Today, I invited her to my house for lunch.Since our topic was often given to Korean & Japanese food, I prepared Japanese traditional food or at least common dishes today.
What drew my attention during lunch was the difference of our eating decency. I didn't serve a spoon but chopsticks to eat although the meal included a bowl of miso-soup. I didn't even notice that she wanted a spoon since it's natural for us to use chopsticks for miso-soup. When eating miso-soup, we hold a small bowl in our hand and put our mouth to the bowl to drink the soup. However, this seems to be ill-mannered for people in her country, Korea. Instead of holding a bowl in their hand, they leave it on the table and use a spoon to scoop soup.
I must have looked queer to her first.
2 comments:
Definitely, Ariko.
I was a little bit embarrased when I did not find no spoon on the table. As I did not want to bother you with spoon, I just thought how I ate the miso soup without spoon for the first moment.
And then, I was astonished to see you holding the bowl of miso soup up to your mouth and drinking. It was really weird to us.
Sometimes, very old men drank up the soup because they do not like getting leftover, but young women never do that. If young ladies drink up the soup, they would be regarded as having a healthy desire for food.
Actually, drinking soup means that people come to an end of eating. So, after drinking, the old usually belch and say "I've had enough".^^ Funny!
Hi judy!!
It's always exciting to discover culture differences!!
Korea and Japan are located next to each other and we share some culture and some words too, but it's not true that we are very similar. When I eat out at Korean restaurant next time, I will try not to take a bowl up in my hand :)
I found your blog !! Thank you for letting me know! I will look through all over :)
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