I’ve heard of this custom here in America as well. Dunno if it’s regional or what, but it even has a cutesy name: “leaving some for Mr. Manners.”
It wouldn’t be so much rude as it would cause the host to lose face. But with most dinners of any kind of significance, there is no freakin’ way you could eat enough to clean your plate. It’d be like your business partner taking you to a nice restaurant and ordering you several appetizers and two entrees.
What is kind of rude is diving into the rice. A good meal will have several meats and vegetables, and rice is considered a filler at the end of the meal. Eating all your rice while not enjoying all the other sumptous delights would be insulting.
Also, in Chinese, responding with “thank you” to a compliment is rude. You are expected to deny it. Finally, if you visit someone’s house and they offer you tea, you should refuse and say you don’t want to impose. They’ll keep asking you, you keep saying no, and eventually you give in. If someone is visiting you, and you only ask if your guests want something to eat or drink once, and they say no, you haven’t played the game and you are a poor host.
Yep. Plein means “full,” but saying je suis plein(e) is a little rude and a lot funny (it means you’re pregnant). What you say is je suis bein rempli(e) - “I am well filled.”
I have a vague memory of learning that clapping was rude to certain American Indians tribes - the story my teacher told IIRC was that after an Indian performed in front of a group of whites, they clapped loudly, not realizing this was offensive. Perhaps someone can confirm or deny?
On another OP related note, a couple of years ago I was preparing a flight to New Zealand, and I came across a site that said it was rude to give the “thumbs up” gesture in Australia, as was giving the “V” sign, and some strange thing about using the soup spoon. I posted a thread about it and the consensus from other Dopers was that it was all nonsense, except the “V” sign, which is akin to giving the finger.
Something else that came out of that thread was that in Australia it’s rude to sit in the back of a Taxi if you’re the only passenger, but there was some debate about that.
Also that if you hitchhike by sticking your thumb out in Iran, you’re getting your ass kicked.
I had a similar experience in Japan. When someone greets me, I’m habituated to greet them in response, and that’s end of it until another subject arises. In Japan, when you go into a store, they say “Irasshaimase” which is (metaphorically) “welcome to our store.” Of course, now I’ve been greeted, so I want to say something. I say “konnichiwa”, or “hello.” I expect that to be the end of it, but then they look at me kind of funny and reply “konnichiwa” back to me, as if I had greeted them first.
So later I sort of asked around if there’s a specific reply to “irasshaimase” that does not invite another round of greeting, and they also look at me funny and say “no”. Apparently it’s not normal to respond to clerks when they give you a friendly welcome to their store. 
Where was this? I have heard many stories like this, but I come from Atlanta where everybody holds the door for everybody. I cannot imagine someone so smallhearted as to take offense at such a minor kindness, and I would pity such a person.
Of course, if a man took off his hat with a flourish and said in a Foghorn Leghorn accent “after you, ma’am” then I might consider that a bit much.
Wile stationed in Germany I was told not to give the O K hand sign, as that ment you where calling them an asshole.
Hi Brain Wreck, I’m in Hotlanta too.
I lived in China for about a year, and there’s a lot of truth in this. If someone took you out for dinner in a restaurant, if you finished everything served, another plate would appear qucikly. It took me only a few dinners to figure that out.
Where I ran into trouble was that I was in a more rural area on the coast. Fish were served whole, and it was customary to spit the bones out in a pile next to your plate. After I had been there for around four months, I took a weekend in Shanghai. I was mostly through dinner when I glanced around and saw everyone trying very hard not to notice this provincial barbarian spitting bones onto the tablecloth.
I get that a lot, too, even within Texas. Seems folks just aren’t used to being accorded such courtesy.
Okay, now I’m confused. I had read in an etiquette manual that in Asian countries you are supposed to take two bites of rice for every bite of meat or vegetables-- that it’s rude to fill up on “the good stuff” because of the expense to the host.
Sure, it’s rude to chow down on the most expensive stuff and not eat the side items. Sure, it’s rude to fill up on sides and completely neglect the main course. This is just common sense and it doesn’t matter what country you’re in.
There are a lot of superstitions published about how to do this and that in Asia. Many of them are pure BS or common-sense things that are given grossly undue weight from being seen through the eyes of a foreigner who is hearing it all for the first time. I remember hearing somebody explaining that you don’t dip sushi rice in soy sauce because “in Japan, rice is considered sacred”. :rolleyes: The reason you don’t dip sushi rice in soy sauce is because it falls apart.
Not necessarily rude, especially for a woman travelling on her own. But yes, in some situations it’s considered “stuck up”.
In America, giving money as a gift is often considered tacky; you haven’t bothered to find something that shows your consideration for the recipient.
In Japan, on the other hand, money is the standard gift in many situations.
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At weddings, all the guests give envelopes of cash (new bills, no wrinklies), with the amount dependant on how close they are to the bride and groom. After the party, the bride and groom give a set of gifts to each guest.
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Same thing at funerals. Guests give money to the family, family gives gifts to the guests.
I read a few years ago about why this is, in Japan at least. It’s not directly related to expense.
A few hundred years ago, there was a famine of some sort in Japan. Pretty much everything except the rice crop failed, and the livestock died. Rice became the de facto main course in every household, and what little there was of other foods were used to dress up the meal a bit. In order to make the non-rice items stretch further, it became customary to eat a mouthful of rice in between mouthfuls of other foods. As you may have guessed, the rice made you feel full fairly quickly, and you would naturally eat less of the other items.
The famine passed, but the custom remained.
“Asia” is a big place, and there’s a lot of different customs. I have never heard this, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t practiced somewhere. I’ve been to, oh, probably about five or so countries in Northeast and Southeast Asia, and China is the only place where I’ve been offered grossly too much food at dinners, and it is exactly because it is expensive that guests are offered so much. You know, a guest should be treated like a king kind of thing, and rice is definitely looked at as a filler.
(I recall one dinner with an average family in Beijing: the father made the most wonderful spring rolls for me and a couple of my friends, but he didn’t take a bite of one. He modestly ate only a small bowl of rice and left his delicious cuisine for his guests.)
There’s also the great jockeying for the Power Seat at a business dinner game. The main host and the guest of honor will offer each other the best seat at the table – generally the seat closest to the wall where one can survey the whole room. It generally involves a lot of offering and pointing, sometimes a little light, good-natured jostling, and is generally the exact opposite of a game of musical chairs. Someone has to give in eventually, but giving in right away would be a little pompous.
This was at U.T. El Paso, where I was a staff member for over ten years. While not particularly known as a hotbed of man-hating radical feminism, it’s also located in the Southwest — NOT the South — where (IMHO) old-fashioned displays of courtesy are not altogether common.
it’s de rigueur to pee on a tire before boarding the Space Shuttle, but it could probably get you arrested on the Delta Shuttle. 