scolding, while feeling that you are in no position of rebelling or that fighting back would get you into bigger trouble, eventually using this kind of “silent protest” to display your feelings in a subtle way. Nevertheless, if your mom is sensitive to words and intonations, this behavior may stimulate her to start a new attack on your bad attitude!

Suibian = You Guess?

Another minor yet pretty interesting usage of suibian occurs frequently between lovers and young couples as a form of coquetry. Particularly, some young girls are big fans of this word. Instead of directly telling others their true thoughts, they love to let others guess what’s in their minds as a way of testing how much they weigh in their partners’ hearts. Though sounding sweet sometimes, this word full of endless guessing and testing is probably one of the most uninviting words from the angle of the boyfriends.

Suibian = Indifference, A Cultural Product?

The three negative aspects of suibian may cause some small clashes in daily life but shouldn’t be a very big deal. At the end of the day, it is just a beloved word by many individuals in China, right? But is it? In a critical group discussion, or in a serious forum, no one is willing to contribute constructive suggestions or say what’s really on one’s mind, that’s when the situation turns out more than just annoying but truly problematic. From this sense, the seemingly polite and respectful behavior, in essence, reflects the perfunctoriness, indifference and lack of individual initiative of people in this culture. Suibian is not a suibian (simple) word, and surely not a word that appears suibian-ly (randomly). In his book My Country and My People published in the Republic of China era, scholar Lin Yutang wrote about indifference (无可无不可) as a core cultural attribute in China, which encompasses the meanings of suibian perfectly, revealing the indifference both in the sense of lacking initiative and in the sense of not caring. He described this “do not care one way or another” attitude as a “distinct ‘survival value’ in China.” [1. Lin Yutang, My Country and My People (Hong Kong: Commonwealth Printing Press, 1977), 45-49.] Originally, Chinese people are just as enthusiastic and willing to speak their minds as people in any other culture. However, Lin writes, the illiberal cultural environment that does not provide guarantees for human rights forced Chinese people to evolve into this habit of possessing no opinion as “a form of self-protection, developed in the same manner as the tortoise develops its shell.” Thus, suibian is neither an individual word choice nor “a natural characteristic of the people.” It is “a conscious product of our culture.” You may wonder: Lin’s book was published almost ninety years ago, but what about China today? The cultural discourse is much more open, if not completely free. But the legacy of indifference in Chinese culture is still dominating people’s minds, leading them to play it safe and reserve opinions.

I am pretty aware of this trait in myself. When I first came to DKU, I felt hesitant to throw my own thoughts onto the table and often had the tendency to remain silent and transparent in a lot of conversations. Recently, there was a heated discussion in the Class of 2023 WeChat Group on whether to offer a Pass/Fail option due to the coronavirus pandemic. I have some interesting observations: the discussion was mostly dominated by international students and Chinese students seldom raised their voices. Furthermore, among those Chinese students who spoke, most of them took a neutral stand and simply clarified some facts or raised some questions, without directly giving their own opinions and meanwhile, being really cautious about not sounding extreme or offensive. My focus here is not whether to approve the P/F option, but that Chinese people indeed have the tendency to speak less and probably, care less. Even at DKU, a quite democratic place, Chinese students’ desire to speak their minds is relatively lower compared to students from many other countries, either for reasons of self-protection or for the belief that their voices won’t make a change, so why bother? In this regard, I do believe that suibian, interpreted as a kind of indifference, results in the inactiveness of the individual’s participation in group discussions. While it’s not necessary to wholeheartedly embrace individualism and free discourse completely with no restrictions, for every individual, getting rid of these “none of my business” or “my voice wouldn’t matter” attitudes could have profound significance for China in the 21st century. As a country, China may want to further liberalize its conversations to invite more diverse voices to join in and contribute to solving critical problems in society.

Suibian = Follow Your Heart?

You may be surprised by how suibian, which can be roughly translated into whatever in English, can have such rich cultural roots and complicated context-specific connotations. Suibian doesn’t only mean whatever but has other meanings. Its literal definition is basically doing as one pleases and wishes, regardless of external restrictions and conventions. From there, it can be extended to multiple sub-meanings. For example, “suibian (no matter) where you go, I will always accompany you”; “suibian (randomly) choose one card”; “please be suibian (help yourself)”. You can also use the word to praise one’s boldness, inclusiveness, and forthrightness. For example, “he is very easy-going and suibian (he does not fuss about personal gains and losses).”

Suibian = Not Suibian, An Irony?

However, the most frequent usage extended from the meaning “not confining to restrictions” is its negative implications. To better illustrate the diverse sub meanings, let me incorporate them in a scenario from the book Joy Luck Club. Waverly, a Chinese girl, is taking her fiancé Rich to meet her mother Lindo, an old Chinese lady, for the first time. Like many mothers, Lindo is picky about her son-in-law to-be and doesn’t approve young people’s suibian relationships. At the meal, after serving all the other dishes, Lindo brings out her famous and prized dish, steamed pork with vegetables. As the Chinese custom is for the host to always make disparaging remarks about their own cooking, she complains about her cooking being too suibian: “Ai! This dish is not salty enough, no flavor. It’s too bad to eat.” It is then expected the guest tastes a small bite and proclaims it the best dish of all. Nonetheless, in a suibian tone, Rich replies immediately, “You know, all it needs is a little soy sauce,” and in front of Lindo’s horrified eyes pours a river of black liquid into the plate. [2. Amy Tan, The Joy Luck Club (New York: Penguin Group, 1989), 176-179.]  Here, the first suibian means doing whatever one pleases and disregarding the basic rules. Waverly’s notion of romance is clearly too arbitrary and unstable in Lindo’s eye. Secondly, by saying that her dish is horribly cooked and done with little effort, Lindo is belittling herself to show modesty in a typical Chinese way. As you can imagine, the reality is the complete opposite and she prepared that dish of honor with great attentiveness. Unfortunately, Rich takes the words literally and criticizes Lindo’s cooking carelessly, without weighing his words and thinking twice. Now, you may get a glimpse of how the meanings of suibian vary drastically when it comes to different subjects, and how the mismatch can cause hilarious misunderstandings.

Suibian = An Outlier?

Taking a step further, you may be as curious as I am why the word suibian normally occurs in negative senses. One possible explanation may be associated with the value of li (礼), namely courtesy in Chinese culture. Confucianism sees seriousness and decency as extremely significant features in a gentleman, and suibian-ness, an insouciant attitude often accompanied with inappropriate misbehavior, is not acceptable. Confucius illustrated, “a gentleman stands on courtesy” (君子立于礼), and “restrain oneself using courtesy” (约之以礼). [3. Confucius, The Analects of Confucius (Taibei: Hua Yi Shu Ju, 1988).] A suibian person fails to behave according to li and all the conventions, and thus this outlier is often criticized according to Chinese mainstream values.

Suibian: Takeaway

I hope you are not overwhelmed by all these different, and sometimes even seemingly contradictory meanings of the word suibian. To summarize, it has at least five specific connotations as extensions to the meaning whatever. But the word is way more than a simple pet phrase used by many Chinese people but implies rich cultural values: a culture of agreeableness and nonconfrontation. A more insightful takeaway for you is to understand the negative side of the word in terms of passivity and a lack of individual initiative, which can limit Chinese people and hold them back in certain contexts. In addition, suibian has related meaning as to criticizing behavior that is too casual, self-centered and violates the norm: the fundamental value of courtesy. For foreign readers, a useful tip is, don’t take the word literally all the time and be constantly aware of the potential mismatch between the superficial and underlying meanings. For Chinese readers, I sincerely hope we can liberate ourselves to take initiative and contribute devotion to more collaborative issues and conversations critical to our nation and ourselves. As for some Chinese senior readers, I really recommend adding a bit more suibian ingredients into your daily lives. Caring less about conventions, about saving face and saving money — there is much more beauty in life to enjoy with that extra bit of freedom! Editors | Austin Woerner, Eric Eberly Layout | He Siyue 何思樾

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Wu Yizhen (邬一禛) is from the DKU Class of 2023. She is majoring in psychology, and her interests include literary nonfiction, running, and meditation. She wrote this essay in Austin Woerner’s EAP 102A class and she is eager to share her cultural observations with you all. References