Do the Xi'an have particular taboos that we should be aware of? Anything that would be a bad idea when you meet a Xi'an, like don't do this, don't bow halfway, don't say happy Father's Day?

They wouldn't really, I mean, they'd be like, oh yeah, my cool uncle, yeah, happy day to him, he rules. But I suppose that they don't really understand our propensity towards emotional exuberance upon first meeting. They just think it's really weird that we act so enthusiastic and really emotionally open when we've just met someone, and even in early subsequent meetings, because in their culture you only really show who you are deep down and what you were feeling about a situation once you've gotten to know someone over a long period of time. And once you get to that point, then they'll let loose with the jokes and they'll tease you and you'll tease them back and forth, or they'll let loose with their opinion on something. But the fact that we do it so easily, it kind of puts them off. They don't really get it.

Yeah, there are certain taboos. One I can remember that's called out in the language document is that if people don't talk about their biological father, don't ever ask. You don't ask someone, who is your biological father? If the biological father is not relevant to the pyahai and they're not there in the picture, you just don't ask about it. I would consider that a taboo.

Yeah, and it's considered very rude to ask anybody about their family lineage. Yeah, of course it's important to my life, but it's like, I don't know, I don't know what I would compare it to in the culture that I'm immersed in.

It's just weird. It's weird in the sense that the lines, the families, the houses are super important to them. I mean, it's kind of like everything, because it determines so many things about your wealth and your potential in life, depending on which house you belong to. But it's considered rude to talk about it. So when you first introduce yourself, you say, I am so-and-so of the so-and-so line and I'm a truck driver for a living. That's what you say. But then you don't talk about your last name. You don't talk about your family name anymore after that first introduction. So that's different. Dwelling on that and asking too many questions about that, or referring to somebody repeatedly as, oh, you're so-and-so of House Twail, and talking about House Twail and this and that about House Twail all the time, that would be taboo. I mean, that would be rude. That would be super, super rude. There would be some odd kind of positioning going on if you were doing that.

Yeah, I guess I would compare it to if you come up to someone and they tell you, oh, I do such and such for a living. You shake their hand: so how much money do you make? And then harping on about that over and over again. I think that's an apt comparison.

Yeah, that would probably be a similar type of taboo. If somebody said, oh, I'm so-and-so and I'm a lawyer at XYZ firm, and they're like, well, what's your compensation? If that were the next question, that would be a similar kind of thing. How much did they pay you to do that there? That would not be good.