Take A Gift?
When I invited VIP members of the British Club and American Women's Association to lunch, I was quite surprised when they arrived with a wrapped gift for me. Sometimes, I presumed, this was because it was considered the done thing to reciprocate with a gift always. In that case, if they invited me for lunch, I should find a suitable gift to take for them when I visited their club or home.
Alternatively, I wondered if the gift might be brought because they were leaving the country, or for the next few months. Therefore they were unlikely to be able to reciprocate with a lunch invitation. So they had brought me a gift instead.
Singapore Clubs and Associations
In Singapore the American club rules require a certain proportion of the membership to be Americans. Depending on the international economic and employment situation, the waiting list and annual membership and joining fees may go up or down. If you are not an American passport holder, you may have to go on a waiting list. However, ladies can join the American Women's Association. You cannot use the pool unless you are guest of a member (who had to pay a fee for you).
But you can attend certain functions at the club. These may include annual dinners in the restaurants for groups such as a book group, or bridge group. Members of the ladies association and their husbands will usually be invited.
When I first arrived in Singapore, I had no family or friends in Singapore and because I was not working I had not work colleagues and nothing to do all day. I was really happy to invite any acquaintance to the club for a drink or coffee or lunch or dinner.
The people most likely to respond were the senior members of the American Women's Association, the movers and shakers, the people who organised the book groups, the bridge clubs, the Friends of the Museum, the Australian Women's Association, the Australian Women's Association sewing group, the American Club newspaper or Australian club newspaper editors, members of the local journalists' associations, local writers and authors and book club members or the British club womens' association book club organisers.
Japanese Reciprocation
I soon found that the Japanese ladies would eat only a one course meal and no drinks. However, they would invite me back to the Japanese club, or to their homes for tea.
When I invited the Japanese ladies to my home for tea, they brought a small cake or gift exquisitely wrapped in fancy paper with a bow or origami design on top and a hand written note of thanks in gold Italic writing.
Inviting people to dinner at a club is an alternative if you have no home because you are in transit at a small hotel, staying with friends, waiting for your furniture to arrive at a rented flat, or just suffering from jet lag.
Inviting People Home
You may be invited back to somebody's home, for example in Singapore. Americans in the Far East often hold pot luck parties. They insist that everybody takes away leftovers.
People who know each other instead often take a gift such as a fancy notebook or photo frame.
People who can't get babysitters or give their maid / amah the day off on Sunday might turn down an invitation to go out for dinner on Sunday night but invite you over for dinner on a Sunday night. You might offer to take wine and dessert if they are supplying the main course, nibbles and pre-dinner drinks.
You don't want to be the only person to arrive empty handed at a Japanese ladies tea party. If you are invited to tea or dinner with the Japanese, you might like to buy a small item from a Japanese store and tell them it is a gift, so that they can add suitable wrapping.
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer.
Author of How To Get Out Of The Mess You're In.
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