July 16, 2007

Dalian (CHINA)

A New Look, and Rules of Chinese Etiquette

I suppose you will have noticed the webpage has a new look to it, and as is mentioned above I apologize for any inconveniences while I have it laid out on the operating table for all the world to see. I am working on creating a better database whereby journal postings are sorted by month - hopefully this will make reading easier than the current method of clicking from page to page. Additionally, I am doing my best to create a comments section, but bear with me on this one because it is trickier than I anticipated.

I want to give a quick word of praise to Arsenal for defeating Barnet 2-0 in the first game of pre-season. I was desperate to have my fix of Arsenal, so I paid 8 bucks to register with Arsenal.com and receive a live stream of all pre-season matches. Although it seemed like a worthwhile investment at the time, the 90 match consisted of 3 seconds of actual football followed immediately by 20 seconds of laborious buffering. Making matters worse, I watched the match at a nearby internet cafe alongside hundreds of Chinese who were engulfed in either Warcraft or a computerized version of Dance Dance Revolution (DDR).

Yesterday afternoon I went out with my roommate, Ryan, and a couple Chinese graduate students to shoot pool. We played cut-throat for two hours, and despite being the best player I only won the first game. I should have followed the Chinese axiom that says, "a master never wins the first game."

Afterward, I met the other REU students and we took 20 of our Chinese graduate mentors out to dinner at a famous Sichuan restaurant that features a face-changing performance. This would have been my fourth time watching the show, so I instead opted to watch China battle out a 2-2 draw against a far superior Iran.

As for the dinner, I felt quite embarrassed because several rules of etiquette were clearly broken (I did not take part in the organization of this event). In case anyone is hosting a dinner for Chinese, please remember the following general rules to avoid appearing ignorant and losing face:

1) The menu should be passed around the table allowing each of the guests to order a dish of their liking. This is polite when the dinner is intended to honor those who are attending. The host should then review the selections and ensure the number of dishes ordered roughly equals the number of people attending, and it should usually be an even number.

2) Do not allow bottles of beer to go empty. Chinese enjoy drinking, and if beer is going to be served it is best to keep it coming. Additionally, a "ganbei" (equivalent of "cheers!") entails downing your glass when with friends, or sipping appropriately when in a formal environment. As tables can be quite large, touching glasses is impractical, and everyone should tap the table with their glass before drinking.

3) The host should order rice toward the end of dinner (unless it was ordered earlier), and ask everyone at the table who would like some. This ensures everyone gets enough food. Unlike in Western society, there should always be food left over at the end of dinner.

4) When eating at a restaurant that features a special variety of food (in our case, food from the Sichuan Province), it is paramount that the the specialty dish is ordered (in our case, a type of fish).

5) As for payment, the host will always pay for everything and refuse assistance from others. When going out with friends in an informal environment, one person will take care of the bill (and next time some one else will take care of the bill).

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