Table manners--British_potter_新浪博客

来自 : 新浪博客 发布时间：2021-03-25

British tablemanners

The fork is held in your left hand and the knife is held inyour right when used at the same time (except for the left-handed, whomay prefer to hold the knife in their left hand and the fork intheir right).You should hold your knife with the handle in your palm andyour fork in the other hand with the prongs pointingdownwards.If you’re eating a dessert, your fork (if you have one) shouldbe held in the left hand and the spoon in the right.When eating soup, you should hold your spoon in your right handand tip the bowl away from you, scooping the soup in movements awayfrom yourself.It is not acceptable to use your fingers at the table to eat orpush food onto your fork. You may, however, eat some foods such asfruit, sandwiches, burgers, crisps, chips or pizza with yourfingers; and fingers are mandatory for eating some items, such asasparagus or gulls\'eggs.If there are a number of knives or forks, then you should startfrom the outside set working your way in as each course isserved.Drinks should always be to the right of your plate with thebread roll to the left.When eating bread rolls, break off a piece before buttering.Use your knife only to butter the bread, not to cut it.You should not start eating before your host does or instructsyou to do so. At larger meals, it is acceptable to start eatingonce others have been served.Alternatively, when finished, your knife andfork can be placed diagonally at the ten o\'clock and two o\'clockposition, crossed (tines facing down). This signals that you arefinished and the plate may be taken away.Your napkin should never be screwed up. Nor should it be foldedneatly as that would suggest that your host might plan to use itagain without washing it - just leave it neatly but loosely.Never blow your nose on your napkin. Place it on your lap anduse it to dab your mouth if you make a mess.It is considered rude to answer the telephone at the table. Ifyou need to take an urgent call, excuse yourself and gooutside.Always ask for permission from the host and excuse yourself ifyou need to leave the table. You should place your napkin on yourseat until you return.If you must leave the table or are resting, your fork should beat eight o’clock and your knife at four o’clock (with the bladeinwards). Once an item of cutlery has been used, it should nottouch the table again.The food should be brought to your mouth on the back of thefork; you should sit straight and not lean towards your plate.Dishes should be served from the right, and taken away from theright. Unless the food is placed on your plate at the table, thenit should arrive from the left.Drinks should be served from the right.Never lean across somebody else’s plate. If you need somethingto be passed, ask the person closest to it. If you have to passsomething, only pass it if you are closest to it and pass itdirectly to them if you can.Salt pepper should be passed together.Do not take food from a neighbour’s plate and don’t ask to doYou must not put your elbows on the table.If pouring a drink for yourself, offer to pour a drink for yourneighbours before serving yourself.If extra food is on the table, ask others first if they wouldlike it before taking it yourself.When chewing food, close your mouth and only talk when you haveswallowed it.Swallow all food before eating more or having a drink.Do not slurp your food or eat loudly.Never pick food out of your teeth with your fingernails.Try to eat all the food you are served.Wine glasses should be held by the stem in the case of whitewines, and by cupping the bowl in the case of red winesIf Port is served after the meal, then the decanter or bottleshould be passed to the person on your left and never passed to theright.Always remember “regular” manners. Remember to say \"please\" and\"thank you\".Never transfer food to your mouth with your knife.New Zealand table manners are essentially the same, but withthe addition that drinking milk from a bowl is considered veryrude. Australia does not follow the table rules and they are basedon a more informal style of dining

Chinese tablemanners

Many of these rules concern the use of chopsticks.Generally, Chinese table manners are more informal than the West,although there are more rules concerning interactions with otherguests due to high levels of socialinteraction as a result of the communal style ofserving.

Chopstick usage

Chopsticks should always be held correctly, i.e. between thethumb and first two fingers of the right hand.When not in use, chopsticks must always be placed neatly on thetable with two sticks lying tidily next to each other at both ends.Failure to do so is symbolic of the way a dead is placed in acoffin before the funeraland is a major faux pas.Chopsticks are traditionally held in the right hand only, evenfor the left-handed.Although chopsticks may now be found in either hand, a few stillconsider left-handed chopstick use improper etiquette. Oneexplanation for the treatment of such usage as improper is thatwithin the confines of a round table this may be inconvenient.Never point the chopsticks at another person. This amounts toinsulting that person and is a major faux pas.Never wave your chopsticks around as if they were an extensionof your hand gestures.Never bang chopsticks like drumsticks. This isakin to telling others on the table you are a beggar.Never use chopsticks to move bowls or plates.Never suck the chopsticks.Decide what to pick up before reaching with chopsticks, insteadof hovering them over or rummaging through dishes.To keep chopsticks off the table, they can be restedhorizontally on one\'s plate or bowl; a chopstick rest(commonlyfound in restaurants) can also be used.When picking up a piece of food, never use the tips of yourchopsticks to poke through the food as with a fork; exceptions includetearing apart larger items such as vegetables. In more informalsettings, smaller items or those more difficult to pick up such ascherry tomatoes or fishballs may be stabbed, but this is frownedupon by traditionalists.Never stab chopsticks vertically into a bowl of rice, as thisresembles incense sticks used attemples to pay respects to the deceased. This is considered theultimate dinner table faux pas.

Communal chopsticks

When there are communal chopsticks, it is considered impoliteto use your own chopsticks to pick up the food from the sharedplate, or to eat using the communal chopsticks.It is considered impolite to use the blunt end of one\'s ownchopsticks to transfer food from a common dish to one\'s own plateor bowl; use the communal chopsticks instead.An exception to the above can usually be made in intimatesettings such as at home.

Other eating utensils

If noodle soup is served, many consider a more elegant way toeat by picking the noodle into a serving spoon first, and eatingfrom the spoon, rather than slurping directly from the bowl intothe mouth using chopsticks.Chinese traditionally eat rice from a small bowl held inthe left hand. The rice bowl is raised to the mouth and the ricepushed into the mouth using the chopsticks. Some Chinese find itoffensive to scoop rice from the bowl using a spoon. If rice isserved on a plate, as is more common in the West, it is acceptableand more practical to eat it with a fork or spoon. The thumb mustalways be above the edge of the bowl.

Eating from commondishes

Pick the food on the dish that is at the top and nearest to youin distance. Never rummage through the dish or pick from the farside for your favorite food.In general, more conservative Chinese frown upon the practiceof picking more than one or two bites of food in your bowl orserving plate as if you were eating in the Western way. MostChinese would understand the practice during infectious diseaseepidemics, or if the person is from the West.If both a serving bowl - separate from rice bowl - and plateare provided, never put any food items to be eaten onto the servingplate. This rule may be relaxed for foreigners.If a dish is soupy, pull the serving bowl near the serving dishand reduce the distance the chopsticks need carrying the food.Spilling plenty of sauce on the table is a major faux pas.After you have picked up a food item, do not put it back in thedish.

Seniority and guests atthe table

The elderly or guest(s) of honour are usually the first tostart the meal.The youngest or least senior may serve the eldest or mostsenior first, as part of the Confucian value ofrespecting seniors.The youngest on the table addresses all of the elder members atthe table before starting, perhaps telling them to please \"eatrice\" as a signal to help themselves.The best food in a dish should be left to the elderly,children, or the guest of honour, even if they are one\'sfavourite.The eldest person present, or the guest of honour, is given aseat facing the door.When the hostess says her food is not good enough, the guestmust disagree and tell her it is one of the finest foods they haveever tasted.

Drinks

The host should always make sure everyone\'s cups are not emptyfor long. One should not pour for oneself, but if thirsty shouldfirst offer to pour for a neighbor. When your drink is beingpoured, you should say \"thank you\", and/or tap yourindex and middle finger on the table to show appreciation,especially when you are in Southern China,e.g. Guangdong Province.When people wish to clink drinks together in the form of acheer, it is important to observe that younger members should clinkthe rim of their glass below the rim of an elder\'s to showrespect.Strong alcohol, called baijiu [pronounced \"by joe\"], isoften served throughout the meal; and it is customary for thehost[s]/hostess[es] to insist that guests drink to \"showfriendship.\" If the guests prefers not to drink, they may say, \"I\'munable to drink, but thank you.\" [in Mandarine: \"Wo bu neng hejiu, xie xie.\" {whoa boo nung huh joe}] The host may continueto insist that the guests drink, and the guests may likewisecontinue to insist upon being \"unable\" to drink. The host\'sinsistance is to show generosity. Therefore, refusal by the guestsshould be made with utmost politeness. Beware: If a guest drinksalcohol with a subordinate at the table, the guest will be expected[if not forced] to drink a glass of the same alcohol with eachsuperior at that table, and possibly at other tables too -- if theguest has not passed out yet.

Smoking

Smoking is customary when dining, and the host will often passout cigarettes to all [men] around the table. If the guest prefersnot to smoke, [s]he should just politely refuse.

Businessmeals

During business meals, it is best not to eat to the point ofsatiation, as business and not food is the actual main purpose ofthe gathering.

Miscellaneous

Some people sit at least 1 metre (3 chi) from the dining tableso they will not be literally rubbing elbow with other guests.When eating food that contains bones, it is customary that thebones be spat out onto the table to the right of the dining platein a neat pile.

Japanese tablemanners

Never place chopsticks stuck vertically into a bowl of food, asthis is the traditional presentation form for an offering to one\'sancestors.One should wait for the hostess to tell you to eat three timesbefore eating.Accepted practice in helping oneself to a communal dish such asa salad, is to reverse the chopsticks. However this is regarded inan all male, or casual situation, as too formal and additionally, afemale habit.Women should cup their other hand beneath their serving whenusing chopsticks when conveying food from dish/bowl to mouth. Menshould not do this.In communal dining or drinking, the youngest person presentshould pour alcohol for the other members of the party, serving themost senior person first. The server should not pour their owndrink, rather they should place the bottle of sake, beer, wine orspirits, back on the table or bar, and wait to be served by asenior.One should always clean one\'s hands before dining with the hotsteamed towel provided.Japanese soup is eaten holding the bowl to one\'s mouth, neverwith a spoon. The exceptions to this are o-zoni, thetraditional soup served on New Year\'s Day; soups with noodles areserved in larger bowls, such as ramen, are acceptableto eat using chopsticks, although the soup itself is still consumedfrom bowl to mouth.If something might drip onto the table while being transferredin the chopsticks, use the bowl of rice in your other hand to catchthe liquid. It is important to not allow this liquid to remain, andso the discolored portion of the rice must be eaten. Rice (in abowl) should remain white if it was served as such.It is usually polite to finish all sections of a meal served ataround the same time. It is suggested that one should take a bitefrom one container, and then take a bite of rice. One should thentake a bite from another container, have another bite of rice, andso forth.It is perfectly acceptable, rather, encouraged to make aslurping noise when eating hot noodles such as udon,ramen or soba. This is standard behavior in Japan,and Japanese maintain that inhaling air when eating hot noodlesimproves the flavor.When taking a break from eating during a meal, one should placeone\'s chopsticks on the chopstick rest(hashi-oki) provided. A hashi-oki is usually aceramic rectangle about four centimeters long, or in somerestaurants, a halved wine cork is provided.Unlike Korean table manners, it is acceptable to cradle one\'srice bowl in one hand when eating. Japanese rice bowls have athicker bottom and are made with heat insulating materials whileKorean rice bowls are made with heat conductive metals.One should not gesture using chopsticks.Never pass food from one pair of chopsticks to another. Thistechnique is used only in Japanese Buddhist funerary rites whentransferring cremated bones into an urn.When pouring wine or beer, the hand holding the bottle shouldpour forward, not backward (over the back of the hand) which isconsidered an insult.There is no tipping in Japanese restaurants.

There are additional etiquette rules specifically for sushi,especially in a restaurant.

It is acceptable to eat sushi with one\'s fingers, rather thanchopsticks, if the dining situation is relatively casual (this alsoapplies to dining out at a kaitenzushirestaurant).When possible, sushi pieces and sections of cut rolls should beeaten in a single bite, or held in the hand until finished; settinghalf a piece back down on the plate is considered rude.Nigiri sushi (fish on rice) and maki (rolls) maybe eaten with the hands; sashimi (pieces of raw fish) shouldbe eaten with chopsticks.