The Differences Between Chinese and Western Table Manners
Of course, the main difference on the Chinese dinner table is chopsticks instead of knife and fork, but that's only superficial. Besides, in decent restaurants, you can always ask for a pair of knife and fork, if you find the chopsticks not helpful enough.
The real difference is that in the West, you have your own plate of food, while in China the dishes are placed on the table and everyone shares. If you are being treated to a formal dinner and particularly if the host thinks you're in the country for the first time, he will do the best to give you a taste of many different types of dishes.
The meal usually begins with a set of at least four cold dishes, to be followed by the main courses of hot meat and vegetable dishes. Soup then will be served (unless in Guangdong style restaurants) to be followed by staple food ranging from rice, noodles to dumplings.
If you wish to have your rice to go with other dishes, you should say so in good time, for most of the Chinese choose to have the staple food at last or have none of them at all.
Perhaps one of the things that surprises a Western visitor most is that some of the Chinese hosts like to put food into the plates of their guests. In formal dinners, there are always "public" chopsticks and spoons for this purpose, but some hosts may use their own chopsticks. This is a sign of genuine friendship and politeness. It is always polite to eat the food. If you do not eat it, just leave the food in the plate.
People in China tend to over-order food, for they will find it embarrassing if all the food is consumed. When you have had enough, just say so. Or you will always overeat!
Chinese table manners of families have no intrinsic quality even there are different region and position. No matter three meals a day or guest’s arrival, always bowls with chopsticks, food with soup. There is no rule for how to put the tableware. What people care about more are not the gorgeous tableware but the sumptuous food. People’s dining position reflects the most obvious etiquette of Chinese table manners. In ancient society, men are supreme, and women are not allowed to sit with men on the same table. Although this is modern society, this kind of ancient etiquette still remains. Today in China, the phenomenon that men sit on the table before women can be found everywhere. The master of a family usually sits on the first-class seat. The first-class seat is usually near the interior of a room facing to the door. Once there is a guest, the master will offer the first-class seat to the guest politely. If it is an ordinary meal of family, families should start after the elder. If there is a guest, the master offer the food to the guest is essential from the beginning to the end. And the tradition of urging others to drink is also a special phenomenon.
Even there is no official “table manners’ in china, while there is “eating behavior”. Once there is “eating behavior”, there must be some eating manners up to standard.
Here are some characteristics on Chinese eating:
a. Keep your eyes on the meal, especially at the beginning of the meal.
b. When eating, keep your bodies forward, and face to your food.
c. It is allowed to spit the bone on the tables.
d. When chewing, it is allowed to make some rhythmical noisy of chewing.
e. Traditional Chinese meal doesn’t need the public chopsticks.
f. Traditional Chinese meal doesn’t have the sweet snacks after meal.
B. Western countries’ table manners
The biggest difference in table manners between Chinese and western is the details of table manners can be as clear as the specifications what can exactly give people correct manners to refer to.
Here are several typical manners what can illustrate the rigor of Western-style food.
a. The western-style food official drinks the soup posture request to enter in advanced the soup with the ladle to oneself far that one side, then to leaves the direction which oneself goes far away to delimit lightly abundantly.
b. When dines in the process, if you need to put down the knife, the edge faces oneself assumes in the plate as 10 o’clock shape. The tool bit is the hand of a clock, the hilt is the minute hand); the jaw buckles in the edge of a sword, the jaw direction 2 o’clock. The knife and fork assumes but actually V glyph. But V glyph knife and fork places the tray lower part (to depend on your direction).
c. The knife with forks parallel places in the plate 5 o'clock positions when dines finished. Approximately the knife or forks the total length 1/3 handle department dew in tray edge exterior. The fork downward buckle on the plate, the knife’s edge faces to you.
d. When eats the bread, must tear down the bread may by an entrance scrap. May not nip directly with the mouth. The butter should in before you put in the mouth. Do not wipe beforehand the entire bread the full butter.
e. The American tableware arrangement is: Center is big plant for the main meal, knife (Altogether three: the sand broach, the main table knife, the fish knife, all knife edges face to left) and spoon in right side.
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