A Chinese dinner party.
Rice and soup are brought on to the table in large vessels from which individual saucers are filled. Other dishes are partaken of by all present directly from the common bowl.
It is considered a token of hospitality on the part of the host or friendliness on the part of an acquaintance to take an especially choice piece of meat or vegetable from the bowl and to place it on the plate or in the mouth of a fellow diner.
The two chopsticks are both held in the right instead of separately in each hand as ordinarily believed. They are maintained by the thumb and ring finger and manipulated by the index and middle fingers. One stick remains motionless, the other is so manoeuvred as to entrap with ease a morsel of meat or even the smallest grain of rice.
The sticks (square at the top and round for the rest of their length) are made of bamboo or more precious woods, ivory or silver. On the upper portions, poems and pictures are often engraved.
Spoons are used for liquids.
Chopsticks and bowl.
An ordinary meal among the middle classes consists of eight dishes—two vegetables, eggs, fish, shell fish, bird and two meats (pork and goat; or, in some parts of the north, mutton and beef).
With this will be served a large tureen of soup with rice, the latter taking the place of bread.