Serving the Fish Eye
Serving the Fish Eye
I have been asked to provide examples of some of the customs and societal differences I've come to enjoy in China, and I will include some that I don't enjoy as well.
Let's start with banquets. When I was living in Zhengzhou in North-Central China for almost a decade, I had made many friends over the years, some of official importance. A few times a month my wife and I would be invited to a banquet of anywhere from 6 to 20 guests, who sat around a round table topped by a lazy susan that the food dishes would be placed upon making service to the whole group very convenient. The table was usually in a private room, well decorated and with a private washroom. Seating is important, and the host and any special guest would usually sit across from and facing the door. When a whole fish is served, it is placed in front of the host with the head pointing towards him/her. Often, to show respect for and honour the guest, the host would pick an eye out of the cooked fish with chopsticks and place it on the guest's plate (because apparently it is considered to be healthy). However, to establish that I was aware of Chinese customs, sitting next to him I beat the host to it, picked out the eye with my chopsticks and placed it on his plate. That caused the host to shake my hand and for the other guests to applaud, probably admiring me, the "lowei" (foreigner), for being aware of their customs. I didn't want to eat the eye anyway.
Setup for a typical Chinese formal banquet (stock photo - not mine)
It is customary for the guests to take turns toasting the rest of the table, starting with the guest to the right of the host. The toasting guest takes his small glass of "moutai" (exceptionally strong alcoholic beverage that makes vodka seem like soda water in comparison), and the bottle, and walks around the table starting with the host and toasts each one individually, filling the other guest's glasses, and his own before and after each each toast. With a large number at the table, it's a bit of an effort to remain sober by the time all the guests have been toasted. This was not a custom I enjoyed, and the first time I did it I almost had to be carried out of the restaurant. It took me that experience to realize that a small sip was sufficient, rather than "gumbai" (empty the glass).
When sitting next to a host, one must be careful to not finish everything on their plate, or drink a glass dry, because the host will put more food on the plate, and refill an emply glass. My son learned that lesson back in Toronto when he was invited to dinner by a Chinese classmate who had a Hong Kong multi-millionaire father and lived in a virtual palace (tennis court and indoor pool). At that meal the mother put food on my son's plate, and my son, thinking he did not want to insult them, scraped the plate clean. What do you think the mother did then? She filled his plate again. Again, my son ate the whole thing, and that was followed by what? Yet another refill, and my son could not eat any more.
While the banquet meal is coming to an end. guests are expected to perform and a few may do magical tricks, or card tricks, or ask riddles, or sing songs. Most of the time I asked riddles, but had to make sure that they did not use tricky linguistics, or even in translation they would be impossible for the guests to understand as most ot the guests knew very little English, if any. Sometimes I sang a song, as I knew some in both English and French.
We have been living in Chongqing for only 6 months so I've not had the opportunity to make any Chinese friends here as yet, although this is my wife's "haukau" (home town) where her immediate and extended family lives and we have had some banquets together already on special occasions. However, they are very informal, no alcoholic beverages (thank heavens since I'm prone to developing gout), and no entertainment at the end.
Since I've been eating (North American style) Chinese food since I was a toddler, and I always liked it, I learned to use chopsticks before I even dreamed of travelling to China, so I never made a fool of myself here while eating a meal.
I would like to hear of anyone else's experience with a Chinese banquet, or eating a traditional Chinese meal in the company of Chinese people.
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Now, almost time for lunch - yet another Chinese meal. However, my wife is a really good cook.
The only time that I've had anything approaching a real Chinese meal was in Hong Kong when I was in the Navy. That was not really dining with Chinese people, it was for tourist consumption. We did, however, learn some of the customs and proprietary behavior. It consisted of many courses of small amounts of food. By the time you left, you were guaranteed to be full. We had been briefed on the customs and were told that the polite thing to do was, at the last course, almost always rice, you should eat some, but not all, of the bowl. This signified to the host, in this case the floating restaurant, that, although you thought highly of the food, you simply were unable to eat more. This was actually very close to the truth. We were stuffed with extremely good food.
I have since read of the members of the Doolittle Raiders, who were being smuggled through Japanese lines in 1942, and were not aware of the custom, and had not eaten for several days; when fed that sort of formal meal, ate everything, including the rice in the last course. When this was explained to the elders of the villages, it was, of course, understood. Upon being returned to the Air Force in Chunking, they, through General Chennault, had five times the amount of food that they had eaten smuggled through the enemy lines to the villages who had helped them.
The lady who runs our local Chinese restaurant does not serve food in quite that formalistic a manner. I would not expect her to, since she is not Chinese, but is from Thailand (where the food is much hotter).
All my life I've enjoyed meals that allow me to sample many different things, not just a set formula. One of the favourite restaurants I ever ate in was called "Food Among the Flowers" in Coral Gables, Florida. You chose a whole bunch of small dishes, a sort of sampling. Same with a good Shmorgasbord (Buffet) restaurant - taking tastes of a whole variety of dishes. My father LOVED buffet restaurants. We used to go to one in Hollywood, Florida, called The Gourmet (the food was truly gourmet quality). My father was sure they would lose money on him at those "all you can eat" restaurants, and he sure as hell tried to prove it. LOL
You mentioned Chunking. That is now Chongqing, and it is my wife's home town and where we are living, probably for the rest of my life. I have been to the Flying Tigers museum here, where General Stilwell lived. Here is a photo of me with one of the original Chinese Flying Tigers pilots. He used to fly cargo planes "over the hump" (the mountains) to Burma and is lucky to have survived - not that many did. Behind is a poster showing him in uniform with his family.
Great photo Buzz, those guys that flew ''The Hump'' had one of the most dangerous mission ever.
You should do a photo essay of the museum Buzz, I know that I would love to see it.
I can't find any photos I took at the museum other than the one I posted. I know I didn't take many because there really wasn't a lot to see except a lot of old framed photos on the walls, and the furniture which was pretty standard vintage Chinese style furniture. There was a souvenir shop where I bought a gift I gave to my son when I went to his wedding in Baltimore about 9 years ago.
Wonderful narrative, dear Buzz! Again, I want to go to China, although they would probably roll me up in something and send me back... It's lovely!
Looking at all that food-- golly! Here in Louisville, we eat and eat and eat until we're almost sick, and then, 3 hours later, we're hungry again... I love the different flavors, and of course, it is American-ized, but still wonderful! And no, I wouldn't want to eat a fish eye either...
By the way, Thai food is hotter than a genuine Sichuan/Chongqing hot pot? Unlikely.
Actually Szechuan food is as spicy as any Thai dish. Indonesian food is also very spicy.
I've been to many a Chinese banquet due to doing a lot of business in China.
Know most of the traditions including the fish eye...Actually Buzz, they are quite good for you and Ojibwe serve them all the time.
If I remember correctly the Chinese words for Cheers or Toast is Chin Chin.
Good article and brings back many a memory.
I don't think I'd ever be happy about eating something that is looking at me. LOL
Nice article, Buzz. The lazy susan is perfect for a big round table ! I've never had a real, traditional chinese meal.
You would have difficulty finding a restaurant that serves genuine traditional Chinese meals outside of China, but bigger cities with larger Chinese populations (Toronto has 300,000 Chinese residents) may have some. You would have to ask someone Chinese where to find a genuine one, because many may advertise a traditional menu, but still "westernize" it for local tastes.
LA has them Buzz, it's the one thing that I miss about living in LA is the food from every culture in the world.
Oh, what I've not yet seen here is an IHOP. I love pancakes and often make blueberry-banana pancakes for breakfast. I thought that if I ever won a big lottery I would try to bring an IHOP franchise here.
Let me expand on that concept. When I was much younger back in Canada, and before the days of McDonald's, I thought about opening a restaurant and calling it "Buzzy's Burgers" - a place for young people to hang out. Here I thought it would be great to open a restaurant and call it "Buzzy's Breakfast & Burgers". I make almost all the breakfasts in our home, Western breakfasts like bacon and eggs, sauteed onions and eggs, sunny side up or easy over, toast with peanut butter and jam or with butter and apricot jam, pancakes, hot oatmeal, French toast, cheese or mushroom or ham omelettes, etc.
That just gave me an idea for an article.