# Chinese table "manners"... **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [August 25, 2004, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-table-manners/261470 "2004-08-25T17:19:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![roger\_thornhill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@roger\_thornhill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/roger_thornhill)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2004, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-table-manners/261470/61 "2004-08-27T13:21:39Z")
> [@Shalmanese](#): > > During a banquet dinner involving 20 people and 30 something dishes, my grandmother could give a stunningly accurate summary of exactly how many slivers of meat each person ate from each dish and who was crass and selfish for eating more than their allocated share. The old ones don’t miss a trick. The gossip when my wife’s family celebrate birthdays, festivals, weddings etc. needs to be heard to be believed. One evening was spent dissing the man who had wangled his way onto the top table and thereby bumped off a very disgruntled relative. Watching their ritualised “No, you must sit! You sit first!” at the red-covered table you would never have guessed at the intrigue that was bubbling away under the surface. One thing I’ve learned from nearly 20 years among Chinese: he who smiles the most is surely the angriest. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2004, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-table-manners/261470/62 "2004-08-27T22:29:31Z")
> [@avabeth](#): > > Dried cod soaked in lye. It has the consistency of jello after it’s boiled or baked. And you eat it with butter, salt, and pepper. Just happened across [a relevant strip](http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/fun/piranha.asp?date=20040813) at King Features. ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2004, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-table-manners/261470/63 "2004-08-27T23:01:52Z")
> [@roger thornhill](#): > > One thing I’ve learned from nearly 20 years among Chinese: he who smiles the most is surely the angriest. Yeah, that was one thing I had the hardest time getting used to. My interpresonal skills, by even Western standards, are somewhat roughshod, and by Chinese standards, they must be simply appalling. There is a level of politesse that, for me, is sometimes a barrier to plain communication, and has sometimes led to misunderstanding. However, I must say, I’ve gotten better at figuring out that: “You have made much progress” = “we’re getting nowhere with this idea” “Let’s discuss this more at the next meeting” = “I never ever want to hear about this again” “your Chinese pronounciation is improving” = “you’re truly attrocious at it” “he is a hard worker” = “he’s a total moron” “let us continue to consider your interesting hypothesis” = “that is the single most stupid idea I have ever heard” “you have made many significant contributions to the group” = “you’re a bit of a slacker” “he was challenged by the intricacies of the procedure” = “he’s a total klutz and fucked it up horribly” “that is a good working suture” = “I shouldn’t let you handle ground beef” ---
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2004, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-table-manners/261470/64 "2004-08-28T00:07:13Z")
> [@](#): > > “You have made much progress” = “we’re getting nowhere with this idea” > “Let’s discuss this more at the next meeting” = “I never ever want to hear about this again” > “your Chinese pronounciation is improving” = “you’re truly attrocious at it” > “he is a hard worker” = “he’s a total moron” > “let us continue to consider your interesting hypothesis” = “that is the single most stupid idea I have ever heard” > “you have made many significant contributions to the group” = “you’re a bit of a slacker” > “he was challenged by the intricacies of the procedure” = “he’s a total klutz and fucked it up horribly” > “that is a good working suture” = “I shouldn’t let you handle ground beef” Good lord. Sounds like Southern mannerisms and Chinese mannerisms might be superficially similar. Or superficially dissimilar and similar on a deeper level. Whichever. Anyway, it reminds me of the notoriously damning “bless your heart.” ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2004, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-table-manners/261470/65 "2004-08-28T02:10:10Z")
> [@SkipMagic](#): > > But could it migrate with a coconut? And at what weight? Don’t be daft. The African 'edge’og is non-migratory. ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2004, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-table-manners/261470/66 "2004-08-28T02:30:00Z")
> [@Ogre](#): > > Good lord. Sounds like Southern mannerisms and Chinese mannerisms might be superficially similar. Or superficially dissimilar and similar on a deeper level. Whichever. Anyway, it reminds me of the notoriously damning “bless your heart.” Southern as in Southern USA? Y’know, I once dated me a Suthun’ Belle from Front Royal, VA, and I always found her friends and family to be very open and emotive. Maybe it’s the Deep South of which you speak? ---
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2004, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-table-manners/261470/67 "2004-08-28T04:53:16Z")
Yes, sorry. Southern USA. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2004, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-table-manners/261470/68 "2004-08-28T16:22:40Z")
You have to realize, Chinese cuisine is often served differently…for examople, a Chinese chef will hack up a chicken into bite-sized bits…you have to spit the bits of bone out! On the other hand, dim sum is easier to eat. I never realized that chopsticks were so easy to use…you just have to keep the bowl close to your mouth! :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![harmless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/2acd7d/32.png) [@harmless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/harmless)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2004, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-table-manners/261470/69 "2004-08-28T18:20:01Z")
> [@Ogre](#): > > Yes, sorry. Southern USA. Hey! We-all resembles that thur re-mark. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2004, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-table-manners/261470/70 "2004-08-28T18:24:31Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > I never realized that chopsticks were so easy to use…you just have to keep the bowl close to your mouth! :rolleyes: Suction helps. ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2004, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-table-manners/261470/71 "2004-09-29T17:01:49Z")
I’ve taken to eating in my cube more and more often. I like it; gives me a chance to post here and not have to pretend I’m working between incubations on something important. Well, mostly this helps. Not this week. One of my slobbering cow-irkers, who occupies a cube immediately adjacent to mine (soon I will be a senior scientist, have my own four walls, and the rest of them can _go to hell_) has been eating his lunch in-cube as well. At least I don’t have to watch, but… [COW-IRKER] Nyom, nyom, nyehm…sluuuuuuuurp. Smack, smack, smack. Snort. Snooooooort. Sniffle. Gurgle. Hawk. Ptooey. Nyom. Much, smack, nyom, smack…slurrrrrrp. Suck, sluuuuuuuurp…COUGH. COUGH, COUGH, HACK. SNOOOORT. Gulp. Smack. Smick, smick, nyim, smack. Snort. Cough. Hack…ptooey. Sniffle. Sniffle, sniffle. SLUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURP!!! [/COW-IRKER] Gaaaaaaaaaaah! Fuck! Fuckfuckfuck! It’s so fucking DISGUSTING! Shit, I may as well just tape a stethescope to his gut, hook it all up to a giant amplifier, and blast the sounds of his digestion throughout the office. I mean, hell, why go halfway? The sounds of his slobbering mastication are such a treat, I’m sure the gurgling horror of peristalsis would add a nice second act, with a juicy fart the perfect denouement. Fucking fuck fuckity fuck. I’m this close, THIS FUCKING CLOSE, to telling the guy to chew, slurp, whatever the fuck it is he does, with his goddamn piehole closed, or LEAVE THE OFFICE AREA. God-DAMNIT! When has “the line” been crossed? When am I no longer the boorish and intolerand white man, and instead the nauseated citizen with a legitimate axe to grind? FUCKING BARF-O-RAMA! ---
**Author:** ![lieu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c2a13f/32.png) [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2004, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-table-manners/261470/72 "2004-09-29T17:53:19Z")
Maybe [this](http://www.janbrett.com/piggybacks/history1c.htm) is next door. ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2004, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-table-manners/261470/73 "2004-09-29T18:12:49Z")
> [@alice\_in\_wonderland](#): > > Well, if it makes you feel any better, I’m sure your Chinese co-workers cringe when they watch you eating with chop-sticks and Chinese style bowls and whatnot. North Americans are notoriously ham-fisted with such things. Sorry, gotta call bullshit on that. ---
**Author:** ![overlyverbose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/9dc877/32.png) [@overlyverbose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/overlyverbose)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2004, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-table-manners/261470/74 "2004-09-29T19:03:18Z")
> [@Loopydude](#): > > At least I don’t have to watch, but… > > [COW-IRKER] > Nyom, nyom, nyehm…sluuuuuuuurp. Smack, smack, smack. Snort. Snooooooort. Sniffle. Gurgle. Hawk. Ptooey. Nyom. Much, smack, nyom, smack…slurrrrrrp. Suck, sluuuuuuuurp…COUGH. COUGH, COUGH, HACK. SNOOOORT. Gulp. Smack. Smick, smick, nyim, smack. Snort. Cough. Hack…ptooey. Sniffle. Sniffle, sniffle. > > SLUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURP!!! > [/COW-IRKER] Someone may have already said this, but are you sure that Homer Simpson isn’t in the cube next to you? ---
**Author:** ![Bruce\_Daddy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/85f322/32.png) [@Bruce\_Daddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bruce_Daddy)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2004, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-table-manners/261470/75 "2004-09-29T19:13:53Z")
There’s a vietnamese\* resturant we go to about once a week. I haven’t noticed poor table manners but damn are those guys loud. They sit around a table, 7 or 8 of 'em, and just scream at each other. WAO CUN TAI!!! HAAAAHAAAAHAAAA!!! MOOOSHEWAH!!! HAHAHAHAH!!! NOOO!!!GOOMBAHQUETAH!!! HAAAAA!!! I never miss an opportunity to jab my coworker’s vietnamese wife: “And people say Americans are loud!” :eek:😉 \*I know, not the same. ---
**Author:** ![infamousmom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/d6d6ee/32.png) [@infamousmom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/infamousmom)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2004, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-table-manners/261470/76 "2004-09-29T19:23:22Z")
> [@Shalmanese](#): > > Theres the hygiene thing My boss is Chinese and has exquisite table manners. She took us out to lunch at a dim sum place once, and although several of us are reasonably skilled at eating with chopsticks, one look at the work of someone who really knew how to do it showed us all how much we still have to learn. I was interested to watch her reverse the chopsticks to pick things out of the communal bowls. I’d never seen that before and it struck me as being a sensible and sanitary method. One of my Western co-workers who is a very, very picky eater kept trying things and then spitting the partially chewed and unfinished bite into her napkin. She thought nobody noticed. Ha. ---
**Author:** ![pizzabrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e9c0ed/32.png) [@pizzabrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pizzabrat)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2004, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-table-manners/261470/77 "2004-09-29T23:51:34Z")
> [@Loopydude](#): > > Not many of my Chinese coworkers (some naturalized, some still on green cards) have much to do socially with people raised in the states, be they ABCs or whiteys like myself. sorry to add onto the pile-on, but… If I envy anything, it’s the ability to forget that my group isn’t the nucleus of all peoples. Whiteys or ABCs - are those the only two types of Americans now? ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-table-manners/261470/78 "2004-09-30T00:03:39Z")
> [@pizzabrat](#): > > sorry to add onto the pile-on, but… > If I envy anything, it’s the ability to forget that my group isn’t the nucleus of all peoples. Whiteys or ABCs - are those the only two types of Americans now? No, but do you want me to list them all? I mean, really, must the pernicious perception of the need for a politically-correct list of disclaimers become so burdensome that all discussions even remotely related to cultural deliniators, real or imagined, cannot be initiated without first offering up an exhaustively-inclusive, multi-page preamble defining which “groups” the OP wishes to either spare, or make the subject of, potentially disparaging remarks? ---
**Author:** ![pizzabrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e9c0ed/32.png) [@pizzabrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pizzabrat)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-table-manners/261470/79 "2004-09-30T00:48:28Z")
> [@Loopydude](#): > > No, but do you want me to list them all? Okay…sorry, I thought you meant it in an either/or type of way. I just realized it can be read as just providing two examples, such as “No matter an adult male’s age, be he 26 or 62, he always has the ability to reproduce”. In my defense, I am overly accustomed to the “we are the nucleus” type sentiment, as in “Does he hang out with white people, or just Asians?”, which is why I was so quick with a negative reply… ---
**Author:** ![Flamsterette\_X](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/41988e/32.png) [@Flamsterette\_X](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flamsterette_X)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-table-manners/261470/80 "2004-09-30T02:41:41Z")
> [@Loopydude](#): > > Oh, no, I just got a mental image of my coworkers eating a heaping plate of lutefisk…urgh…gotta…mrph…_run_… Lutefisk? What’s that? Educate this CBC, please. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-table-manners/261470.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-table-manners/261470.md?page=5)