Instinctive reaction from upbringing: 04

On the Florence to Rome train in September 1981, I sat next to a dour Italian peasant woman who very kindly gave me her second salami roll (which later struck me might've been her dinner for the second leg of her Florence–Naples journey).  A touching encounter (https://piccola-chinita.blogspot.com/2011/07/firenze-roma-train.html), which turned into a guardian-angel story (https://piccola-chinita.blogspot.com/2026/05/the-guardian-angels-in-ones-life-15.html).

    She also tried to share her already-opened can of cola with me after the salami roll lunch, although she did wipe the opening with a tissue first before offering it to me.  I was politely adamant about not taking up her kind offer.

    My upbringing also drew the line at taking a bite out of a half-eaten apple offered to me by a good friend, even though we had, by then (in the 90s), known each other for around a decade and I love him dearly.

    My W.Australia-based nephew and his wife (from Malaysia) spent a few days in London after their tour of Europe.  Out on the bus one day, he drank from his bottle of water with the mouth of the bottle an inch or so above his lips.

    This seems to be quite a common, though not universal, practice among Chinese people that I've observed on a number of occasions.  It is so that they can share the water with other people.  A good habit, I must say.

Instinctive reaction from upbringing: 03

In a Chinese restaurant in London's Chinatown one day in the 1980s, next to me was a table of Chinese people, numbering about ten.

    From their verbal interactions, I worked out that they were either Singapore or Malaysian Chinese from the Teochew dialect group -- which is my dialect group, therefore should be fairly similar in their cultural practices to me.

    Visually, it was also obvious that they were three (or four?) generations of the same family sharing a meal out:  a grandma, a couple of young children below 10, with the rest being the generation(s) between.

    There was a lot of criss-crossing of chopsticks at the table as everyone (except the ones below the age of 15) helped everyone else to the spread in the middle of the table.

    I was struck by how different they were to my family:  we never did anything of the kind, and certainly not to use our own chopsticks to pick up food to put in the bowls of other people, even if they were family.

    The mainland Chinese drama series I was watching on YouTube a little while ago (set in the China of 1977–92, which has inspired quite a few blogs here) has a fair number of eating scenes.

    Members of the same family would pick up morsels from various dishes to put in the bowls of other members, mostly parents for their (especially younger) children, or grandparents for their grandchildren.

    (This is a fairly typical manifestation of the hierarchy of caring within the Chinese family:  the middle generation looking after the ones above and below, or the grandparent generation selecting bits of food for their grandchildren, as a show of affection.)

    However, this picking up of food for other people with one's own chopsticks was also done across relationship boundaries:  between good friends and neighbours even.

    I'm now watching another mainland Chinese drama series on YouTube.  There is a scene with three people, who are colleagues as well as good friends and neighbours, eating a hotpot meal with their bakery shop manager (who is not a nice man and whom they don't like).  Here are my notes:

    Quote 今生有你.2 (15:00) hot pot meal, they dip their own chopsticks into the hot pot!!; serving girlfriend with own chopsticks is acceptable given their intimate relationship, but picking up raw ingredients to put into the hot pot [that everyone else will be dipping into], even stirring the raw ingredients around, is uggh. Unquote

Chinese hospitality etiquette: 04 (夾菜 / 夹菜 / jiā cài)

(From googling) 

Quote 

夾菜 / 夹菜 / jiā cài refers to using chopsticks or other utensils to pick up food from a plate and move it to one's own or another person's bowl. This is a very common dining gesture in Chinese cuisine and can also be used to describe politely offering food to guests at the table.

Unquote

I grew up with fairly strict rules of hygiene, which included using communal chopsticks and serving spoons even when eating with one's own family members.

    The mother of my then-colleague Peggy in Taipei was obviously brought up the same way.

    The standard Chinese code of behaviour at a meal when a guest is present:  

(i) the guest must not be seen to be greedy, so s/he will hold back on helping himself/herself to the dishes in the middle of the table (Chinese style with various dishes shared by everyone),

(ii) the host/hostess must not be seen to be stingy, so s/he will pile up food in the guest's bowl, on top of the rice -- repeatedly throughout the meal. 

    When fetching food for me, Peggy's mother would use the other end of her chopsticks, AND make sure I was made aware of this, by pointing out each time, "I'm using the other end of my chopsticks."

    It's a practice I've taken on board since then (1975 -- prior to that, I was too young to play the hostess role), and which I've always explained to my friends here in the West.

Instinctive reaction from upbringing: 02 (Singapore)

 

Another reflex action from my upbringing is in response to shattered glass.

    As soon as any glass utensil got broken, especially if it was on the floor, everyone around would be warned immediately:  "Stay put.  Don't come any nearer."

    This was mainly because, it being the tropics, we went around the house barefoot, and glass shards are clear, not opaque, so would be almost invisible to the naked eye, particularly the small bits.

    The standard procedure was to look for and sweep up every bit first before carrying on with whatever we were doing at the time.

(Singapore, 1960s)

Instinctive reaction from upbringing: 01 (Singapore)

 

In the mainland Chinese drama series I'm watching now on YouTube, there's a scene (今生有你 epi.2) with the construction workers taking a lunch break.

    To leave their hands free to open the lunchbox, they park one end of the (glued-together) chopsticks inside (not across) the mouth, so that they stick out of the mouth.  Watching this, my immediate reaction was, "NO NO NO!".

    As children, we were taught never to do this with cutlery.  A sudden jolt (e.g., the person's head tilting forwards from being accidentally bumped into from behind) will result in an injury to the throat.

    Another instinctive reaction from my upbringing is to instantly look for, and pick up, food morsels that have fallen out of one's mouth, whether it's onto one's own clothing, the table or the floor.

    The original source behind this practice is cooked rice grains (common ingredient in a Chinese household) that have dropped onto the floor, as they're squidgy, so they must be tracked down immediately and removed before they get trodden on, squidged into the bottom of one's foot/feet (in the tropics, we go barefoot in the house) or footwear.

    This, in itself, is a horrible enough feeling which then entails more work, washing out the sticky mess, but worse, it gets spread around the house, leaving squidgy patches on the floor for other people to step on.

(Singapore, 1960s)

Half full or half empty: 05 (Interpreting an ambiguous statement) (London)

During the lesson yesterday with an advanced level student, there was a character in a compound in the article which he hadn't come across before (or had learned but forgotten):  納 / 纳 nà / "take in / receive / accept", therefore can mean "allow".

    I told him the meaning, and tried to give him another compound that uses it which is a commonly occurring word in everyday life.  (Where the student is capable of handling extra balls, which this one certainly is -- he's like a sponge, I always throw them extra balls, giving them other permutations of a particular character.)

    The Chinese word database on my computer, however, failed to give me the combination I had in mind (納銀台 / 纳银台 / nà yín tái / "take-in silver platform", for "payment desk"), so I gave up after a couple of attempts.

    This morning, I had another go, and found what I wanted (but in a different permutation): 納款台 / 纳款台 / nà kuǎn tái / "take-in money platform".  Also 收銀台 / 收银台 / shōu yín tái / "receive silver platform".

    Ah, either 納款 / 纳款 / nà kuǎn / "take-in money" or 收銀 / 收银 / shōu yín / "receive silver".  It was either AB or XY, and I'd done it as AY.

    Sent it to the student, adding in English (before quoting the definition that I'd found online) "The brain's arrived on the slow train" and in Chinese (at the end) "哎呀，該退休了 / aiya, gāi tuìxiū le / oh dear, ought to retire now".

    The student came back with, "哈哈哈，差不多了 / hahaha, chàbùduō le / hahaha, almost".

    I took this to mean that he agreed that it was almost time for me to retire.  Oh dear, even the student thinks so.

    Just for idle conversation (I always do that to give them extra practice), I texted him with, "你是說退休啊⋯⋯⋯⋯ / nǐ shì shuō tuìxiū ah / you mean retire", with extra dots to indicate how I was feeling.

    He came back with, "没有，我是说纳款台和收银台差不多 / méiyǒu, wǒ shì shuō nàkuǎntái hé shōuyíntái chàbùduō / No, I was/am saying that 納款台 and 收銀台 are almost [the same]".

    Reprieved.  (For now.)

(London, 2026)

The guardian angels in one's life: 15 (The dour peasant woman)

I was sent this around 2006 in one of those round-robin emails:  

    "Some people come into your life for a season or a reason".

    (from googling)  Quote The Full Saying: "People come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. When you figure out which it is, you'll know exactly what to do," often attributed to a poem by Brian A. "Drew" Chalker.  Unquote

    In the case of the dour Italian peasant woman in September 1981, it was only for the duration of the train journey from Florence to Rome.

    We didn't speak each other's language, but for my brief waking moments on that train, I'd shown her kindness as soon as I entered the carriage, and she, in return, gave her second salami roll to me (which, in hindsight, I think was her dinner for the second leg of her journey -- to Naples, five hours' train journey away).  (She tried to share her can of cola with me, too, after the salami roll, but I was politely firm in not partaking -- to be covered in a different blog about the sharing of food.)

    She also turned out to be a guardian angel, if only for just a few seconds, by waking me up in time in Rome.

    A full account of how I met the dour peasant woman, and how she'd saved me from missing my plane for London, is in:  https://piccola-chinita.blogspot.com/2011/07/firenze-roma-train.html 

    I still remember her with great warmth and boundless gratitude to this day.

    Grazie, Signora.  God bless you.

(Rome, 1981)