Chinese Dining Etiquette: Drinking

Video Transcript

Hi, my name is Mark Kemsley. We're talking about the etiquette of meals in China. And, drinking is a very important part of that etiquette. Chinese people like to drink, of course, this is a generalization as is everything we're talking about here, but for the most part it's, it's really something that the Chinese people look forward to, and they enjoy drinking together. Now, at a meal, often throughout the meal there is something takes place that is toasting. Now, this toasting is a little bit different from America, you don't stand up and get attention with a spoon and then make some kind of speech. Normally, when you have a toast, you would just toast a specific person, like anytime during the meal. Sometime during the meal if President John were sitting here next to me, I would just raise my glass to President John and say "President John, it's really nice to, to be with you this evening", just something, something very simple, very nice, and then to touch glasses together. When you touch your glasses, it's important that you drop your hand a little bit, so the rim of your glass touches below, so onto the body of his glass. So, it shows that you're humble and inferior to him, pull your glass down and touch it a little bit lower than the position where it is on his glass. And, he may be doing the same thing with you, depending on what the situation is. So, this is something to understand but, more important, often unlike western meals, in a Chinese dinner situation, it turns into more than just simple toasting. Toasting is something that happens throughout the night, people will toast each other all night long, and, and kind of a rule is, is that everybody at the table sort of has to toast everybody else at the table, individually, sometime during the meal. But, sometimes it goes a little further with all this toasting going on, people start to get drunk and a meal like this can actually get very rambunctious, people will play drinking games and do, do other things like that. And, that?s a good thing or not, I guess it depends on what your objectives are and what you're doing at the meal. But, I want you to know something, sometimes people say that you simply cannot do business in China, if you don't drink and that's not true. You can refuse to drink, people will ask you to and they will repeatedly ask you to but, if you're not Chinese, I refer to it as a foreigner, because that's what Chinese call everybody who?s not Chinese, if you're a foreigner, then you have an excuse, they don't understand your culture. It's easy for you to say that "my doctor asked me not to drink, or, or, I don't drink or whatever" and, and it's easy to get away with it. If you were Chinese, it would be harder to get away with. But, if you ever have one sip of one drink, then you're going to be lying on the floor by the end of the night because they won't let it rest.

Watch these related videos

• 
  Chinese Dining Etiquette: Drinking

  playlist Views: 1,052

• 
  Introduction to Chinese Dining Etiquette

  playlist Views: 853

• 
  Dining Invitation Etiquette in China

  playlist Views: 686

• 
  Chinese Dining Etiquette: The Entrance

  playlist Views: 1,618

• 
  Chinese Dining Etiquette: Entertaining Guests

  playlist Views: 866

• 
  Chinese Dining Serving Etiquette

  playlist Views: 1,372

Community Members who...

• Favorited this Video
• Rated This Video

Thumbs up or Thumbs down? Be the first to rate this video!

Top Tags