If you ever spend some time in China, no matter what the purpose of your trip is and no matter how long you plan to stay, the following things are what you will do most:
- Say “ting bu dong” which means I don’t understand what you are saying
- Eat in order to survive
The first one is pretty easy to apply so we’ll talk about the second one. In a Chinese restaurant, some rules should drive your behavior. Let’s go through these with our imagination…
You are starving as you step in a restaurant with your Chinese friend who unfortunately does not speak a word of Chinese. That’s because in this story, I want you to be the one who orders the food. But still, your friend is here to notice you behave well.
So as you’ve read a lot about the country and its restaurants, you choose a not fancy one because you know they won’t try to fool you and that the food is going to be okay.
Entering the restaurant:
If you are in a city such as Dalian, the foreigners represent 0,0006% of the population, so people there get to see foreigners once in a never. As you get in, 25 customers raise their head and open their eyes wide, and the other 25 customers turn around as they were giving their back to the entrance, and put on their face the same E.T. eyes. At that moment the "laowai" sound starts to come up. Every single mouth says the word with an interval of 1 second so that it sounds like an echo to you, destabilizing. Thus, you figure out that in that place, they are not the closest ones to extraterrestrial life, but you are to them. At that point, several classics can help you. Either you grew up watching heroes such as Tony Montana in Scarface; thus, remembering the faces, you frighten the crowd with the well studied glance. Or you preferred E.T. when you were a kid, so you whisper “I want to go home”, pointing your passport with the lamp you have fixed to your finger earlier that day.
Ordering food:
The very first thing you should know is what you want to eat. Because once you are seated, the waitress will come with a piece of paper and wait right next to you, looking straight in your eyes, waiting for you to tell her what you are there for. Since there is no “Oh I’ll let you look at the menu and come back in 5 minutes”, there are three cases. You are an anxious person and you say the first meals you have in mind without thinking, in order to chase the waitress as fast as possible. Once calmed down, you think “damn stress made me order a chicken head and fried pork testicles” and you notice every customer around stares at you as if you were some kind of a warrior to eat that. If not anxious, you might be freshly out from Paris, thus you don’t know the meaning of the word “kindness”: you shout at the waitress “What are you looking at? Have you never seen a foreigner? Go away so that I can think! Damn it! Can’t I have any privacy in this country?”. In this case, the chances to have a sweet taste of spit in your rotten piece of beef are very high. Or finally, you have been clever and well prepared: you thought about your appetite on your way to the restaurant. When the waitress stands there, you take your best pronunciation out of your brain and say:
You are starving as you step in a restaurant with your Chinese friend who unfortunately does not speak a word of Chinese. That’s because in this story, I want you to be the one who orders the food. But still, your friend is here to notice you behave well.
So as you’ve read a lot about the country and its restaurants, you choose a not fancy one because you know they won’t try to fool you and that the food is going to be okay.
Entering the restaurant:
If you are in a city such as Dalian, the foreigners represent 0,0006% of the population, so people there get to see foreigners once in a never. As you get in, 25 customers raise their head and open their eyes wide, and the other 25 customers turn around as they were giving their back to the entrance, and put on their face the same E.T. eyes. At that moment the "laowai" sound starts to come up. Every single mouth says the word with an interval of 1 second so that it sounds like an echo to you, destabilizing. Thus, you figure out that in that place, they are not the closest ones to extraterrestrial life, but you are to them. At that point, several classics can help you. Either you grew up watching heroes such as Tony Montana in Scarface; thus, remembering the faces, you frighten the crowd with the well studied glance. Or you preferred E.T. when you were a kid, so you whisper “I want to go home”, pointing your passport with the lamp you have fixed to your finger earlier that day.
The very first thing you should know is what you want to eat. Because once you are seated, the waitress will come with a piece of paper and wait right next to you, looking straight in your eyes, waiting for you to tell her what you are there for. Since there is no “Oh I’ll let you look at the menu and come back in 5 minutes”, there are three cases. You are an anxious person and you say the first meals you have in mind without thinking, in order to chase the waitress as fast as possible. Once calmed down, you think “damn stress made me order a chicken head and fried pork testicles” and you notice every customer around stares at you as if you were some kind of a warrior to eat that. If not anxious, you might be freshly out from Paris, thus you don’t know the meaning of the word “kindness”: you shout at the waitress “What are you looking at? Have you never seen a foreigner? Go away so that I can think! Damn it! Can’t I have any privacy in this country?”. In this case, the chances to have a sweet taste of spit in your rotten piece of beef are very high. Or finally, you have been clever and well prepared: you thought about your appetite on your way to the restaurant. When the waitress stands there, you take your best pronunciation out of your brain and say:
- 15 jiaozi (Dumplings)
- 1 fish
- 2 bowls of rice
- 1 tea pot
- 10 big bottles of beer
Comments about your order:
The beer fulfills a very precise task here. In China, if you are with a male Chinese friend, drinking beer is similar to peeing as far as possible in Europe, or it can be compared to possessing the biggest penis, suit yourself. Anyway the more you have, better it is.
Ordering dumplings and rice stands as an irrational act in China because both meals are to accompany your main meal. But we need both for the story, so let the waitress think that foreigners cannot combine tastes.
Drinking:
Concerning tea, once your cup filled up, you should be careful when you put the pot back on the table in order to not point to any one with its beak. I let you find a place where to put the tea pot when you are having diner with 50 friends on a round table.
Concerning beer, as soon as a mouthful is missing in your glass, your Chinese friend will grab the bottle and fill it. At that moment, the war is engaged, glasses will never be empty anymore. Be as fast as you can if you don’t want to end up drunk: grab the bottle before he does. Be as discreet as you can when you drink, try to hide, find ways to distract your opponent. Even in Germany, beer does not go down as quick as in China. Something you must remember though, every emptied bottle should be aligned on the table in order to carry out the far pee contest to other tables.
Eating:
People rarely make selfish diners in China. The dishes are on the middle of the table and chopsticks battle to get the food. You must be civilized in your food conquest though. People who destroy the plate layout because they want to find the good piece are not appreciated. The trick is to locate the food in the plate before launching the chopsticks. Some meals such as soups are served with a spoon to be commonly used by everyone. You are supposed to fill your bowl with the spoon, but you are not supposed to keep the spoon, remember to put it back in the meal. Don’t throw it as if you were playing basketball. This common spoon habit was suspended during the SARS epidemic in Beijing and every one was selfish. Another general clue is the table friendship concept: feel free to serve your table companion. Taking a piece of something in the main plate and putting it into your friends bowl is a mark of friendship. Again, don’t forget to locate a nice peace (putting a bone in your friend’s bowl is not considered as friendship) and no throwing.
Okay last thing is about chopsticks. Your way to use chopsticks witnesses your interest in Asian cultures; your way to hold them is significant, but moreover, if you can pick them up from the table with one hand only (Watch yourself the next time you use chopsticks, trying to position them between your fingers) it means you often use chopsticks and thus you master the art. Try it, you’ll see. Some other rules drive chopsticks usage:
The beer fulfills a very precise task here. In China, if you are with a male Chinese friend, drinking beer is similar to peeing as far as possible in Europe, or it can be compared to possessing the biggest penis, suit yourself. Anyway the more you have, better it is.
Ordering dumplings and rice stands as an irrational act in China because both meals are to accompany your main meal. But we need both for the story, so let the waitress think that foreigners cannot combine tastes.
Drinking:
Concerning tea, once your cup filled up, you should be careful when you put the pot back on the table in order to not point to any one with its beak. I let you find a place where to put the tea pot when you are having diner with 50 friends on a round table.
Concerning beer, as soon as a mouthful is missing in your glass, your Chinese friend will grab the bottle and fill it. At that moment, the war is engaged, glasses will never be empty anymore. Be as fast as you can if you don’t want to end up drunk: grab the bottle before he does. Be as discreet as you can when you drink, try to hide, find ways to distract your opponent. Even in Germany, beer does not go down as quick as in China. Something you must remember though, every emptied bottle should be aligned on the table in order to carry out the far pee contest to other tables.
People rarely make selfish diners in China. The dishes are on the middle of the table and chopsticks battle to get the food. You must be civilized in your food conquest though. People who destroy the plate layout because they want to find the good piece are not appreciated. The trick is to locate the food in the plate before launching the chopsticks. Some meals such as soups are served with a spoon to be commonly used by everyone. You are supposed to fill your bowl with the spoon, but you are not supposed to keep the spoon, remember to put it back in the meal. Don’t throw it as if you were playing basketball. This common spoon habit was suspended during the SARS epidemic in Beijing and every one was selfish. Another general clue is the table friendship concept: feel free to serve your table companion. Taking a piece of something in the main plate and putting it into your friends bowl is a mark of friendship. Again, don’t forget to locate a nice peace (putting a bone in your friend’s bowl is not considered as friendship) and no throwing.
Okay last thing is about chopsticks. Your way to use chopsticks witnesses your interest in Asian cultures; your way to hold them is significant, but moreover, if you can pick them up from the table with one hand only (Watch yourself the next time you use chopsticks, trying to position them between your fingers) it means you often use chopsticks and thus you master the art. Try it, you’ll see. Some other rules drive chopsticks usage:
- Do not make big movements with your chopsticks, or do not use it to show someone.
- Do not plant your chopsticks in the food. It looks like the incense sticks used during the funeral ceremonies.
- Do not tap your bowl with your chopsticks. The sound reminds the beggar’s sound in the street.
Alright we are done with the general tips & tricks, let’s taste the dumplings first.
Each guest has a small plate to compose his own sauce in. I like some spices bathing in soy sauce, but you can have vinegar with garlic if you prefer. Once you got your mixture ready, you can grab a dumpling in the common plate and enjoy its dance in your sauce. The danger is here, precisely. Dumplings are not sticky but slippery; they easily escape your chopsticks and land in your sauce, giving a soy sauced design to your clothes. Many experiments underlined two solutions to soy attacks, you can either chose one or combine them. First, keep a distance between you and your sauce, 50cm is enough. Then, in the empty land, place obstacles to hold the splashed sauce. You may choose your rice bowl or your glass, but I’d rather put 2-3 bottles of beer. You can even adopt a multi layered protection with the glasses on the front line, followed by the bottles behind. The second solution comes naturally. As a well educated European, your table habit is to stand straight on your chair with both hands on the table. Well, in China, you’ll notice that you are sliding down more and more every day. First your hand disappears from the table surface, than you begin to get closer to that surface with your face. The utopian position completely hides your clothes under the table and lets your face receive all the sauce. But this position requires a lot of experience and training.
The two methods described here guarantee a full protection when combined. Of course you can always plant your chopstick in the dumpling but that looks amateur and we want to look Chinese.
It’s time to give the fish a try. I let you find your own method to get rid of the bones using chopsticks. The only thing you must know is that once you have eaten one side of the fish, you should not turn it upside down. People believe that the next boat you’ll see will capsize if you turn a fish upside down. Just take the bones off and keep eating.
We are done with behavior matters, but you should know that besides all these rules, you are free to do some stuff you would not dare doing in Europe. In many restaurants, you may spit on the ground and make awful sounds with your throat. Who cares? As long as you feel good and healthy, evacuate all the bad stuff you have in your body. Another thing you can do is talking loud enough so that the deaf across the street hears you. But don’t feel free that much! Snuffing at the table is impolite and disgusting to Chinese people; you should try to gently, silently, and discretely clean your nose instead. The last freedom is putting your trash on the table: bones, plastics, non eatable material, smoked cigarettes, ashes...Anything you want. This takes us to another rule though: do never touch the table with something you want to keep clean. If your chopsticks or some food fall on the table, you must pick it up within 3 seconds or leave it there. The 3 seconds is a result of our serious studies. We’ve observed that it takes 3 seconds to the microbes to jump on chopsticks and food.
Final point, being a guest to a Chinese friend brings two more rules. First, always leave some food in your bowl. If you don’t, it means you are still hungry. Anyway you’ll see yourself that your host keeps bringing food as long as you eat it. This rule can be meanly used by capitalist Europeans: in the restaurants nearby our school, we get more and more filled plates every time we eat. We figured out it was because we never left anything on the table, and now, we are using them to eat more. Last rule is for your host’s wellbeing: stop eating. Your host will accompany your diner, he’ll keep eating as long as you do. If you observe that he does not look good and wants to puke, save him by saying “I’m full”.
Each guest has a small plate to compose his own sauce in. I like some spices bathing in soy sauce, but you can have vinegar with garlic if you prefer. Once you got your mixture ready, you can grab a dumpling in the common plate and enjoy its dance in your sauce. The danger is here, precisely. Dumplings are not sticky but slippery; they easily escape your chopsticks and land in your sauce, giving a soy sauced design to your clothes. Many experiments underlined two solutions to soy attacks, you can either chose one or combine them. First, keep a distance between you and your sauce, 50cm is enough. Then, in the empty land, place obstacles to hold the splashed sauce. You may choose your rice bowl or your glass, but I’d rather put 2-3 bottles of beer. You can even adopt a multi layered protection with the glasses on the front line, followed by the bottles behind. The second solution comes naturally. As a well educated European, your table habit is to stand straight on your chair with both hands on the table. Well, in China, you’ll notice that you are sliding down more and more every day. First your hand disappears from the table surface, than you begin to get closer to that surface with your face. The utopian position completely hides your clothes under the table and lets your face receive all the sauce. But this position requires a lot of experience and training.
The two methods described here guarantee a full protection when combined. Of course you can always plant your chopstick in the dumpling but that looks amateur and we want to look Chinese.
It’s time to give the fish a try. I let you find your own method to get rid of the bones using chopsticks. The only thing you must know is that once you have eaten one side of the fish, you should not turn it upside down. People believe that the next boat you’ll see will capsize if you turn a fish upside down. Just take the bones off and keep eating.
We are done with behavior matters, but you should know that besides all these rules, you are free to do some stuff you would not dare doing in Europe. In many restaurants, you may spit on the ground and make awful sounds with your throat. Who cares? As long as you feel good and healthy, evacuate all the bad stuff you have in your body. Another thing you can do is talking loud enough so that the deaf across the street hears you. But don’t feel free that much! Snuffing at the table is impolite and disgusting to Chinese people; you should try to gently, silently, and discretely clean your nose instead. The last freedom is putting your trash on the table: bones, plastics, non eatable material, smoked cigarettes, ashes...Anything you want. This takes us to another rule though: do never touch the table with something you want to keep clean. If your chopsticks or some food fall on the table, you must pick it up within 3 seconds or leave it there. The 3 seconds is a result of our serious studies. We’ve observed that it takes 3 seconds to the microbes to jump on chopsticks and food.
