Eating is always a learning experience in a new culture.

Here are some differences between American and Chinese dining cultures.

I must put in a few words about my experience here in China.

If I have dinner with a Chinese host, he always presses more food onto my plate as soon as I have emptied it of the previous helping.

That often makes me feel very awkward.

I have to eat the food even if I don't feel like it, because it is considered bad manners in the west to leave one's food on the plate.

I have also noticed that when a Chinese sits at an American party, he very often refuses the offer of food or drink though he is in fact still hungry or thirsty.

This might be good manners in China, but it is definitely not in the west.

In the United States, it is impolite to keep asking someone again and again or press something on him.

Americans are very direct. If they want something, they will ask for it. If not, they will say, "no, thanks."