Learn Chinese Banquet Customs
In China, the banquet is one of the most important activities for strengthening formal social and business relationships. If you're invited to a banquet, you can make your host happy by respecting traditional banquet etiquette.
Whether an individual or company has invited you to dinner, here's how it works:
Banquets are usually held at a large round table in a restaurant's private room (VIP Room). Seating arrangements are based on rank and other etiquette rules, so wait for your host to tell you where to sit. If you're bringing a group for a business dinner, provide the title and rank of each company member when you RSVP.
Whoever issued the invitation orders food and drinks for the evening and pays for the whole meal. The best thing you can do to thank your host is to reciprocate, ideally when your business is tied up or the day before you leave China.
Even if it's a business dinner, business is not usually a topic of conversation. The purpose of the event is for your host to get to know you – an important facet of Chinese business culture.
Dinner for the table will be served on a large lazy Susan so everyone can serve themselves using their own chopsticks; a few pairs of "public chopsticks" are for shared entree dishes. Guests often are served and expected to start eating first, and the host may offer the best of a dish to the guest, putting the food right on your plate. To be polite, try to taste at least a little of every dish.
Soup – a part of almost every Chinese meal – is served toward the end. Eat it with the flat-bottomed ceramic spoon; only drink from your bowl if your host does. Desert is not a big item in China.
Food and drink is considered best served hot to keep the body healthy, so hot tea is served at all meals, while ice water seldom is.
Place your chopsticks on your chopstick rest and not across your bowl, and never stick your chopsticks into the middle of a bowl of rice pointing upward.
Slurping is acceptable table behavior, and it's polite to leave food on your plate at the end of a meal. A clean plate signals that you're still hungry, so more food will be put on your plate.
No one in China has ever heard of fortune cookies.
Toasting Tips
Toasts are common during a meal, and certainly at the end of it. A strong, clear rice wine is served that tastes a little like vodka. Your host, followed by others at the table, will typically get up for each toast and walk around the table, raising his glass and dedicating a drink to each guest.
Because it's common for many toasts to be made, you could easily get quite drunk. In fact, a good host will try to get you drunk. If you don't want to drink, definitely tell your host at the beginning of the meal – one simple and acceptable way out is to claim an allergy to alcohol (or consider bringing a hangover protector like RU-21).
If a translator is available, repeat your host's gesture by making your own toast to everyone at the table. Stand behind each guest in turn, coming to your host first or last, and raise your glass by holding it in one hand and placing the flat palm of the other under the cup.