China City Super Buffet

How to Enjoy a Restaurant Meal?
Planning a Restaurant Meal
A Chinese Table Setting
Chopstick Etiquette

Planning a Restaurant Meal
To enjoy a restaurant meal to the full, you need a party of at least four people, because the greater the number of the dishes you can taste and share, the better. A Chinese meal may begin with soup and/or appetizers, followed by poultry, meat, fish, and vegetables. Instead of a main course, several different dishes are served. The dishes are all served at once, communal style, with everyone helping them selves from the same dish. If the meatl is not accompanied by plain boiled white rice, it should be concluded with noodles, fried rice, or a different rice dish.

A Chinese Table Setting
A place setting in a Chinese restaurant will include a platter for meat, fish and vegetable dishes, a porcelain bowl with a spoon for soup and rice, a smaller bowl for soy sauce and/or sliced chili peppers, chopsticks, a serving spoon, and a tea cup. The plate is positioned in the center, and the bowl and spoon at the top of the place setting, to the left of the plate. The small sauce bowl stands to the right of the rice bowl, chopsticks and serving spoon rest on a small bar to the right of the plate, the tea cup is on the right, next to the chopsticks.

Chopstick Etiquette
Never spear food with your chopsticks. Waving chopsticks in the air whilst talking is also regarded as bad manners, and chopsticks must never be allowed be put into the mouth while eating and they should not be allowed to touch the lips. It is not acceptable to stick chopsticks into a rice bowl, like incense sticks in an urn. Dropping one's chopsticks is a sign that unavoidable misfortune is on its way. However, chopsticks may be tapped on the table in order to reposition them.

Traditions & Customs
Lion Dance
Peking Opera
Taiji

Lion Dance
The lion dance is performed during Chinese New Year or any happy occasion. It is believed that when the lion performs, it will bring to the place and the people happiness and luck and will drive away the evil spirits, During the Chinese New Year, lion dancers from martial art school will visit the store front of businesses to choy chang (lit. picking the greens). The business would tie a red envelope filled with money to a head of lettuce and hang it high above the front door. The lion will approach the lettuce like a curious cat, consume the lettuce and spit out the leaves but not the money. The lion dance is supposed to bring good luck and fortune to the business and the dancers receive the money as reward.

Peking Opera
  Among the hundreds of forms of opera throughout China, Peking Opera has the greatest influence and is therefore regarded as a national art. It is a comprehensive performing art that combines music, singing, dialogue, pantomime, acrobatics and martial arts. The accompanying music, singing and costumes are all fascinating and artistic.
  Symbolism prevails in Peking Opera. Facial painting (the unique makeup in Peking Opera) is one of symbolism which attracts people's great curiosity. It shows the character's age, profession and personality by using different colors and over one thousand patterns. Each color symbolizes a certain characteristic: red for loyalty and uprightness; black for a rough or honest nature; blue represents valor and vigor; white symbolizes a sinister role's treachery and guile; yellow for rashness and fierceness while gold and silver for gods and demons.

Taiji
Taiji or Taiji Quan is an art and a science. It is a science of control of physical and mental functions that improves the health and outlook of the practitioner. Taiji as a term is older than the martial art, referring to the movement between the forces of Yin (negative, receptive, structural) and Yang (positive, active, formless essence.) The flux between these two energies is the basis for matter and existence in ancient Chinese philosophy as well as in Buddhist philosophy. This is the meaning of Taiji which was used to describe Taiji Quan because the art stresses the development of mastery over change between Yin and Yang forces within the body and martial arts applications.

Chinese Festivals
Chinese New Year
Dragon Boat Festival
Mid-Autumn Festival

Chinese New Year
Shengxiao (Animal Signs) is a folk method used for naming the years in Chinese zodiacal calendar. The Chinese Lunar Calendar is based on the cycles of the moon, representing a cyclical concept of time, rather than the Western linear concept of time. Every year is assigned an animal name according to a repeating 12 year cycle: Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Sheep, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, and Boar. 2009 is the Year of the Ox, and 2010 will be the year of the Tiger.

Dragon Boat Festival
The Dragon Boat Festival is celebrated on the 5th day of the 5th lunar month. While many stories regarding its origin abound, the most popular and widely accepted version regards Qu Yuan, a minister during the Warring States Period (475-221 BC). People commemorate Qu Yuan through Dragon Boat Races, eating Zongzi, and several other activities, on the anniversary of his death: the 5th day of the 5th lunar month. The traditional food for the Dragon Boat Festival, Zongzi is a glutinous rice ball, with a filling, wrapped in corn leaves. The fillings can be egg, beans, dates, fruits, sweet potato, walnuts, mushrooms, meat, or a combination of them. They are generally steamed.

Mid-Autumn Festival
This festival, which is celebrated by processions of children carrying paper lanterns, falls on the 15th day of the 8th lunar month. This is when the moon is at its fullest and brightest Moon cakes are either bought as gifts or eaten. The  dough, which may have any of a variety of fillings, is shaped in special cookie molds, and is brushed with egg yolk before baking. Traditional fillings include sweet black bean or lotus paste, with the optional addition of a salted egg yolk, and a mixture of nuts and picked melon. In addition to the baked cakes there is also a steamed white cake, made wheat dough wrapped in rice paper which is called "snow skin."

Chinese Handcrafts
Jade
Lantern
Chinese Knot

Jade
Jade (Yu) in Chinarefers to a fine beautiful stone with a warm color and rich luster. In the Chinese culture, jade symbolizes nobility, perfection, constancy and immortality. For the Chinese, Jade held an occult value apart from its commercial value. There is even a Chinese saying goes "Gold has a value; jade is invaluable."

Lantern
A Chinese lantern is a feast for the eyes both in terms of its aesthetic appeal and its soft soothing light. It is famous for its unique ability to throw a soft, diffused light in almost all directions that other instrument would hardly be capable of handling. Originating in the East Han Dynasty (25-220 AD), Chinese colored lanterns reached their peak during the Tang (618-907 AD) and Song (960-1279 AD) dynasties. Originally, people hung colored lanterns in front of their doors to drive away evil spirits. But today, with society's development, the colored lantern has largely become a symbol of traditional Chinese culture, playing an even more important role in celebrations and ceremonies.

Chinese Knot
Chinese Knot or Chinese traditional decorating knot is a kind of characteristic folk decorations of handicraft art. The characteristic of Chinese Knot is that every knot is made of a single rope and named according to their distinctive shapes, usages, or origins. Its artistry and beauty have evolved from being functional to decorative through the times. It was used as an ornament to decorate many items including the imperial garments, on carriages, sword sheaths, caps, belts and sashes of the senior officials and adorned by ladies on cheongsams.