What is politeness? This sounds like a simple question. In daily life, we often make judgments about what is polite and what is not polite. For example, to offer your seat to the elderly on a bus is considered polite behavior, and to interrupt when someone is talking is considered impolite; to greet someone the first time you meet him in the morning is polite and to stand up to reach for the dish you want at a dinner table is impolite. So politeness can first of all be regarded as a phenomenon, an observable social phenomenon. What I would like to propose is that as an observable social phenomenon, politeness is something superficial, but to account for what is understood at the surface, we should dig into the depth where different cultural values are rooted. When being complimented  , an English-speaking person would readily accept the compliment by saying something like "Thank you" to show his appreciation of the praise, but a Chinese speaker would try to deny the truth of the compliment. They both think they are behaving properly. Yet neither of them would think the other is being polite. The English speaker is being polite to the extent that by accepting and showing appreciation of the compliment, and he avoids hurting the positive face of the person who makes it; the Chinese speaker is showing modesty by  _ himself, ignoring the fact of the compliment paid to him. As has been mentioned, self-denigration has been at the core of the Chinese understanding of politeness for over two thousand years. The Chinese, in order to show modesty, will go to such lengths as to underrate what he himself has achieved and deny the truth of a complimentary remark. What's the author's attitude towards Chinese politeness?
Approving. Objective. Optimistic. Critical