Yeah, that's very true. It's an interesting talk as well. One of the examples is highly codified in Japan. If you offer someone something, they must refuse.

Yeah, that's very true. It's an interesting talk as well. One of the examples is highly codified in Japan. If you offer someone something, they must refuse. Then you must offer it again. Then they must accept it. Any variation on that leads to one of the parties being really upset :-). One of the cool things about this is that regifting is completely accepted in Japan. Because you must accept what's being offered, it is considered normal to make a gift of it to someone else if you don't actually want it. This is one of the things that I trip over often. Quite frequently if someone offers me some food, I'll think, "Oh I have a lot of food in the house. I can't eat that." But you have to be thinking, "Who can I give that to". It's weird, but I also like it because people are constantly giving gifts (to the point where it's rare that I don't receive something almost ever week).