Chinese Dining Etiquette: Ordering Meals

Video Transcript

Hi, my name is Mark Kemsley. We're talking about the etiquette of meals in China. And, ordering meals is something that you need to understand a little bit about. If you're invited to a meal, it's often the case that by the time you get there, the host will already have ordered. Or, if you invite somebody and you arrive first, you may want to order first, before the guests arrive. But, if you arrive at the same time and it's time to sit down and order, and you are the guest, well you should let the host do the ordering. You should not do the ordering. He may ask for suggestions and what you would like to eat, and that would be fine to let him know, but let the host do the ordering. And, if you are ordering, this is something goes against maybe things that you learned when you were young. Did you ever hear your parents say "think of the poor, starving children in China, eat all your food?" Well, actually in China they don't eat all their food. When you are the host and you're ordering food, you need to order more than enough food for everybody to eat, otherwise, it's just not very polite. And, if you are the guest side of this, and there's a big meal here, in each dish, never take the last piece, leave it there so the host will feel that he ordered more than enough food. Now, if you're doing the ordering and you pick up a menu, it's very likely that you won't be able to read a thing that's on it. Some menu's have pictures, not all of them do. So, you should have a Chinese person with you, maybe your interpreter, whoever is accompanying you on this trip to do the ordering for you, if you are the host. Now, one thing that I said was to order plenty of food, so there is a lot left over after the meal, but another thing that is very important is to be sure you order seafood, because somebody might feel offended if you do, if you order just beef or pork or vegetables. They might feel you are not spending very much money on them, it's much more prestigious to be invited to a meal that has seafood served.

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