On September 10th, Jiujiang University [JJU] celebrated Chinese Teachers Day by recognizing outstanding teachers for their hard work and dedication to a year of their profession. Sunday night, September 9th, the president and chairman of the university invited all JJU foreign teachers to join them for dinner at the LianXi hotel on campus. JJU has brought together a diverse group of people to form their foreign teaching staff – doctors from Bangladesh and India, along with educators from Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, Japan and the U.S. I thought it would be nice to share with you what dinning in China is like as a general rule.
Meals in China are conducted in a much more intimate manner than most westerners have experienced. Each place setting has one main plate about 5 inches in diameter, a soup bowl of proportional size, a soup spoon, one tea cup, a 3 ounce glass for beer [or in Sundays instance – a port glass for wine], and chopsticks. The plateware is porcelain, including the soup spoon and at the hotel dinner a third plate with a folded moist towel was included.
The course dishes are brought to the table and placed on a large center piece that rotates. In the U.S. this table is called a Lazy Susan but there is no need to memorize this trivia – the Chinese I’ve spoken with have never heard the term. It is common to see a large variety of food brought to the table. Guests will rotate the centerpiece and sample small portions of each plate as a dish comes in front of them. Being able to work chopsticks is crucial as there are no other utensils at the table. In some instances a serving pair of chopsticks will compliment a dish but many of the guests will use their own chopsticks to grab pieces of food from the plates. You can judge by the others at the table which is preferred and follow suit.
If you are new to the country your fellow guests at the table will watch your chopstick skills and comment or compliment [whichever is appropriate] your ability to use them. If you are unable or barely able to work the utensils they will ask the staff for a fork for you or ask you if you would like a fork. Be mindful, in Chinese culture saving face is very important, especially for the men. Try everything to make the chopsticks work – being given a fork is an embarrassment to you. The Chinese hold westerners that can adapt to the culture in high regard.
If your meal plate begins to fill with shells or bones a waitress will replace your plate with a new one. Watch for fish bones in every seafood dish – seafood is served whole, including the head! Also, napkins are not laptowels. In many restaurants, a small packet of hand tissue is placed between two seats and guests will pull one to use sparingly for their fingers or lips. The manner of dinning limits the need of a napkin.
Meals are very inexpensive by comparison to meals in the U.S. For example, at a seafood restaurant in downtown Jiujiang that plays live piano, has three floors with an elevator inside, beautifully decorated motif, which would easily earn a 5 star rating just by appearance and ambiance alone, a group of ten can order a full course dinner for 300 Yuan [roughly $39 USD]. That is fine dinning in Jiujiang.
