I really question a lot of these things we say of other cultures. I read once in some English article that Thai people should not finish all their food because it makes their host look as if they didn't provide enough. My family, being from Thailand, did not know anything about this.

And the whole slurping of noodles thing in Japan? Yeah they do it, but to be polite? Or show that they're enjoying their food? Seriously? Who in their right mind would actively think "I have to thank the chef by continually making slurping noises" while eating? Needless to say, I asked my Japanese friends and they also never knew about this Western belief we have of them.

I traveled to China for the first time last year, where I spent 2 weeks traveling to different regions with 2 Chinese colleagues. Some of the interesting eating habits I found were slurping, spitting fish bones directly on to your plate, and belching aloud as a sign of enjoyment. Since I was the only American dining with multiple Chinese at every meal, it didn't take long to get used to these traditions!

The noodle thing is a polite thing, or so my host family told me, I used to catch flack when I didn't at the dinner table.

That said, I hate stuff like this. Especially when they generalize a whole country, like Canada, which is a melting pot. I remember when I went to the world expo in 2005 in japan we saw the Canada exhibit(there were a bunch of us from other countries there together including our host parents) and it was EMBARRASSING! They opened a video with showing a bunch of different people eatting differed breakfasts(to show our diversity) and then switched right to a horrible little shanty town that could have been an inuit village up far far north(I mean no offense by that by the way) but it was basically a bunch of houses built of garbage! Everyone asked if that is the same as the house I lived in, and why people in Canada don't build nicer houses.

So while strange etiquette things are fun, I think when people are talking about them, people need to remember not everything is the same for everyone in that country, especially when the country is inhabited by people from all over the world more so then peoples originating in said country(Canada and the united states beingthe main ones)

I'm sorry, this was a little bit off topic.

on my first foray in France, I was instructed that hands are always kept visible, on the table, during a meal. otherwise "nobody knows what they might be doing-- especially if you're sitting next to your lover."

This, like any guide book or compendium of interesting facts, should be taken with a grain of salt. I'll never forget standing in the travel section of a bookstore in Spain reading the chapter in the Rough Guide about Wisconsin. The first sentence was basically "the residents of Wisconsin refer to themselves as cheeseheads" and then proceeded to provide the history of the silly hats. While it's based in truth, dude. If anyone said "hello cheesehead" to me I would probably die laughing.

I've traveled a bit and found that a good rule of thumb is to watch others for etiquette if you're in a group that's not mainly foreigners. Or ask. You don't want to freak your hosts out, but you gotta eat and you can't worry about it too much.

QChan, MaryWynn, you two are right. Kind of baffling to me though that even today, with all this Wikipedia and everything, why there are still lots of generalizations and misunderstandings like this.

Anyway, back on topic, when I went to France, I remember two customs well. The first one was a definite one: Leave the bread on the table. You don't need to plate it. The second, I'm not sure if my coworkers were just playing a joke on me or what: Use the bread to wipe and sop up all of the sauce off your entree's plate. Real or not, these are two habits that stuck with me, and I leave my bread on the table and sop up EVERYTHING off my plate with it. Try it - more food for the money, and you'll usually get little jokes from waiters about them not having to clean the plate anymore.

Funny, I was at a Chinese New Year meal yesterday, and the discussion turned to the rather un-Chinese practice of each person ordering a dish for themselves in Chinese restaurants, when it is Chinese custom for all dishes to be shared. However, I'm sure none of my Chinese companions would take offense, and would accept it as merely a cultural difference, not bad manners.

I'm a first-generation Korean, grew up in South Korea for half of my life, and had family and family friends from all regions. I have NEVER encountered an eating situation where spitting fish bones on the floor or the table was acceptable. Disgusting and untrue.

I note that people are quick to condemn American manners and food habits and to generalize their eating yet making similar statements about any other country causes people to wiggle in their seats and squirm in discomfort. Then there are the inevitable deniers with very limited experience in the cultures being discussed. Anecdotes and vacation observations are not indicative of culture-wide behavior. Keep in mind that it's also only wrong to talk about generalities in behavior if you are judging those behaviors as "wrong" because of ethnocentrism. There's nothing wrong with noting these differences. There's only something wrong with elevating your cultural preferences above theirs.

I've lived in Japan for 22 years - they do slurp their soup in general. I don't know if it is considered "polite" so much as not impolite so people do it all of the time. The same goes for putting an enormous amount of food in your mouth and struggling to masticate it (which also seems to happen a lot).

Oh, also about the French... an academic mentor of mine from France told me that it's acceptable to use your hands to eat for animals with small bones, like poultry and rabbit.

@gary: the sopping up food thing is absolutely true (though definitely not always done: it's a can not a must). however, it should be done casually and with whatever bread you happen to have. if you spend time trying to get every last drop or get more bread in order to sop up sauce, it's a little tacky. also, in nice restaurants, you should tear off a bite sized piece, place it on your plate, then use your fork to swirl it around and bring it to your mouth.

I've never seen anyone use their hands for poultry or rabbit, though. maybe at home? regional?

Spitting anything onto the floor would be considered disgusting and impolite by Koreans (and probably nearly everyone else). And the slurping thing is not a "must"--it's just more acceptable to slurp noodles in some cultures than others. That doesn't mean you're being impolite if you eat your ramen quietly.

Many of these table manners lists seem based on archaic anecdotes designed to make non-Americans seem strange, quaint and/or boorish.

@pearmelon: I actually get a little bummed out when dining with people who don't order family style at Chinese restaurants. I don't ever call anyone out or try to make anyone feel bad about it, 'cos live and let live, right? But my Chinese upbringing reflexively causes me, on the inside, to feel like it's boorish of them.

To me, it just feels happier to order communally and share when eating certain cuisines. This is my own experience but just so you know...some people you're dining with might actually care even if we're trying to be gracious and act like we don't.

I agree with slowdown and joolseyc-- I currently live in Korea and have never once seen anyone spit bones on the floor-- it would be barbaric. At lunch once I made the mistake of removing fish bones from my mouth with my fingers and got a horrified look from my coworker. I watched him carefully to see how he handled the same situation-- he delicately removed the bones from his mouth with his chopsticks and then hid them beside his bowl so I wouldn't have to look at them.
Perhaps the lady who said it was commonplace (after being in Korea for a whole 9 months) had a particulary boorish mother-in-law, or maybe they lived way out in the country??

@foodefafa: well call me tacky then 'cause I get every last drop :) what can I say. I love food

I recently spent three months in Jordan with my fiance and his family. Before I left, I read all the stuff I could find about 'cultural norms' there and there were so many things about how it's bad to eat with your left hand in the middle east.
I asked my brother, who is a soldier and spent two separate tours in Iraq. He laughed at me and told me the reason people used to do that was because before indoor plumbing..people wiped themselves with their left hands >.<
Long story short, I never encountered a situation that required me to eat with my hands. It became a joke to my fiance's family because apparently only the low class and bedouins still eat like that!