China has long been known as the“land of ceremony and propriety”.Consequently, there are certain manners that should be observed at banquets or formal dinners.

First,seat order.Chinese people attach great importance to the seating order at banquets or formal dinners.In the ancient times, at a banquet, people sat in a circle on the ground.Their seating arrangements are unknown，but it is certain that they were arranged in a certain order.It was recorded that the most honorable guest sat facing the east, the next important guest sat facing the south, next facing the north and the last facing the west.Even today at formal banquets people are arranged in a certain order, but in different areas, there are different rules concerning seat order.

In the past, Chinese people often sat around a so-called eight-immortal table (a table with a rectangular top, normally with eight seats around it) to dine.In the north, the seat order was arranged this way：the two seats facing the door were the most important, the host sat on the right and the most honorable guest on the left；opposite these two seats sat two specially invited guests who were supposed to help entertain the main guests；the other people, guests or specially invited guests, were arranged, according to their age, to sit on the other two sides of the table.The two seats closer to the host and most honorable guest were considered more important than theother two seats.In the south, the seat order was a bit different.

Apart from seat order, there are also rules regarding the order of serving dishes and the way dishes are set on the table.Dishes, in the broad sense, refer to wine (or liquor), meat and vegetable dishes and grain food；in the narrow sense, it only refers to meat and vegetable dishes.The rules have undergone some changes.In the ancient times, grain food was served before wine, while today wine and meat and vegetable dishes are served before grain food.For meat and vegetable dishes, there are cold dishes and hot dishes.Normally cold dishes are served before hot ones, dry dishes are served before soup.Hot dishes are the main courses； usually there are even numbers of hot dishes, 4, 6 or 8.Sometimes there could be 16 or 32 dishes.The most sumptuous feast—Man Han Feast, has as many as 108 dishes.Soup is usually the last dish.

For the way dishes are set on the table, there are also rules.For example, newly served dishes are always put near the most honorable guest； when whole fish, whole chicken or whole duck is served, the dish is normally put in such a way that the head is towards the most honorable guest. This is a way to show respect to the most honorable guest.In order to show their respect and hospitality, Chinese hosts often help the guests to the dishes.For hygiene’s sake, when doing this, they usually use an extra pair of chopsticks or spoon put on the table