How The Chinese Eat (With Video and a Cute Guy To Boot)

This video clip is from a movie called Sophie's Revenge. (Original Chinese name, Fei Chang Wan Mei « 非常完美».) There's a scene where the lead girl and guy are eating dinner together, and it struck me as an excellent example of eating culture in China, so I want to share it with you. It's a short clip, about 1 minute long. Ignore the dialogue, it's not important. A few things I want to point out:

1. Notice how he puts food into her bowl? It's very polite to do this for someone. I do it now, too.

2. Chopsticks should be held high up on the stick. I often now see American shows where I think people are holding the chopsticks in a really weird way. No wonder the Chinese think we don't know how to use them!

3. Almost all food is eaten out of a small bowl like this. You fill it with rice, then just keep adding food on top and eat down the rice until it's gone. No big plates or bowls (unless it's a big bowl of noodles).

4. The pick up the bowls and hold them in their hands throughout the meal. This is common and not considered bad manners.

5. At one point, she holds the bowl very close to her mouth and sort of rapidly shovels the food in. This is also very common and not considered bad manners. I do this sometimes, but not often, just because it still feels a bit weird to me to do it in front of others.

6.Not an eating observation, but I think this actor is really handsome. He's ABC (American Born Chinese) who has family in Taiwan, and is pretty famous here. There are a few actors and singers who are very famous here who are ABC, but are completely unknown in the U.S. (Not sure about Canada.) His English name is Peter Ho. The actress is Zhang Ziyi, best known in America for her role in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. She is one of the most famous people in China.