 Being polite and respectful is important in both Taiwan and the West. In both places, there are rules of behavior that you should follow if you don't want to offend people. These rules sometimes appear very similar, and people from both cultures might show their respect to someone in exactly the same way. Despite this, however, the Taiwanese system of etiquette is sometimes very different from the Western system. As a result, somebody from one culture might easily offend somebody from the other without ever intending to. In Taiwanese society, there are clear rules regarding social standing. Parents, older siblings, teachers, and bosses have a higher position and should be respected. In the West, however, the idea of social standing has lost most of its importance over the last 200 years. Nowadays, everyone is supposed to be fairly respectful of everyone else. So, although bosses have a higher status than employees, they're still expected to respect their workers. If they don't, they probably won't be treated very well by their employees. Older brothers and sisters don't really have a higher position in a family than their younger siblings, and elderly people actually sometimes receive less rather than more respect. In many Taiwanese families, men have a higher standing than women, but things are changing and the gap between the sexes isn't as big as it used to be. Yet even in modern Taiwan, there are still cases of men and women being treated differently by family members. During family occasions, it is usually the women who prepare and serve the food while the men sit back and relax. In the past, it was even thought that a man would be humiliating himself by stepping into a kitchen. In the West, there are some families where these kinds of gender differences still exist, but they are usually regarded as old fashioned. In addition to all of this, there are many actions that might be perfectly acceptable in one culture but vulgar or offensive in another. A lot of them concern food and how it should be eaten. To a Westerner, it might seem convenient to just stick your chopsticks into your bowl of food when you're not using them, but doing this would be a mistake. A pair of chopsticks sticking up from a bowl look like sticks of incense offered to a dead ancestor, so this action would be very offensive to those at the same table. In Taiwan, many people hold their food bowls towards their mouths when eating, but this is considered uncivilized in the West, where it's also unacceptable to drink soup directly from a bowl or to put your knife in your mouth. In Taiwan, four is a very unlucky number because in Chinese, it sounds like the word for “death” or “die.” As a result, some apartment buildings and almost all hospitals do not have a fourth floor. In the West, however, the number 13 is considered unlucky. One possible reason for this is that there were 13 people at Jesus Christ's last meal. 台灣和西方都很重視禮貌和尊重。在這兩個地方都要遵守一些行為準則，才不會得罪人。其中有些規則雷同，來自兩種文化的人表達尊重的方式如出一轍。儘管如此，台灣的禮儀制度與西方偶有極大的不同。其中這方文化的人無意間便容易冒犯到來自另一文化的人。 台灣的社會對於社會地位有著明確的規範。父母、兄姐、老師、老闆的地位較高， 要予以尊敬。西方國家這200 年來已不再那麼重視社會地位。時至今日，人人都應該完全互相尊重。儘管老闆的地位高於員工，還是要尊重員工，不尊重員工的老闆，員工大概也不會服從。兄姐在家中的地位不見得高於弟妹們，老人實際上受到的敬愛不一定比較多，反而被忽略。 許多台灣家庭裡，男人地位高於女人，這樣的情況正在改變，兩性之間的差距已不若以往那麼大。然而即便在現代台灣，家人對待男女的差別待遇仍時有所聞。家庭聚會時，通常是女人煮飯、端菜，男人則翹著二郎腿、悠閒地等開飯。過去連男人進廚房都是一件不光彩的事。西方有些家庭也依舊存在這樣的性別差異，不過通常被認為是守舊的家庭。 除此之外，還有許多行為在一個文化中完全被接受，可是在另一文化看來卻是粗 俗而無禮，其中很多都跟食物和用餐方式有關。對西方人來說，筷子不用時插進裝食物的碗裡是稀鬆平常，但這麼做可能就錯了。把一雙筷子直挺挺地插進碗裡，看起來就像是插香祭拜祖先，對同桌吃飯的人來說是非常無禮的舉動。台灣許多人吃飯時會把碗端到嘴邊，但是西方人認為這種吃法很沒教養。直接從碗裡喝湯或是把刀子放進嘴裡，也是西方人無法接受的行為。 在台灣，「4」是很不吉利的數字，因為中文的「4」聽起來很像「死」。因此，有些公寓大廈以及幾乎所有的醫院都沒有四樓。但是在西方，「13」才是不吉利的數字，有可能是因為耶穌的最後晚餐時，同桌用餐的人數為13 人。 | 
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