Table Manners

Have you ever eaten in a foreign restaurant? Where? What did you eat? Did you make any mistakes? Please explain your experience. Did you learn anything?

Yes, I have eaten in foreign restaurant. It was a Korean restaurant. I ate some Korean food at Korean restaurant with my friend who is from Korean. I think I didn’t make any mistakes, but sometimes there were something made me surprise or made me giggle. First, they have a dish which is for rice (like “rice bowl”) in Korea too as we have it in Japan. Usually, the dish is kind of small, and Japanese people always hold up the rice bowl when we eat rice with the rice bowl because if we didn’t do it, it’s going to be “rude” in Japan. However, Korean people never hold the rice bowl because holding the rice bowl or any dishes when they eat is rude in Korea. So, it looked a little strange to me because nobody even touched or supported the dishes. To me, it was like they didn’t show their “the other hands” which didn’t have chopsticks or spoons. So, I felt like “wow… eating like that is uncomfortable to me…” That is one of what made me surprise.