Some Chinese practices: 10 (Table manners.2: Do not be selfish)

 

Another rule with regard to helping oneself to the food in the middle of the table is:  one does not pick up food from the far end of the plate, as this denotes selfishness.

    The far end is the inconvenient end, therefore it must mean that it's a particularly good morsel for you to stretch out to the other side.  You are, therefore, being selfish by picking out that piece for yourself.  (However, picking out a particularly good piece of food is the right thing if you're giving it to someone else, especially if it's someone in the older generation -- you're showing your filial piety or respect for your elders.)

    We were taught as children that if you really want that specific piece of food, then at least choose with your eyes first:  identify the piece you want, then dive straight in (no poking around), so that it's not so obvious.

    The MA Bilingual Translation group I was teaching in the late 90s decided to take the teacher out for a Chinese meal.  It was a course for Chinese-speakers, so they were from (in alphabetical order) China, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Taiwan.  The white British boyfriend of one of them decided to come along, although it was a teacher-student meal.

    We ordered a mixture:  some dim sum dishes (dumplings), and some fried noodle dishes, one of which was seafood fried noodles.

    At one point, I caught the boyfriend poking his own chopsticks around the seafood noodle dish, turning over the noodles, the topping ingredients and the gravy.  When I asked him what he was doing, his reply was, "I'm looking for the squid."

    That was a double offence:  he was not only being selfish, looking for a particular ingredient (I also noted that squid is expensive and not so common an ingredient), he was also poking his own chopsticks (which had been in his mouth countless times up to that point) among the noodles and topping ingredients to find the squid.  (Of course, I refused to touch the dish after that.)

    He turned up yet again for another teacher-student Xmas meal a few months later when I'd taken on his girlfriend to teach one of my evening programme language modules.  Once again, as a total outsider to a teacher-student meal.

    Yep, he did the same thing again:  poked his chopsticks around the seafood noodle dish, "looking for the squid" yet again when I asked him what he was doing.  He even complained to the rest of the group (my students, who didn't know him at all) that I'd told him off once before for the same thing.  (Some people just don't seem to learn.)

    The Chinese would immediately blame his parents for his selfish behaviour.  I certainly noted that the girlfriend didn't do anything about it, although she's from the Chinese culture and therefore knows the code of behaviour.  She'd let him do it not once but twice.  I dread to think what their children might be like...