Hi everyone, I'm Susie
welcome back to my channel.
Today's video is all
about table etiquette.
So today we're talking about table etiquette.
Now of course, with table etiquette,
people these days do tend to do their own thing
a little bit more than maybe in the past,
so some of these are things that you won't necessarily see
everyone do all the time,
but they're just things to be aware of.
If you would really like to make sure that
you're eating in the polite, proper way,
then definitely make sure that you do these things.
And now I know that there are some things in
traditional Chinese culture
that definitely people need to pay attention to
if it's a formal dinner,
such as the host needs to sit to the East,
or if it's a round table the host needs to sit opposite the door.
And also, the host or the eldest person needs to sit down first,
so no one should sit down until they've let that person take their seat first,
or unless that person says 請坐.
And there's also things like 敬酒
like when you cheers,
the person who is younger or of lower status or whatever,
like an employee as opposed to the boss,
needs to bump their glass lower than the other person.
So today, I'm going to share with you
the British equivalent of these things.
So the thing about sitting down first isn't such a big deal in the West,
but what you definitely shouldn't do
is start eating before the host.
Always it's the host.
Make sure that the host says:
‘Please eat, eat.' before you eat anything,
or just at least wait until they themselves have started eating.
So that's quite a big thing;
it would be quite rude to just start eating.
So make sure that you don't do that.
Another really big thing is
to try and eat with your mouth closed.
Definitely no talking when you're eating.
And also never lift the bowl to your mouth like this.
If you've got soup, don't drink it like a cup,
that would be quite rude.
You have to use a spoon to drink soup.
I know it's inefficient and it's kind of not very convenient
but that's just the way it's done.
So I know that in Asia,
you, of course, can lift the bowl to your face,
but just make sure that you don't do that here.
If you're at a formal occasion,
then people would probably be quite surprised
if you started lifting the bowl towards your face.
So just make sure that you don't do that.
If you're at a very formal dinner,
when you're eating,
you should put the knife and fork down
and don't touch anything
whilst you're chewing and wait until you swallow,
and then when you've swallowed
you can pick up your knife and fork again.
That's in very formal situations.
Also,
you need to wait until you've swallowed your food
before taking a sip of your drink.
So you don't want to be chewing and drinking at the same time.
And also when you're drinking your drink,
you don't want to gulp it.
‘Gulp' means like... a lot at one time.
You can just sip it,
sip like...
just a little drink, yeah.
Don't go like downing it.
I've heard that in traditional Chinese culture
it might be quite polite for the host to actively give food to people,
like: ‘Have this and eat this.'
and like trying to make sure that they've eaten enough.
But it's possibly a bit like the opposite here
where you don't want to push food onto other people,
like definitely don't put any food on someone else's plate
if they haven't said that they want it,
that would be quite rude.
The host probably will say something like:
‘Oh yeah, please. Eat more. Have more.
Are you sure you've had enough?',
but they won't really push it
and they definitely won't actually put the food on your plate,
that's quite rude.
In general, in the UK,
if it's like a big dinner kind of situation,
you might have some big dishes in the middle
and people can sort of go around
and help themselves to what they need
and they'll take as much as can fill their plate,
like as much as they feel like they can eat,
and that's not rude to take more.
Because I know, obviously, in Chinese culture,
if you've got the Lazy Susan with the dishes going round,
then there's no need to put loads in your bowl,
and that might be quite weird
to just suddenly take everything into a bowl.
But here that's quite a normal thing to do.
I also know that in Chinese culture
you shouldn't put your chopsticks straight down in the rice
because that's equivalent to, like ‘You're gonna die.',
‘There's death coming.'.
The only sort of equivalent that I can think of about that
is that if you finished a meal,
you should usually put your knife and fork at four o'clock,
so they're together and they're facing to four o'clock.
Try not to leave your knife and fork
just like randomly on the plate.
That's kind of just not very good etiquette.
Also, don't reach for things across the table.
If you want something from the other side of the table,
then it's politer to say:
‘Oh, please. Could you pass that over?'
and don't just keep reaching because then, you know,
your sleeve might get in someone's food
and that's kind of not very nice.
Also, if you are eating meat
or something that you need to cut with a knife and fork,
try and hold your knife correctly.
So, there's a bit of controversy about this, I think.
Some people think that it's better to hold the knife like a pencil,
but actually, you need to hold it with this finger on top,
pushing on down on the knife.
So if you're not sure how to use a knife and fork,
maybe that's another YouTube video for you to watch.
Also, it's best not to put your elbows on the table.
This has traditionally been the case.
These days, people are a bit more relaxed about it.
You probably won't find anyone thinking:
‘Oh, your elbows are on the table!',
but it's just a traditional thing of try not to do that.
I think that's probably the same as well in your culture.
And definitely, don't use your phone.
That's a big one!
No matter what situation you're in,
it's really quite rude to take out your phone at the dinner table.
Even if it's just a casual meal with friends,
people will feel maybe a bit, you know, offended
or they won't like it if you take your phone out, essentially.
Okay, now, how does the table work?
If you are in a very formal situation
and you find that you've got lots of different knives and forks
and plates and stuff,
you want to start with the outside cutlery first.
So, if you have three knives and three forks,
you start with the outside knife and fork for your first course,
and then the next one and then the next one.
There might be a fork and a spoon just above your plate,
that's usually for dessert.
You'll also find that there are lots of plates
and various glasses on the table.
Basically, the rule is,
if there's a plate to your left, that's for you,
the plates to your left are for you,
but your drinking vessel, like a glass, that's the right,
the one on your right side will be for you,
in case you get confused, which is very common.
I mean, the wedding I went to the other day,
everyone was very confused about whose plate is whose,
like where's the knife, like whatever.
A couple more things, make sure you don't slouch too much.
Slouching is like this.
The napkin.
What do we do with the napkin?
That's the blanket thing.
You need to put it on your lap,
so that stops food from falling down onto your clothes.
You might even find in very posh restaurants
that the waiter comes and puts the napkin on your lap for you.
And one last thing that I have a question for you:
Is it rude to jiggle your leg at the dinner table,
or maybe in general?
What do you think about this?
Jiggling your leg is when you're kind of
maybe anxious or a bit stressed,
and you move one leg like up and down like this,
like bouncing it on the floor.
I'm just wondering what you think about that.
Here, there's pretty much no issue with that,
as far as I'm aware.
It's not considered rude.
It's maybe just a little bit,
you know, you might think: ‘Are you okay?',
but it wouldn't be like
‘Oh, how rude!'.
So, I don't know.
What do you guys think about that?
Let me know in the comments down below.
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Okay, so that's pretty much our video for today.
I hope you've enjoyed it.
Give us a like and you can also subscribe to my channel.
Thanks for watching. I'm Susie
and I'll see you soon!