Saturday, November 2, 2013

晚饭礼仪 Dinner Etiquette

When you visit the home of a Chinese friend or business acquaintance, there are some rules of etiquette that you should follow at the dinner table.  These will be similar if you are going out to eat at a restaurant.

Expect a large meal.  Even if the dinner is a simple one, the host will usually have several dishes or courses to serve.  If you begin to get full, it is fine to leave some food on your plate.  It would be considered rude of the host to not refill an empty plate, bowl, or tea cup.  The host will still tell you to eat more (吃多一点)but will get the message after you refuse several times.

When you compliment the host on the meal, expect them not to accept your praise.  They will say things like 没什么菜 it was nothing special or 哪里哪里 where, where implying the dinner was a simple affair.

During the meal, it is acceptable to slurp your soup, belch, and shovel food such as rice with your chopsticks.  You can also stab items, such as cut melons, with your chopsticks.  Do NOT tap the table with your chopsticks, use them as drumsticks, or place them straight up in your plate of food.

When the time comes to leave, the host will walk you out.  As Americans, it is common to say goodbye at the door and be on your way.  In China, the host will not only accompany you to the street but also wait as you get in a cab, your car, or on the subway.  This is not seen as a waste of time, but as the duty of the host.


Thursday, September 19, 2013

Chinese Review Characters for 9/20

Lesson 12: 本,打,大,电,给,馆,号,就,块,买,毛,钱,日,书,图,下,想
Lesson 13: 车,从,到,得,东,和,京,已经,路,马,门,容易,问,西,现在,找,走

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Stroke Order

There are a few web sites out there that can show you the proper stroke order of a character.  In order to access the proper character however, you need to first enter the character into the search area.  If you have not figured out how to type in characters yet, for now you can use Google translate and copy and paste.  I will devote a later post to typing in character.

Yellow Bridge
Arch Chinese
Visual Mandarin (can search alphabetically by pinyin, but there are fewer characters on this site)

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

欢迎光临

Welcome to the Chaminade Chinese II blog page!  Posts will be made periodically about culture discussed in the Chinese II class, as well as relevant news about China. 一会儿见!