> Also refusing a gift isn't extremely rude in Chinese culture if it's in the nebulous "I scratch your back you scratch mine" gray area that might be bribery. Accepting is basically signing on for the "deal".
So, the person who tells you it is rude to decline, is really just attempting to persuade you to "sign the deal".
After living in Asia for a few years, I can understand how accepting gifts from family members and pretending to decline them is a form of showing respect. I wonder how that developed and why the straightforward Western approach of simply saying, "this is an amazing gift, thank you so much" isn't more common.
Westerners do sometimes say "you shouldn't have" while accepting gifts. We only try to decline the most over-the-top gifts. I guess levels of "politeness" vary across cultures and from situation to situation. In the case of giving and receiving gifts, China's culture appears to be more polite
At any rate, similar to pushing education on other parts of the world, the act of making this a cultural norm seems to make the act lose its meaning, particularly for people outside the culture, like me.
I wonder whether government officials in China really believe in education, and how many view it as a charade. I tend to think it's only a charade when viewed as a charade, and only helpful when viewed as helpful. Education is what it is to you