Sep 25, 2012 from Christina

[In Level 1 Preface], please help me clarify if we need to specify in parenthesis that Western Etiquette is mainly North American?

There are three certification levels: Level 1 Corporate Basic focuses on Western Etiquette (mainly North American unless explicitly stated otherwise). Level 2 Corporate Standard focuses on International Etiquette. Level 3 Corporate Advanced focuses on International Etiquette, and Self-Cultivation.

Patrick's response (Sep21,2012): Yes, there were much discussion about this in the earlier days. As European etiquette could be quite varied between regions, it was thought that a logical place to start for Level 1 would be on North American etiquette. The other reason was that there is already much influence of North American culture on the international scene.

Although to many parts of the world, "Western" and "North American" may seem to mean pretty much the same thing, by explicitly stating that Level 1 focuses on North American, we are hoping that our European users will not be misled into thinking we are painting everything with a broad brush, but rather we are focusing on a specific, although large, sub-group within the definition of "Western".

Hope this makes sense,