Chinese Floor Culture

The history of chinese eating culture.

Chinese floor culture.

A usual family dinner serves close friends. But few can take exception to the statement that few other cultures are as food oriented as the chinese. Floor culture is daily practiced in south korea. Staple food normally made of rice noodles or steamed buns and ts ai vegetable and meat dishes.

Traditionally especially before 1911 when the gregorian calendar was applied in china chinese people have celebrated only the lunar calendar birthdays. Nowadays it is more common to observe the gregorian calendar birthdays in china just like most of. In buildings of malaysia where chinese are significant in population with 25 of malaysians and 75 of singaporeans being chinese the floor number 4 or house address with number 4 is occasionally skipped. Eating a lunch box together is a.

Finally perhaps the most important aspect of the chinese food culture is the importance of food itself in chinese culture. China is a country with a long history of ritual and etiquette and eating is highly important feature of china s culture so naturally dining etiquette has developed to a high degree. Traditional chinese dwellings zhongguo chuantong minju a bilingual text has a few line drawings of kangs it says that the kang is used to cook meals and heat the room making full use of the heat retaining capacity of the loess soil used to make adobe the kang produces radiant heat to heat the interior space indirectly in addition to the bed mass itself. In chinese culture service of expensive and rare foods usually shows the respect to the guests.

That chinese cuisine is the greatest in the world is highly debatable and is essentially irrelevant. Next to china japan and india south korea is also a country where everything is centred around the floor. Each participant will take an opportunity to dominate the floor for lengthy periods without appearing to say very much of anything that actually contributes to the meeting. A formal dinner includes 4 6 cold dishes 8 10 hot dishes served with soup and fruits.

Be patient and listen. There are already a lot of very good speculations answers out there on why japanese and koreans still practice the floor culture today but not much on why and when did this floor culture disappear from the everyday life of the chinese. Dining etiquette is said to have its beginnings in the zhou dynasty 1045 256 bc. A chinese meal is consisted of two parts.

In korea floor is used for sitting. Close friends or colleagues usually go to food stalls for dining and drinking. This is different from western meals which take meat or animal protein as main dish. As a result of the inconsistency of two prevalent calendars in china this is a custom that even some chinese people couldn t figure out.