Out of one's depth: 02 (Chinese person eating rice with a knife)

I got my first professional interpreter assignment in 1979 as a third year BA student.

    A delegation of four mainland Chinese textile industry engineers had come over to learn how to fix minor technical problems with the machinery they'd bought from a British factory.

    (Just a comment on the side about their far-sightedness:  their purchase agreement covered free technical repairs as a warranty.  They decided, however, to come over and learn how to do minor repairs themselves, because getting a British engineer sent over would take too long:  

* they would have to make a long distance phone call for this, with an interpreter in tow; 

* the time difference would make timing the call placement a bit tricky, especially with each side's working hours to consider; 

* the British engineer would have to apply for a visa for China, which would take time to process, then get a plane ticket; 

* he would arrive in China something like 24 hours after he got on the plane.  

They couldn't afford to down tools for all that time while waiting for the expert to get out to them to fix a minor problem.  I was impressed by how forward thinking they'd been.)

    During their training programme over here, the routine was basically:  

* breakfast at the hotel on our own; 

* off to the factory for the training session (dismantling huge textile machines, identifying the problems, fixing them);

* lunch at the factory canteen (with someone from the British side eating with us);

* back to the factory for more training;

* dinner back at our hotel (with someone from the British side eating with us, then post-prandial drinks in the hotel bar).

    For the two meals when a Brit was present, I wouldn't get much eating done, as I'd be interpreting both ways -- while the British host could do some eating while the Chinese side was talking; and vice versa.

    At lunch in the factory canteen one day, I saw one of the three Chinese male engineers trying to pick up some rice on his pate.  

    The cutlery was set out for a Western meal:  knife and fork.

    A cultural practice note here:  the Chinese try as much as possible not to trouble people, so the engineer decided to make do with the knife and fork arrangement that he'd been presented with.

    For some reason, he chose not to use the fork to shovel up the rice.

    Even given that this was 1980, when not many Chinese knew much about things Western, it would still have been more logical to use the fork.

    Not to this poor man, obviously (an engineer to boot).  He pushed his knife into the heap of rice on his plate, ending up with a row of rice grains lined along the edge of his knife, then raised the knife to his mouth, losing most of the rice along the way.

    After following his next few attempts with my eyes while I was interpreting in both directions, I eventually found a gap in the conversation to excuse myself from the table and go and fetch a spoon.

    My fault.  I'd only remembered to ask the British side to provide rice with each meal, but not what the process entails (i.e., the right implements to eat it with).

    A case of 見樹不見林 / 见树不见林 / jiàn shù bù jiàn lín / "see trees not see wood" / not seeing the wood for the trees.

(Accrington, Lancashire, Northern England, 1980)

See also:  https://piccola-chinita.blogspot.com/2015/10/not-seeing-wood-for-trees-china.html