Here are some
table manners and tips.
1. No eating
Banchan before the main dish is served.
As you know
now, Korean meal consists of various banchan with rice. When you order a dish
in restaurants, they could serve banchan first as they already have banchan
prepared to serve a main dish. It looks
not good to eat banchan before being served the main dish. If you finish some banchan, you can ask more.
It’s free. But some banchan made of expensive ingredients they don’t serve more
for free.
Tip)You’d
better eat banchan together with the main dish once this is served. They don’t
ask you extra charge for the banchan and water but it is included in the cost
of main dish. And you don’t need to put a tip on the table when leaving.
2. Yawn or
Blow nose
In the table,
it looks not good to yawn or blow your nose. Sneezing is OK as it is considered
unavoidable. In Korea, when someone sneezes, we don’t say “Bless you” but just
wait till he(or she) gets stable stopping sneezing.
3. Don’t pick
up the bowls.
We hardly eat
the rice or drink soup holding up the bowl. There are some exclusions for some
kind of soups. We just use spoon
and chopsticks keeping down the bowls on the table. I’m not 100% sure why we
do. Many say that it is originated from an old custom that long ago the
lowest leveled people did not have time
to set the meal on the table formally and to take time to eat.
4. Eating
noise
It’s not good
to eat noisily with a mouth open.
5. With two
hands
When drinking
with others, people fill others’ glass. Nobody fills his glass himself. When
you find someone’s glass is empty, you’d better fill it right away. An empty
glass means that nobody cares him(or her). And when fill up someone’s glass, if
he(or she) is elder than you, you have to hold the bottle or glass with two
hands. It is originated from the custom due to the shape of Hanbok(traditional
costume). The traditional costume Hanbok has very wide sleeves and we have to hold the sleeve
when serving something over the table not to touch and dip the sleep into
food., which means that I’m paying attention to the meal with you trying not to
make mistake with my wide sleeves. And younger people always pass something to
elder people with two hands besides eating. It means that I respect other
party. If you have experience to work with Korean, you can often see that they
give you their business card with two hands.
6. When eating
together with elder people
When eating
with an elder
person, the elder man has to
start eating first. After the elder man picks up the spoon or chopsticks, you’d better
start eating. And the elder person has to
take a seat first. Tip)If you are not accustomed to use chopsticks, you can ask
a fork in Korean restaurants. It is known very good using chopsticks for brain
as it makes small muscles of hand exercise and prevents from dementia. In
Korea, normally 3 years old kids start training chopsticks. Parents help
children to use it in a correct way. Some people could consider a person who
uses chopsticks in an ugly position and incorrect way as a person not
well-cared by parents when child.
When I was
little, any chopsticks to train with did not exist. Nowadays most of kids use
it. Due to the reason mentioned above, adults who are not that good at
chopsticks try to use training chopsticks.
And today we can find many Japanese or Korean restaurants abroad and see
they’re very good at using chopsticks.
International food has been getting spread and it seems good to practice
and train using chopsticks. Occasionally I found chopsticks covered with
silicone to prevent food from sliding out and I posted it on eBay. https://www.ebay.com/itm/142756003692
If you master the silicone chopsticks, you can step up to wood chopsticks with a few slits which grab food. Korean people also use chopsticks with slits or grid as there are some very slippery food like glazed noodle or Mook(kind of pudding or jelly made of natural ingredients), etc.
If you master the silicone chopsticks, you can step up to wood chopsticks with a few slits which grab food. Korean people also use chopsticks with slits or grid as there are some very slippery food like glazed noodle or Mook(kind of pudding or jelly made of natural ingredients), etc.
You can feel
that Korean people respect and are kind to seniors or other party.
All the buses
and metro have some exclusive seats for only seniors, which are marked with
yellow tags and some for pregnant women with pink tags.
<The End>
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