The Do's and Don'ts of Giving Gifts Across the World

I buy and sell gifts from different parts of the world and I’ve always been aware that traditions surrounding giving and receiving gifts vary widely. What I haven’t known until now, is what some of those traditions are.

I did some research to find out and discovered a great interactive map and ‘handy’ infographic from Cloud 9 Living, a quiz from Wisc-Online and a blog from the Massachusetts BayTrading Company that helped me enormously. 

For example, did you know that England and Sweden have the most gift-giving holidays at five per year and Zimbabwe and China have the least with just one per year?

I’m sure, like me, you suspected that December and January are the months of the year when the most gifts are given. What with Christmas, Hannukah , Yule and Pancha Ganapati (to name just a few) falling in those months, it was bound to be and the infographic confirms it.

Apart from these interesting facts, I also discovered some useful information on the differences in gift giving etiquette and the symbolism that lies behind the etiquette.

Here are a few do’s and don’ts from different countries:

•  If you go to Sweden and get an invitation to visit a family’s house, make sure you take gifts for their children. Sweden is a family orientated country and it pays to remember that when buying gifts.

• If you visit Russia and want to give flowers, make sure you don’t give an even number as even numbers are for funerals. It could be easy to miss one in a large bunch so maybe a smaller bunch would be more manageable – just something to consider.

• In China it’s important to wrap your gift and decorate it with ribbon. The colour of the ribbon has significance with red being the correct colour for everyday gifts, black and white for funerals and gold and silver for weddings. Red is a lucky colour in China so bear that in mind when buying wrapping paper for an everyday gift as well.

•  Hosts in France like to serve their own choice of wine so take something else when invited to dinner. France is country famous for its wines so it’s understandable. In fact, it pays to find out what a country is famous for before buying a gift. For example, Mexico is a silver producing country so it would be a good idea to avoid silver gifts.

• Never give anything made from cows in India as the cow is a sacred animal. The same goes in a Muslim country where a gift made from pigskin would be a mistake.

• When giving a gift in Japan, it’s important to play down your gift as this is seen as being humble, a valued trait in Japanese society. In fact, Japan has quite a few gift giving and receiving rules and protocols so maybe a bit of research would be in order before purchasing a gift for your Japanese friends or colleagues.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, more of a glimpse really, into the symbolism and tradition that surrounds the giving and receiving of gifts around the world. 

This is a fascinating topic so I might do some more research and try and dig deeper into the reasons behind different traditions in future blogs.

Have you got any gift giving tips for your country? 

Share them with me by leaving a comment.