morsels of food from your chopsticks to someone else’s,” he advises. When laying a Thai table, lay a fork and spoon, never a knife as knives are not part of the traditional way to eat Thai food. The edge of a spoon should be used to cut food. You hold the fork in your left hand and the spoon in your right, and use the fork to push food onto the spoon. Never put the fork into your mouth. According to Laurent Khoo, Assistant Director of F&B at the Grand Hyatt Seoul, when eating kimchee in Korea, you should always peel the top layer first, rather than grab a stack. Soup should be served piping hot, never warm, and when drinking soup, there shouldn’t be a sound. In Japan, you should never use a spoon to drink miso soup. You should drink from the small bowl and use your chopsticks to eat whatever is inside the soup. When eating soba and udon noodles, you should slurp to express how much you like it. In China, you are frequently faced with the task of serving a whole fish. The fish head should point towards the guest of honour and then be served to them. Subsequently the cheeks are then offered to the female guest. After the first side of a fish is eaten, never flip the fish as the act sounds like ‘throwing away your luck’ in Chinese, and among fishing families, it is supposed
to bring bad luck and cause a boat to flip and capsize. So as not to waste the fish, try to pull away the skeletons in one go, leaving the flesh on the plate. Drinking brings with it a whole new set of rules. In Korea, never pour a drink for yourself and when serving drinks, always cup the elbow of your pouring arm as a sign of respect, says Khoo. “Not doing so will show that you’re uneducated.” (An upside is that it helps avoid spillage too.) This custom is said to originate from olden times when you were trying to keep the wide sleeve of your traditional hanbok out of the recipient’s dinner. The person on the receiving end should also cup the elbow of the arm that’s holding the glass. Then, when clinking glasses, you should clink lower than the other person as a sign of respect. In Japan, emptying a glass means you want more, so you
should leave it full if you have had your fill. And when toasting, refrain from using the English expression ‘Chin, chin!’ What you should exclaim is ‘kampai’, while in China it is ‘gan bei’; in Hong Kong, ‘yum bui’; in Indonesia, ‘pro’; in Korea, ‘gunbae’; in the Philippines, ‘mabuhay’; in Thailand ‘chok dee’; and in Vietnam, ‘dzo’. After being served tea in Hong Kong, you should tap the pads or knuckles of your index, middle and ring fingers twice on the table as a silent expression of gratitude. This ritual originates from the Qing Dynasty when the emperor liked to visit his subjects incognito. While visiting a teahouse, the emperor served tea to his personal servant to preserve his anonymity. The servant couldn’t kowtow in case he gave the emperor’s game away, so instead showed his imperial obeisance by tapping with three fingers. One finger represented his bowed head and the other two his prostrate arms. After serving tea, never point the spout towards anyone and when the teapot is empty, flip the lid upside down to indicate to the wait staff that you need a refill. Stadler believes that as foreign guests it is our duty to be interested in a country’s customs and etiquette. “Take the time to learn about the cuisine and the festivals. Learn about what locals do and how they live. Don’t be ignorant – show respect and support by blending in.”
January I Travel Arabia I 53