Accepting compliments (without rejecting them)

[jasoninchina]

With a grunt, "嗯“. (Hainanese style, son)

[Bird in a Forest]

XD Yep, might try the grunt one time. I'm curious to know, how rare is it to actually here a native speaker say 哪裏哪裏 and what do they normally say in response instead. Mistake me if I'm wrong, but it's pretty much standard here to respond with "thank you" to a compliment, especially if you are caught off guard.

[Ruben von Zwack]

I wish I had read this topic yesterday. The museum where I work was full of Chinese families today, to my surprise, my Chinese was ridiculously overpraised, and I had to improvise to answer, silently cursing myself for noticing that this topic was here the past few days, but not reading it.

So I'm taking notes right now. I think I'll go for  过奖 and 学了好久了

 

As for the interesting side discussion, the way I was brought up - in Germany - was that it is rude to agree to a compliment. Then in my teens, you started hearing people say "you should just answer thank you. It's so self-depreciating not to accept a compliment". Odd - I had always assumed that defying a compliment meant accepting it.
My Norwegian friends to this day are such masters at downplaying, you'd think they are Chinese! But then they are artsy (re. Shelley's amusing observations).

British, I think, like to point out just how faulty and horrible whatever you were complimenting is in fact - their house? So shabby it will collapse any day soon. Violin playing? The dog hides crying. New haircut? Hopefully detracts from the rest of the appearance.

I was just watching this Icelandic band at a French black metal festival, and they replied to the cheering of the French audience: "thank you, you are being very kind to us."

 

The point I am trying to make with these random observations - it's a pet peeve of mine: "The West". Or, "we as Westerners", and contrasting that to China. There don't seem to be "the Westerners" to me. Often, I suspect, people say "West" but mean "US-American". But US culture and for example European culture are very different when it comes to politeness and courtesy.

(And in other ways too of course.)

 

With the above, I don't mean to criticise anyone's choice of words specifically. I enjoyed reading everyone's posts, and I just wanted to add my perspective.

[MPhillips]

Perhaps when referring to US culture most people are thinking of two very thin slivers of coast--where I lived for about 10 years about 300 miles inland, people are quite polite & modest, very quiet too. The richest guy in town, who owned a large factory, lived right next-door in an equally small & shabby house. Unfortunately, for the last 30 yrs. or more all economic activity in the US except for mineral extraction & agriculture has been shifting to the coastal areas. The disparity in wealth between the coastal counties and every one else is scandalous. This is even the case when you look at the state of California in isolation. Of course it's getting more homogeneous(culturally-speaking that is) here all the time--but since it's such a large country it takes time.