Banquet Etiquette

[blue_dolphin]

@liuzhou, rather than take the dinner thread too far off topic, I thought I'd ask a question about your last post, certainly an extravaganza of holiday meals!

I notice that several of the tables (the first and last tablescapes from your post, for example) are so covered with delicious-looking dishes that it leaves little room for diners that might be seated around the table to rest their bowls and chopsticks.  

I'm accustomed to the juggling of empty platters, etc. as new dishes arrive in a Chinese restaurant but I've never seen a table so laden at the beginning of the meal.

How is this managed for the festive home meals you are lucky to be invited to? Does everyone squeeze in to sit around the table and hold their bowls or do people reach in to select a few morsels and retreat to eat elsewhere?  

I suppose it may vary from one family to another, as holiday gatherings do - I've seen tables assembled from doors and saw horses that snake through the entire house and buffet-style serving with folks settling in wherever.   

 

Thanks again for sharing all of this!

 

Edited February 3, 2017 by Smithy
Adjusted title (log)

[liuzhou]

We crush in and sit around the table rice bowl in left hand and chopsticks in right.This is why no one is allowed to be left-handed in China - it just messes up New Year or other festive eating!

Wandering off with your food is not customary unless you are 5 years-old.

Here is a slightly edited version of what I wrote many years ago referring more to restaurant banquets, but a lot is relevant to festive meals at home, too.

"If you are living in China, at some stage, you  will be invited to a banquet.  Despite attempts by the communist party to curb excessive use of public funds on banquets, they still happen, albeit more quietly and less often than in the past.
 

There are a few rules to remember if you want to survive the experience.

1. Arrive on time. This will give you the opportunity to sit on a sofa and study the decor while you wait for everyone else. Then, as they arrive, you will have the opportunity to watch the other guests sit around eating sunflower seeds and throwing the shells on the floor as they wait for the host (or top man) to arrive.

2. Wait to be told where to sit at the main table. Get yourself comfortable and wait to be told to move to another seat. Once everyone has finished arguing over the seating plan, prepare to move again when three unexpected guests join the party and everyone has to shuffle up to accommodate them around the table (this is always circular, designed to sit ten to twelve guests but usually manages fifteen.

3. If you are left-handed, make an excuse and go home. No-one in China is left-handed and the condition is considered to be dangerous. It is impossible to eat with chopsticks if you are left handed as you will continually crash into the guy next to you, sending food flying everywhere.

4. Wait till the top man says eat, then eat a little and put your chopsticks down. This is not really the start of the meal, but a test to check that everybody can find a pair of chopsticks and that no-one is left handed. 

5. Top man will then propose a toast. If you're lucky he will do this in the form of a speech less than ten minutes long. Take your drink, bang your glass against everybody else's round the table, and say 'Gan Bei'. This means 'empty glass' which is what you will have in your hand by the time it gets to your mouth. Consider yourself lucky. The glass probably contained Bai Jiu, a spirit made from rocket fuel flavoured with essence of vomit.

6. Now eat. Do not worry that there are only twenty dishes on the table for a party of fifteen. Your hosts will proceed to drink themselves under the table with endless toasts, leaving all the food for you to enjoy. 

7. Interrupt your eating every now and again and wave your glass at a random guest. This is called toasting. If you can make a twenty minute speech in any language at all, then you will be regarded as an all round good guy or gal.

8. When your hosts put the head of the fish and the feet of the chicken into your bowl, SMILE. This is a great honour. At least that's what they tell dumb foreigners.

9. It is a good idea to pause in your eating and offer everyone at the table a cigarette. If they tell you they don't smoke, try to educate them as to the benefits of smoking. (It is no accident that the Chinese for "banquet" and "cigarette ash" only differ in tone!)

宴会 yàn huì (banquet)   烟灰 yān huī  (cigarette ash)

10. When some unknown, drunken idiot crashes through the door and insists on toasting the entire room, don't worry. This is the restaurant manager.

11. When you have managed to get through all the dishes, do not despair. Another twenty will arrive.

12. If you are drinking beer, do not eat rice at the same time. The Chinese believe this is extremely dangerous. Rice should only be eaten after beer. Then it should be shovelled into your mouth as if you are expecting all rice to be confiscated  forever in thirty seconds time.

13. When suddenly, for no apparent reason, your rice is confiscated and everyone leaves, this means the meal is over. Go home."

 

Edited February 3, 2017 by liuzhou (log)

[blue_dolphin]

Thank you, @liuzhou for answering and for the banquet guidelines!

 

[Shelby]

  Excellent!  This made me laugh out loud here alone in my kitchen.

[Okanagancook]

ditto 

[chileheadmike]

#10 made me laugh.

 

Thanks.

[Thanks for the Crepes]

Hilarious! and reminds me of the one and only employee Christmas party dinner I attended when I worked for the YMCA minus the alcohol. The alcohol would have been most welcome to get through the speeches, toasts and other excuses for good food to get cold. My colleagues wondered why I didn't show up for the free food after the first one where I was initiated. 

[TicTac]

Very funny indeed.

 

Though I am still amazed that such a health conscious culture smokes so heavily (and in restaurants / around kids as well).

 

 

[kayb]

On 2/3/2017 at 11:29 AM, liuzhou said:

We crush in and sit around the table rice bowl in left hand and chopsticks in right.This is why no one is allowed to be left-handed in China - it just messes up New Year or other festive eating!

Wandering off with your food is not customary unless you are 5 years-old.

Here is a slightly edited version of what I wrote many years ago referring more to restaurant banquets, but a lot is relevant to festive meals at home, too.

"If you are living in China, at some stage, you  will be invited to a banquet.  Despite attempts by the communist party to curb excessive use of public funds on banquets, they still happen, albeit more quietly and less often than in the past.
 

There are a few rules to remember if you want to survive the experience.

1. Arrive on time. This will give you the opportunity to sit on a sofa and study the decor while you wait for everyone else. Then, as they arrive, you will have the opportunity to watch the other guests sit around eating sunflower seeds and throwing the shells on the floor as they wait for the host (or top man) to arrive.

2. Wait to be told where to sit at the main table. Get yourself comfortable and wait to be told to move to another seat. Once everyone has finished arguing over the seating plan, prepare to move again when three unexpected guests join the party and everyone has to shuffle up to accommodate them around the table (this is always circular, designed to sit ten to twelve guests but usually manages fifteen.

3. If you are left-handed, make an excuse and go home. No-one in China is left-handed and the condition is considered to be dangerous. It is impossible to eat with chopsticks if you are left handed as you will continually crash into the guy next to you, sending food flying everywhere.

4. Wait till the top man says eat, then eat a little and put your chopsticks down. This is not really the start of the meal, but a test to check that everybody can find a pair of chopsticks and that no-one is left handed. 

5. Top man will then propose a toast. If you're lucky he will do this in the form of a speech less than ten minutes long. Take your drink, bang your glass against everybody else's round the table, and say 'Gan Bei'. This means 'empty glass' which is what you will have in your hand by the time it gets to your mouth. Consider yourself lucky. The glass probably contained Bai Jiu, a spirit made from rocket fuel flavoured with essence of vomit.

6. Now eat. Do not worry that there are only twenty dishes on the table for a party of fifteen. Your hosts will proceed to drink themselves under the table with endless toasts, leaving all the food for you to enjoy. 

7. Interrupt your eating every now and again and wave your glass at a random guest. This is called toasting. If you can make a twenty minute speech in any language at all, then you will be regarded as an all round good guy or gal.

8. When your hosts put the head of the fish and the feet of the chicken into your bowl, SMILE. This is a great honour. At least that's what they tell dumb foreigners.

9. It is a good idea to pause in your eating and offer everyone at the table a cigarette. If they tell you they don't smoke, try to educate them as to the benefits of smoking. (It is no accident that the Chinese for "banquet" and "cigarette ash" only differ in tone!)

宴会 yàn huì (banquet)   烟灰 yān huī  (cigarette ash)

10. When some unknown, drunken idiot crashes through the door and insists on toasting the entire room, don't worry. This is the restaurant manager.

11. When you have managed to get through all the dishes, do not despair. Another twenty will arrive.

12. If you are drinking beer, do not eat rice at the same time. The Chinese believe this is extremely dangerous. Rice should only be eaten after beer. Then it should be shovelled into your mouth as if you are expecting all rice to be confiscated  forever in thirty seconds time.

13. When suddenly, for no apparent reason, your rice is confiscated and everyone leaves, this means the meal is over. Go home."

 

 

Useful information, as I am likely to be traveling to Shandong province on business later this year! Fortunately, I am right-handed.