We talked about the bad tradition in ‘The Lottery’ today. That reminds me of one tradition in China, which is not good but not dangerous.
People like to urge guests to drink and add many dishes into guests’ bowls when they are having a big dinner together. Most people will think they are displaying their enthusiasm and being polite to guests. But I think it makes guests, especially foreign guests, embarrassed. Because some guests may not good at drinking but they do not want to be impolite, they only can drink much even though they are not feeling good. The tradition still has many followers in some traditional families to this day. And this tradition even shows on job markets or workplaces. When you are doing a deal with some big bosses, they said if you finish this glass of wine, I will sign the contract with you. You know you are not good at drinking but you do not have choice because you need to do your job. There are lots of people who damage their health because of this.
I think it’s hard to change that. But what I thought is we should not force our guests or cooperative partners to eat much or drink much. They have their own options. We can display our enthusiasm in other ways like we can prepare more dishes that guests might like. Or we can ask the partner if he can drink or not and treat each other equally.
To change some bad traditions is always a hot topic of debate. The older generation might think they follow the tradition for their whole life, there is nothing wrong with that. But we don’t think so. That’s called the generation gap. All in all. I think we should find a good way to change the bad tradition and make it become a good tradition.