Chinese Table Manners aka "You Ignorant Pig You!"
On many many occasions eating in a Chinese restaurant with my pig ignorant friends I've had to say "Don't play with your chopsticks" (they're usually drumming or cleaning an orifice) to which they reply "Why not?". "Because where I come from it's considered really rude like the same way I don't come to your house and piss on the kitchen table," I say. On the upside I could add the Chinese have a very positive attitude towards smoking while eating and spitting bones on the table...
Here's what it says on the Chinatown Online website about chopstick etiquette:
"Chopsticks should not be played with during a meal (for example banging them on the table), used for pointing or left standing up in a rice bowl. This latter resembles the positioning of jos sticks at a funeral and is considered bad luck. Chopsticks should not be used to root around in a dish to find nice morsels. Instead, one should locate the piece of food one wants by sight and then go straight for that morsel with the chopsticks, avoiding touching other food. It is acceptable to stand to reach a particular morsel you have set your sights on! Other bad mannered practices include using a spoon used for personal eating for serving from a communal plate or bowl.
"Several activities that may be considered bad manners in the West are acceptable in Chinese eating. These include spitting bones onto the table, belching, slurping noodles and soup and smoking at the same time as eating. A method of eating rice common in China that may seem unusual to Western eyes is to bring the bowl up to the lips and shovel the rice into the mouth rapidly with the chopsticks."
- Paul
November 2, 2004 in Admin Stuff | Permalink
Comments
I have been in China for nearly 7 months now and witnessed many incidents. The worst thing i have ever witnessed was 3 business men looking well respected and drinking, smoking. That was ok. Until 2 mins later one of them did arrrsh spit. SPITTING on the floor in a posh restuarant and the others started doing it. So discusting and way below human standarded. I felt sorry for the waiteress who was serving them they were treating her like shit. Last year i came as a photography student and took a trip to Beijing. I went into a restuarant. The staff were tutting, no smiles, i ordered the food and a coffee, the food came she just flung it on the table with no care. That was it. I literally put my chopsticks in a upright position in the bowl of rice. Which of course means the sign of death in Japan just to get back at them i handed it back to her saying Kueso which is very rude in Japanese for many reasons 'Bitch, F??k you, etc, and i left. I could go on with many stories. But i have made up my mind I will leave China and I will go to Japan to finish my gap year. Chinese people could learn a thing or two from the Japanese on how to give a good customer serivce.
Posted by: Derek B Buick | 4 Mar 2006 18:44:01
Not that going to Japan isn't good (I learn a few languages including Japanese), but the fact that you go on GAP for merely customer service is just sad -- in fact childish. How about just look at this behaviour from the cultural point of view?
Posted by: L | 16 May 2006 11:16:12
Btw, why did you say "kuso" in a Chinese restaurant? Surely no one would have understood you...?
Posted by: L | 16 May 2006 11:21:37
I lived in China for 4 years and I saw it all daily. The best one was a little boy taking a shit in the restaurant and his father putting a plate under it to catch it. The father then put the plate on a "clean" table and went about his dining business. No one even blinked.
Posted by: Pork Cop | 12 Jun 2006 00:04:45
hi i'm doing a school report on chinese foods and manners. does anyone have anything that could help me?
Posted by: y=mx+b | 10 Dec 2006 16:27:50
Hahaha Yes Pork Cop..I was in a shopping mall, one of those larger ones, with about 8/9 floors
And there was a little girl squating to take a piss at the foot of a column by the escalators, with her mother just standing next to her
Posted by: catherine | 28 May 2007 00:53:35
I've seen `repulsive` table manners in Europe as-well-as the more civilized areas of North America.
I've seen people lick their fingers and then place them back into a `common` plate without washing.
Yet.
Others go right into the same tray as if nothing happens. This happens during outdoor picnics and parties. Just take time to watch.
Posted by: agnustic | 19 Oct 2007 19:31:24
I am an Asian. I have seen several cultures in Asia. I can only say one thing: Chinese do not have table manners at all. Yes, sure they "drive" BMW, dress expensive cloths...But, when it comes to food, god, they turn into something nasty... So, i stick with Japanese, Thai, and other normal food and people.
Posted by: Ching Chang Chung | 25 Mar 2008 00:07:52
Im a Chinese myself and i cant eat with people who have no table manner. Especially those pigs who burp. It make me lose my appetite.
Posted by: Chink | 10 May 2008 12:23:23
Yes, licking your fingers and touching plates and SHITTING ON A PLATE can be compared.
Seriously I wouldnt care if I ate off a plate that still had germs on from someones fingers, but I would care if I ate off a plate that was shat on, and I wouldnt care how many times that plate was washed.
Posted by: not a chink | 23 May 2008 21:25:52
to Derek B Buick
well, this just shows your incompetent knowledge of proper chinese table manners.
why don't you look at real chinese table manners for a change?
and about your futile attempts to anger the waitress, i think it is really pathetic. why speak japanese in a chinese restaurant? and do not forget, japanese table manner originated from proper chinese table manners, and the chopstick is chinese.
your attitude shows that you do not deserve to use this elegant utensil.
Posted by: wanshin | 6 Nov 2008 11:10:49
Yeah......banging the chopsticks on the table......it looks like you are born in the wild and only a beggar almost going to die will act like that......you don't want to be called after names like that......right?
Posted by: A blur girl | 20 Mar 2009 07:08:47
lol, you people talk like it's the NORM to shit on plates in china. it really, really isn't, you absolute morons.
and just to put it out there, in the espresso bar i work in in sydney, australia, in an affluent and leafy suburb, I once found a mug of shit. so.
Posted by: billy | 6 Jul 2009 10:39:03
