General Etiquette > Life...in general

Chinese restaurant etiquette

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freakyfemme:
Hey all,

The other night, we (my family and I) visited my uncle, his boyfriend, and his mother, at a Chinese restaurant in Toronto.  Now, bear in mind, my uncle's boyfriend is Chinese, and although he's been living in Canada for longer than I have (I was born here, but I'm only 22), he will ONLY eat authentic Chinese cuisine....which provokes my family to make countless "chink" jokes in his absence, but that's another story.  Anyway, I admit I kind of screwed up and embarrassed people, because I'm a vegetarian, and the food was served family-style.  At first we were served three meat dishes, and only one veggie one (marinated snow peas and mushrooms), and then the rice came a little while later.  I took a more than "my" share of snow peas, but I figured that that was okay, because I couldn't really eat anything else, and I made sure to pass the snow peas around the table again before taking any more.....I was really hungry, and if I'd shared equally, I'd have had to make a meal out of about five snow peas and 2/3 of a small bowl of rice.  Anyway, after that, my uncle's boyfriend ordered a tofu dish (ostensibly for everyone), so I'd have some protein, and I ate a piece of the tofu, but I didn't take any more after that, because it tasted as if it had been fried in chicken fat, and when people offered me more, I said "No thanks, I had some already."  Oh, and "dessert" was red bean soup and weird little cake things, and I took a bite of the soup, but didn't finish it, and offered it to my mom instead, because she liked hers.  Later on, my mom said I was rude for taking too many snow peas, and also, for not eating more tofu or finishing my soup, because apparently, in China, it's considered a sin to waste food......but she always raised me with the idea that "it's better something goes to waste than to YOUR waist," and that it was okay not to finish something if I tried it first and then decided I didn't like it.  But anyway, after this whole scenario, I was just wondering a few things:

1.  For fellow vegetarians (or those with other dietary restrictions), how do you deal with it when you're having a "family style" meal where you can't eat the majority of the food?

2.  When do one's hunger/nutritional needs take a back seat to etiquette?  The menu was mostly in Chinese (and my uncle's boyfriend had sort of taken over the ordering anyway), so I didn't know the tofu would be fried (I don't eat fried food), and either way, I certainly didn't want to eat something that tasted like chicken fat.

3.  I know I was rude to take too many snow peas (although I made sure everyone else had gotten some too, and like I said, I couldn't eat most of the other food), but is it also rude to take significantly LESS than one's share of a communal dish?     

guihong:
1. If I'm a guest (and it sounds as if you were a guest of sorts of uncle's BF), then I eat what I can and suck it up.

2. Again, if I'm a guest,  I usually just grin and bear it.  I don't eat anything that I can't (for religious or health reasons), but neither do I kick up and make the host order something for me.

3. Maybe I've been rude all these years, but I usually start by taking much less than I think I want of something.  Then I let things play out, to determine if I get seconds.

In short, know that even if it's a bad meal, you can get a snack later.  And know that there's no pleasing your mom, so don't even try. 

gui

Ulla dances in a silly way:
I would almost say it was more rude for your family to ignore your food choices and needs. You said your uncle's boyfriend had ordered everything, it would have been better to have ordered more you could eat rather than expect you to live off of your portion of what amounted to a side dish. It was kind of him to order tofu for you but he really should have considered if it was vegetarian tofu or not. I do not think it is rude not to eat something that goes against you dietary needs/choices/et all.

But, as I do not know anything about Chinese etiquette, I'm not sure how offended a person who had lived in a Western culture for more than 22 years would be by you accidentally breaking the rules of a foreign etiquette. Maybe you could contact your uncle and see if his boyfriend was offended if it is bothering you. Then you would know if you should alter your behavior/apologize/ or whatever for next time.

-Ulla

blarg314:


Having experienced family style Chinese Dinners in a Chinese country with vegetarians present, I would describe the protocol as follows:

Host looks at the menu in preparation for ordering.  Several people (generally not the vegetarians) remind them that we have vegetarians, and we need to make sure that they have enough to eat.  There's a brief discussion clarifying type of vegetarianism (the veggie will speak up to say "oh, I'll eat fish", or "don't go to any extra effort").  The host discusses with the server, usually adding a couple of vegetarian dishes to the set meal, including something hearty like a noodle dish, or modifying an almost vegetarian dish to remove meat bits.

The meal comes and the dishes are passed around, with extra effort to make sure that the veggie dishes go by the vegetarians more than once.  They are warned by the Chinese speakers if a dish is not obviously meat (or a non Chinese speaker will taste it and go "yep, I think that's pork").  There will be at least three queries during the meal and one at the end to make sure that the vegetarians have had enough to eat, at which point they protest that they have plenty, thank you.  By this point, they're usually so stuffed that they can't physically eat anything more, as is everyone else at the table.

Going hungry is rarely a problem at these events. I've had people anxiously check to make sure that the food ordered is something that I will eat, and I'll happily try almost anything that doesn't actually attempt to crawl off the place (I do draw the line at endangered species, though).

Slartibartfast:
I'm not a vegetarian by a long shot, but I can be picky about what I eat for a number of reasons.  In my experience, the best thing you can do is be prepared.  Coping is an extremely distant second place.

To be prepared:

1)  Find out what the meal is going to be, and the circumstances surrounding it.  (Can you order a vegetarian dish?  Do you need to call the restaurant ahead of time and ask what dishes have peanuts in them, so you're not at the mercy of the server's poor memory?  Does Aunt Sally need to be reminded you are a vegetarian so she doesn't serve all meat dishes for Thanksgiving?)

2)  If you can, make sure someone who is a "host" of some sort knows what your dietary restrictions are.  This could be the person whose house you're eating at, or the person organizing an outing to a restaurant, or the restaurant itself if it's a business meal.

3)  If you can't be sure there will be an adequate meal available for you, pack something.  Stick a package of crackers in your purse, leave an apple in the car, and stick a piece of candy in your pocket in case you find yourself without enough calories to stay awake through the long business meeting afterward.

4)  If you know for sure you won't be accomodated, either make alternate arrangements (i.e. eat somewhere else) or eat ahead of time.  I'm a big fan of SlimFast shakes - I keep some around in my work fridge because they're designed to give me calories, vitamins, and make me not hungry for a few hours (when I can go home and eat whatever I darn well want to.)

To cope:

1)  Make a meal out of what's available, within reason.  If the only thing you can eat is the carrot sticks, eat as many as you can without it being really obvious you're not touching the rest of the food.  If this means taking tiny portions of things you probably won't like and smearing them around your plate a bit to make it look like you ate them, go for it.  (This works best for potlucks that have questionable casseroles.)  Most people will adjust their serving sizes based on how much of a dish is left and how many people have yet to eat, so you can usually take a largish helping of things you like and everyone else will take a proportionally smaller one.  Make sure you leave enough for at least one "normal sized serving" for everyone else, though!

2)  Be ready to explain why you're avoiding the things you don't eat.  (It doesn't have to be the truth - "I'm allergic to shrimp" is a lot easier to say than "I don't trust your food preparation methods for this partially cooked dish," and is a lot more polite than "if I eat shrimp I get violent diharrea and explosive projectile vomiting.")  Hopefully nobody notices, but if someone asks, be prepared to act like you're enjoying yourself just fine, so they don't feel they need to flag down a host and make a scene.

3)  Pull out those crackers in your purse :-)

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