I Stand Corrected (10 page)

It must be a relief for the Chinese to know that dining at a Western table is limited typically to four courses. Alas, that cannot be said for a Westerner in China, where the meal begins with a set of cold dishes, followed by various courses of vegetables, even before the soup makes an appearance. Next is meat. Then fish is presented, often served whole and never flipped to its other side, which is an unlucky gesture that symbolizes capsizing a boat. Since protein and vegetables claim a higher nutritional rank, starch is consumed as filler if the diner is still hungry. When bowls of rice and noodles are placed on the table, it usually indicates that the meal is drawing to a conclusion.

Much of social life—and a great deal of business—revolves around food, and I am of the mind that one should know how to behave at the table of people with whom one happens to be dining. Eating in China can be a terror for the uninitiated. At one time or another, I have been immobilized by dishes with ghoulishly unappetizing implications: “pig hoof gruel,” “fried goose intestines,” “chicken without sexual life,” “pockmarked old-lady’s tofu,” “fish smell like pork,” “lover’s lung.” The real showstopper: “lily bulbs and deer’s penis.”

Even though I have managed the body parts of both small and large animals, I continue to be outdone by various crustaceans, which appear to require a full set of surgical tools to consume. Not only do I leave the carnage of giant crabs on their serving plate—the unsightly proof of my unsuccessful amputations—but even when I manage to transfer the hacked-up crabmeat onto my plate, I fail to ensure its clear passage to my mouth. A shortcoming with shellfish is but one of my failings at a Chinese table. My mistakes with chopsticks are notorious. I have enlisted them to impale uncooperative food in a last-ditch effort to eat what has been placed in front of me. I have wrongly employed them to pick through the food on my plate, a gesture that represents digging my own grave. And I have used them to pass food, which conjures the passing
of cremated bones between loved ones at a funeral. I have left chopsticks sticking out of my rice bowl, a look reminiscent of incense sticks, which burn in veneration of the deceased.

Assisted by my sometimes invincible ignorance of Chinese dining superstitions, I have foretold the impending deaths of everyone at the table and have reminded them of the past deaths of their loved ones. So when it came time for me to offer advice to the Chinese on the fundamentals of Western cutlery, it was my fondest hope that they would succeed where I had so obviously not with chopsticks.

A table setting for a four-course Western dinner includes the following:

Utensils are placed in the order of their use, starting from the outside and working in
. The exception is the dessert fork and spoon, which are placed above the dinner plate. Forks go to the left of the plate; the knife and the soupspoon go to the right of the plate. The butter knife rests on the bread plate, which goes to the left of the dinner
plate. The glasses to the right. One way to remember this: food to the left and liquids to the right.

The ancient Greeks used the fork to hold meat while cutting it. The Italians employed the early use of the fork on its own, but that system failed to win over the English until the late seventeenth century. The dinner knife—which replaced the sharp tip with a rounded one—was not put to daily use until the eighteenth century, when Louis XIV—after discovering its practicality—became an enthusiast. Since its purpose was no longer to prick a piece of food off the plate, but to help with cutting it, the king took advantage of that advancement and banned pointy knives from the dining table.

There are two ways of eating in the West: the American way and the Continental way
. The Continental way of eating is more streamlined and—to my mind—easier. The fork is held in the left hand and points down. The knife is held in the right hand and low to the plate. They stay exactly that way throughout the meal. The advantage of this method is that you need not constantly pass the fork from your left to your right hand, as you must in the American way. When not cutting, the knife helps guide the food onto the fork. Once you lift your utensils from the table, they stay on your plate and do not go back on the table. Your knife and fork should be put in the resting position on your plate when you raise your napkin to your lips between bites, take a sip of water or wine, or have an extended conversation.

When I lived in L.A., the simple interaction of inviting people to dinner was complicated by their numerous dietary issues. Guests would phone the day before and negotiate the meal, requesting it be dairy-free and reminding me that they don’t eat bread after 11:00 a.m.

L.A. is not a reference point for Western normalcy, and so
I alerted my Chinese readers that at most Western tables bread will inevitably be served and is usually passed in a breadbasket.

If you are the one who begins to pass the bread, pick up the basket and offer it to the person to your left
. After that person takes a piece, help yourself to a single piece, place it on your bread plate (or on the left side of your dinner plate if there is no bread plate), and pass the basket to your right. If you would like butter on your bread, take enough butter from the butter dish to cover the whole piece of bread and put it on your bread plate; never butter your bread directly from the butter dish. Do not take the entire piece of bread to your mouth and leave a dentist’s mold of your bite. Break off a bite-size piece of bread from the piece you have placed on your bread plate, and butter each piece as you eat it.

Between what is done at the table is what is said at the table. It is the obligation of the host to make sure his guests are engaged in good conversation, and it is up to the guests to make sure the host does not regret inviting them.

PART FOUR
The Art—and Perils—of Conversing

Although there exist many thousands of subjects for elegant conversation, there are persons who cannot meet a cripple without talking about feet.
—
Chinese proverb

A
t times, there is a mangled charm when the Chinese attempt small talk with Westerners. Their total lack of inhibition is the refreshing opposite of the West’s politically correct and often spontaneity-killing approach to conversation.

It turns out that the Chinese are capable of asking what most people want to know but, with the exception of young children, are too polite to ask.

Having been interrogated about my age, how much money I have, and why I was not married, I’ve come to enjoy the guileless manner by which the Chinese plunge forward in their conversations with me. For other Westerners, however, the Chinese take on social conversation can seem stunningly taboo-free—to the point of causing discomfort. Making matters worse is that in China grinning serves to lessen embarrassment or to deal with awkwardness in a social situation. Such extreme oppositions in comportment collide when the news of misfortune is met with laughter, and the reply to a Western admonishment for such laughter is yet more laughter.

During the course of a banquet I attended with Chinese and American businessmen and their spouses, our Chinese host began an innocuous enough conversation with the woman seated on his left.

“I see you like food,” was how he began.

“Well, yes, I suppose I do like food,” responded the woman, charmed by what she assumed was his limited English.

“I knew that because you are fat,” was what he said next.

Those close enough to hear waited in stunned silence for the consequence.

There was none.

The brutally expressed observation—accurate though it was—would have been a martini-in-the-face insult anywhere other than China, where, it happens, being plump is a sign of prosperity. That might well be, but my chapter on social conversation warned Chinese readers that under no circumstances would a Western woman agree to put her prosperity on a public scale.

Mastering the skill of starting a conversation with someone you’ve just met requires you to listen carefully to the other person, to be observant, and to think before you speak
. Being observant means considering the person you are addressing. If you are anxious, you won’t be able to think of anything to say in a group. Wait for the right moment and add your own thoughts or observations to the discussion. An opening line that a host may use to start a conversation is “How do you like our city?” One for a guest at a dinner or function is “How do you know our host?”

The advice in my chapter on conversing with Westerners focused more on what not to say, and I was able to use several unforgettable examples from my own dining table.

Some twenty-four years ago, W. organized a dinner party at our New York apartment to celebrate the impending birth of our son. The conversation was a case study in disaster.

“If you described parenthood as a job, no one would take it,” was how it began.

The statement was especially unexpected, coming as it did from a mother of two charming children. Of those gathered at the table, her husband was the most taken aback.

“What a discouraging thing to tell someone who’s just announced she’s expecting!” he said.

Choosing to ignore him, his wife turned to me. “You’re a businesswoman, Eden. If you were to list the pros and cons of the theoretical job of being a mother, would there be any takers?”

It was the kind of interrogative that had no intention of waiting for a reply. Before I could answer, her composure snapped like a dry tree branch.

“Even at a six-figure salary, you’d be insane to take the job!” she blurted out.

The unsparing assessment locked us in uneasy quiet.

“It starts with nine uncomfortable months. Each month is its own separate and awful reminder you’ve lost control of your body. Then there’s the backbreaking labor and the searing pain of delivery.”

Her evenly spaced words produced the tonal rhythm of a demented storyteller, and our collective expression took a recognizable shape of dismay.

“That’s just the beginning,” she continued in a monotone flattened by defeat. “You bring home this complete stranger who nurses away whatever strength you have left. By the end of the first month, the novelty has worn thin, just in time to realize your baby isn’t an item you’ve bought and can still return.”

She then offered a bleak forecast: “You can be sure of one thing: no matter what you do or how you do it, you know—you just know—that in twenty years he’ll be sitting in a psychiatrist’s office blaming you for something, some small thing, something you couldn’t remember if someone put a gun to your head.”

Palpable silence from our other guests failed to camouflage their horror. At the opposite end of the table, my husband’s face was telegraphing a wordless plea for intervention.

“So, Cleveland, tell us what you’re up to these days,” I asked in a transparently obvious bid to redirect the conversation.

Cleveland Amory was a curmudgeon who’d long given up on humans to devote himself to animal rights. To the immediate point, he was someone who had been to enough dinner
parties to understand that he was being prevailed upon by a desperate hostess.

“You know how I feel about making fur coats from baby white seals,” was his lead-in.

“Yes …?” I said, grateful that he had taken my cue.

“Well, I’m working with the Greenpeace people, and the really good news is we plan to sink a Canadian trawler next week.”

The transition to another topic was more abrupt than I might have liked.

“Isn’t that dangerous for someone?” I asked.

W. leaned forward in his chair. His keen interest pushed aside my concern about safety in favor of the pyrotechnical details.

“How do you sink something that size? What does it take?”

His was a question only a man would ask and other men would appreciate. I was surprised when the one sitting to my left—Robert, who was both a close friend and our lawyer—stood up suddenly and excused himself.

Cleveland continued to detail his plan. He would implement his scheme at night, when a skeleton crew would be on board; the boat would be anchored in shallow waters; explosives would be limited to a small detonating device in the boiler room.