By Ernie Tadla

Food is important in all cultures, but in China, it plays a paramount role as the tool for face and guanxi.

Business eating is where guanxi is established. To get to know another person and to build trust, eating together is necessary. The Chinese don’t eat at their desks, and they don’t rush out to the nearest fast-food joint. It is a specific time for talking and getting to know the other person. Typically, business is not discussed. That’s done during the many business meetings.

The business banquet is the pinnacle of guanxi building, celebrating, and or honoring guests.

Yesterday, I wrote about banquet drinking culture, and how I managed to abstain from the beloved Chinese liquor maotai and still save face. Equally important, obviously, is the food culture, which I would recommend embracing wholeheartedly.

A Chinese banquet is not only a culinary feast and experience; it is a visual and auditory experience. It starts with seven to eight cold appetizers of the most intriguing items. That’s followed by twelve to fifteen hot courses: beef, pork, chicken, duck, two fish (selected from the water tanks at the entrance, inspected and approved at table side), and all sorts of vegetables (no cold salads as we know them). The huge lazy-Susan platform keeps rotating, and you pick up these juicy, tasty morsels with your chopsticks as they go by. Usually two kinds of soups and rice are served near the end of the meal. When they serve the watermelon, you know the meal is over. There is no happy hour, no cocktail before dinner, mostly orange juice though and no lingering over a cigar and liqueur. After the watermelon, you get up and go.

During a business luncheon one day, the waiter brought a burlap bag to the table and our host looked into it and nodded. I had seen the waiter bring us live fish from the tanks for approval, so I wondered why they put the fish in a burlap bag. It wasn’t a fish, it was a live snake. I ate snake for lunch that day. I’ve eaten roasted cockroaches and duck tongues.

I could handle these, but not maotai? Here is how I managed it. I told myself, “Ern, it’s all in your mind. Your body recognizes this only as protein. To your digestive system, it isn’t snake or cockroach. It’s just protein. It’s your mind that messes it up.” Maotai was not mental, it was physical. My body rejected it, but not protein.

Don’t let these little side experiences taint your impression of Chinese food and cooking. It’s wonderful. The myriad ways they prepare all the dishes is fantastic: the tastes, the colors, and the presentation. Eating in China is a wonderful experience.

Editors’ note: This article is republished with permission from How To Live & Do Business In China, by Ernie Tadla. Mr. Tadla also is a China business coach. He can be reached at www.odysseychina.net.

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