Friday, May 1, 2015

FOOD TRIVIA: Eating in China.

When eating in China, the following rules apply:

Instead of a napkin, a hot towel is provided at the start, as well as at the end of the meal, for the diner tho wipe their hands and mouth.

Differently from the West where you have your own plate of food, in China, all dishes are placed on the table for everyone to share and diners eat directly from the communal plate using their chop sticks.

It is perfectly acceptable to reach across the table to take an item from a far away dish. This is why Chinese dining tables are square or round as opposed the the Western rectangular tables.


Eating usually begins in order of seniority, each diner taking the cue to start to eat from his or her immediate superior.

To eat rice, the diner raises the bowl, to their lips and pushes the grains into their mouths with their chopsticks.

The diner must eat all their rice since not doing so is to show lack of respect for the labor used to produce it. In order to cool soup and to diffuse the flavor in the mouth, soup is eaten by sipping from the spoon while breathing in.This produces a slurping sound that is taboo in the West.

 When you are furnished eating from one side of a fish served whole, DO NOT FLIP THE FISH. Instead, remove the bone and proceed to eat the other side.

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