With a history that some date back 5,000 years, China has a lot of customs and beliefs whose origins are now lost. Amongst them, some taboos related to what people eat have been passed on from generation to generation, and which effect we can still see sometimes in modern China. Obviously these eating taboos are just for reference as most of them are not backed by any scientific evidence.
Chinese bowl and chopsticks on the table
1. Avoid eating in a doorway.
2. Avoid eating deep-fried cakes stuffed with meat because there is a proverb which states that good fortune can not be enjoyed twice at the same time.
3. Avoid hitting your bowls with chopsticks.
4. Avoid hitting cats with chopsticks as there is an old saying that if you hit a cat with your chopsticks, they will bring home snakes.
5. Avoid eating when someone is in the toilet.
6. Avoid sharing a pear with another person, especially a lover, because the Chinese word "fenli", which means sharing a pear, sounds like "fenli" which means "to break up".
7. Avoid putting Chinese jujubes and pears together when honouring the moon god on Mid-Autumn Festival, because it sounds like "easy to pass away."
8. Children should avoid eating chicken intestines otherwise they may have a bad handwriting.
9. Avoid cooking snakes indoors because people think that the smell of the snake meat will attract centipedes. Hence, snakes should be cooked outdoors with its marrow facing outwards (The marrow is considered poisonous.)
10. Avoid stacking two plates on top of each other when eating at a wedding banquet or after a funeral as it symbolises "to marry for a second time" or "to die again".
(Zhuo Xiaojun and David Keyton)
