China donts:
- Do not use a toothpick in public without covering your mouth with your hand.
- Do not use your own chopsticks or spoon to dish shared dishes (which is customary) when eating with a group, use the serving spoon to dish into your bowl or plate to eat instead.
- Do not open a present in front of the giver, which is not polite.
- Do not leave your chopsticks sticking up in the left-over rice at the bottom of your bowl after eating a meal.
- Do not stick your chopsticks upright in the rice bowl before or after eating a meal. Instead, lay them on your dish. Doing it in a restaurant or a private home would be a terrible curse on the proprietor, as sticking chopsticks in the rice bowl looks like the shrine with two sticks of incense stuck upright in it, which is equivalent to wishing death upon person at the table.
- Do not tap on your bowl with chopsticks, as the beggars tap on their bowls, which is impolite and insulting.
