The Chinese way of eating is unhygienic - True?

I was unusually busy the last few days. Not sure if it was good or bad. Shall think about this predicament later.

I was having a light breakfast with Jeradyne this morning in my favorite coffee shop near my house. I saw Kevin - not so long ago Canon Printer person with his two rather young daughters. Thought of saying hello later as he was some distance away. I blinked my eyes twice and alas, he was gone. The coffee shop I was in serves to-kill-for RM5 club sandwiches.

Talking about food. I have on several occasions heard that our Chinese way of eating is rather unhygienic, you know sharing commonly centralized dishes where we dip our chopsticks and forks and spoons.

I looked up the Net.

I saw this Eating in Taiwan: Etiquette and I quote.

As with Chinese cuisine elsewhere, food in Taiwan is generally eaten with chopsticks and served on large plates placed at the center of the table. Unlike in the West, however, a serving spoon might not accompany the dishes, and instead guests will use their own chopsticks to transfer food to their plates. Some people unaccustomed to this way of eating may consider this unhygienic, though it is usually quite safe. However, those who prefer to use a separate utensil for serving have the option of requesting communal chopsticks (公筷 gongkuai), and can gently encourage friends to use them if they do not automatically do so.

I can't find any more stuffs related to my post title.

My view is that it is not true generally. How so?

Our manner of eating is certainly different from the Westerners significantly. regardless of whether we are using chopsticks or forks and spoons.

When we are using chopsticks, we tend to exhibit a sucking action to separate the food from the pair of chopsticks holding it. This behaviour entails very little contact between our lips and the chopsticks being used. The very obvious example would be our manner of eating soup mee/meehoon. The Westerners tend to put quite a bit of the chopsticks into their mouths to pull in the food via a sweeping lips action.

When using forks and spoons, in addition to the sucking motion, we too utilise our top front row of teeth to very gently rake in the food, being careful not to touch the fork or spoon used. Here a Western person would close his mouth over the whole business end of the spoon/fork and 'wipe' in the food totally.

When drinking soups, we inevitably touch the spoon with our lips. But you will notice that we tend to touch as little as we can, and with a slight tipping motion, draw in the liquid. The drinking action of a Westerner would be the same as in the above paragraph. Incidentally, they can't drink hot soups.

If the above descriptions make you think about sex, well, I can vouch for you being healthy.

Incidentally, the Westerner's way of eating local/Chinese food means that they tend to draw in an unusually larger amount of the spices/curry/gravy and hence tend to make it too hot for them.

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2 pictures of our Ms World Malaysia 2009 Thanuja Ananthan?
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