Eating Your Way Across China 135taking a table that you move too slowly on. You will need to
carefully track and defend your position.
DINNER ENTERTAINMENT
Eating is a common excuse to meet and enjoy friends in
China. It is one of the primary ways that family and friends
stay connected. Fun-loving Chinese use a meal to nourish
their bodies as well as polish their sense of humour. It is very
common for groups to have lengthy dinners that involve
eating interspersed with stories, drinking games and feats
of continual bravado.
At any banquet, you will be expected to participate as
a guest. The most usual form of this is rounds of drinking.
They begin with a twinkling-eyed person leaning toward you
across the table, filling your glass and shouting gan bei, which
is the Chinese equivalent of ‘bottoms up’. If toasted in this
manner, you are to drink the entire contents of your glass, and
once finished, tip the glass toward the person that initiated
the toast showing that you have consumed all contents. If
you are not a hardened drinker, you can usually get away
with raising your glass in toast, taking a sip and setting the
partially full glass back down on the table.
Acting as Host
If you have the honoured position of being the host at a lunch
or dinner, your main objective is to take extremely good care
of everyone else. From the minute they enter the room, you
should make sure they are guided to their seats and have
something to drink.
You should take charge of
ordering the food, or if you
are unsure, have your assistant
or someone whose judgment
you trust order the food in
advance. There should be a
balance of cold dishes to start,
a reasonable sequence of meat,
fish, vegetables in the middle,
followed by soup and noodles
Seating order is important—you
must think in advance and
make sure that the most senior
or important people have the
prime seats at the table and are
seated next to people of equal
stature. You should also try to
ensure that they will find their
dinner companions entertaining
and engaging. Consider their
language, personality, and
background.