Ritual of The Table

The Chinese diet civilization boasts a distant origin and a long development. In China, which has been a nation of courtesy and propriety since ancient times and whose people take food as their first necessity, table manners has naturally become an important composition of its diet civilization.

Some rules of table manners are for the concern of showing politeness to diners’ statuses, which the ancients called “尊品”(literally meaning “noble rank”), some rules have come from customs, which reflect the traditional life and diet civilization of the Chinese nation. Whether one observes these table manners determines one’s status in other people’s eyes, and also tells others about one’s cultural attainments and family education. Similar to other Chinese etiquette, Chinese dining etiquette also takes Confucianism.