Chinese Dining Etiquette
This is an easily digestible video series (excuse the pun, ha-ha) on Chinese Dining Etiquette for Westerners wanting to navigate the etiquette of dining with the Chinese, either as guests in China or as hosts inviting Chinese to your home. The expert giving the advice is an American business consultant who has a couple of decades worth of experience living in China, Mark Kemsley.
The one below is a short clip on the minefield of ordering a meal when you go to a restaurant with others in China — it all hinges on whether you are a guest or host as to whether you get to order or not.
Chinese Dining Etiquette: Ordering Meals — powered by ExpertVillage.com
I had never thought of it before but when we’ve been out for a formal Chinese dinner with family friends in Malaysia and arrive as guests, the meal has usually already been ordered beforehand or we settle down to chatting round the table while the host has a long and complicated discussion with the majordomo about the menu, occasionally asking us about any favourite dishes we might like to have. If my parents are the host, then my mother would be the one in charge of ordering beforehand by phone or organising the menu when we arrive.
One of the things that the business consultant does not mention in the video is the fight over the bill after the meal. Often, at these big Chinese family dinners there is a lot of excited scurrying about towards the end of the meal as the head of the guest family tries to pay for the meal in advance of the head of the host family. This usually involves a feint move with the guest pretending to go to the gents but then pausing to have a whispered conversation with the majordomo to surreptitiously pass over wads of bills in payment. This means that the host has to be on guard during the last course of the meal in order to parry this move by going over to pay first, or to have agreed a secret pact with the restaurant in advance that they should not to accept payment from anyone but the host. I guess it must be an honour thing among men but I have to say, I find it all very silly watching the various patriarchs duking it out with their wallets at the end of an otherwise pleasant evening! Perhaps I’m just too westernised but it seems to me much more civilised to allow the host to pay for the meal this time and to get the bill the next time when you’re hosting the meal…
But then, as Mr Kemsley suggests towards the end of the video, such dinners are as much to do with money as it is to do with spending time with friends or family. As the host, you need to make sure that you are seen to spend money on your guest by ordering the most expensive dishes — so presumably the corollary for the guest is to show that you, too, are generous and wealthy enough to treat your host.
I’m curious to hear from my Chinese readers what your take is on all this. Have I missed some of the cultural subtleties in my westernised view? I’d also like to hear your experiences, if you are a Westerner who has navigated Chinese dining etiquette — are there any nuances or cultural differences that have struck you?
You can also compare all this with English Dining Etiquette by taking a look at my post on The English Dinner Party
- Posted on
Mon, October 27th, 2008 - Author
Yang-May Ooi - Category
- 12 responses
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October 27th, 2008 at 10:23 pm
I’m probably as westernised as yourself, and am all too familiar with the bill paying scenarios you’ve described. It happens typically with my parent’s generations. Now as my generation are getting older (and much more capable of footing the bill, alas!) I find myself either paying directly or politely offering to pay.
I used to and still think that my parent’s generation see it as a materialistic status thing - to show you have money. But I don’t see it that way. In fact, I’d rather be more discreet about it. For me, offering to pay has more to do with thanking the guest for something they’ve done in the past (or even something I hope they’ll do in the future!). All in a genuine way of course.
Also, I sometimes leave the last piece, but never hesitate as much, as it could be wasting food!
All in all, I think depending on who I eat with and how “Chinese” they are, I adopt a mixed approach to dining etiquette.
October 28th, 2008 at 6:42 am
I have faced the same customs you have described on my visits to Malaysia from the USA. Every ruse or tactic I have used to pay the bill has been thwarted.
Once, arriving at the restaurant before the host, I thought I had a solution that couldn’t miss. I gave the cashier my credit card and insisted that the bill be charged to it at the end of the dinner. When my host asked for the bill he was told it had already been taken care of. He switched to Chinese and must have given the manager a dressing down, because the manager went to the cashier, retrieved my receipt and card, returned to the table very chastened, tore up my receipt and took my host’s card instead.
I enjoy those discussions the host has with the maitre d’ before and during the meal to discuss and modify the menu as the dinner progresses.
October 29th, 2008 at 6:12 am
I love this post…but want to hear more. For instance when I came to Australia I was quite overwhelmed by the way people frequently ate with their fingers and licked them while eating. I came from a family who just about eat everything with a knife and fork…even a drumstick.
Eating says so much about a culture. I liked Xinran Xue’s “What the Chinese don’t eat”. I am keen to read more comments.
October 29th, 2008 at 11:46 am
Mark - I wonder if there is another layer to all this. Do you feel the increasing pressure as you get older because as a man, you are now moving towards patriarch status? Whereas, I don’t feel as great a pressure or feel more able to resist it as a woman because there is less expectation on me to pay for stuff…?
Louis - my goodness, you’re using guerilla tactics there! Maybe hosts need to whisk their guests in future and take away their cash and credit cards before the meal, just in case.
Carol - I probably shock all my Western friends as I often pick up boned chicken pieces to munch away. My friends are no doubt much too polite to tell me how rude I’m being…
October 31st, 2008 at 1:15 pm
I used to eat out with my wife’s family to treat my parents-in-laws in PJ/Klang since my own siblings were living elsewhere. There was always a tacit agreement among the married siblings (with their better halves) to share in the expenses, thus doing away with any last-minute jostling to foot the bill. With friends in gatherings, we always go Dutch. If we were the hosts, the guests would know beforehand who would “do the east” in popular Chinese parlance. Thus, none of the token offers to settle the bill as the guests would not want the host to lose face. Conversely if we were the guests, the same dining etiquette applies.
When we moved to the US, we transplated the same practice and that has served us well. Sometimes complications may arise because we follow a Buddhist ten-day-per-month vegetarian diet but we have always been tactful not to impose on our hosts and would just ago along but would make up for the “lost days” on some other days on our own.
Occasionally my office would host luncheon talks but the office manager would always order some vegetarian meals just in case some of us are vegetarians, part-time or otherwise.
November 2nd, 2008 at 11:28 am
Say Lee - your arrangements with your friends and siblings seem very sensible. Taking the stress out of payment etiquette means that everyone can relax and enjoy each other’s company, which can only be a good thing!
November 3rd, 2008 at 2:48 am
One thing I should point out though from one of the clips is that it’s not okay to pick up a piece of food and take a bite and put it back on the plate. It’s definitely frowned upon. I would feel uncomfortable if someone did that, and also if someone is picking at the food on the plate with their own chopsticks and not actually pick it up. This plate of food is shared with everyone, and mainly because it’s not hygenic. I’ve seen a few Western friends do that, but it’s awkward to say that it’s pretty rude to do something like that without making them feel awkward, catch 22 and all that. Even with the approach of telling them about Chinese dining etiquette beforehand, they just don’t take it into account. I just hope it does not mean that my friends are ignorant, but it’s something that’s engrained into me when I was growing up. (Ok, I’ll end the rant now ;) ).
November 3rd, 2008 at 3:29 pm
Hi Vicky - yuk, the habit of putting food back on the shared plate is disgusting… Even if food is not put back, people using their own chopsticks/ spoons that have their saliva on it to help themselves from the shared plate is a definite no-no. A wave of hepatitis swept through Asia at one time becuase of shared plates. We usually make sure that we get spare spoons from the waiters for dishing up and put them on the shared plates.
November 4th, 2008 at 1:23 am
Yeah, I’ll add that bit of info next time I’m out with non-Chinese friends. They find it strange that I always ask for another pair of chopsticks or spoons for communal use.
Another thing is not to poke and pry for a piece of food on the far side of the plate that is away from you. Oh, and not pick up food over or under another person’s hand, arm, chopstick. Heh, all these little things we take for granted, but feel a bit strange telling grown up folks not to do.
November 4th, 2008 at 11:54 am
Quote:
…another pair of chopsticks or spoons for communal use.
My favourite restaurant does that every time, sometimes a fork provided in lieu of chopsticks and sometimes a large or long spoon for ease of use.
Remember, at the height of the SARS epidemic, people wouldn’t even shake hands, an omission also encouraged by the authorities.
I thought the hepatitis that you mention, Yang-May, is the far less serious A variety that
can be contracted through eating particularly contaminated or insufficiently cooked seafood, why do you think the Chinese do NOT eat raw oysters that Westerners are so
fond of doing?
November 4th, 2008 at 9:09 pm
Re my stuff, better words used would have been ” a refrain” instead of ” an omission”, “consuming” instead of “doing”, last word.
November 5th, 2008 at 8:39 am
“… it’s not okay to pick up a piece of food and take a bite and put it back on the plate.”
Nobody does that in reality, so why bring it up?