Certain customs regarding good and bad luck are important to many Chinese people.
Giving a clock (Chinese: 送鐘/送钟; pinyin: sòng zhōng) is often taboo, especially to the elderly as the term for this act is a homophone with the term for the act of attending another's funeral, "to send off for one's end" (Chinese: 送終/送终; pinyin: sòngzhōng).
[1][2][3] In 2015, a UK government official, Susan Kramer, gave a watch to Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je and was unaware of the taboo, which resulted in some professional embarrassment and a pursuant apology.
That being said, this taboo does not apply to smaller items such as watches, as they are not called zhōng in most parts of China, unlike clocks and large bells[contradictory].
[6] This homonymic pair works in Cantonese and Mandarin, with the avoidance particularly common in Cantonese-speaking areas.