Different dining cultures between Singapore and China

Five years ago, I was just about to leave my home country, China and came to study in Singapore. At that time, I was 18 years old and my family did not have any relatives or friends in Singapore. Since it was the first time that I lived and studied overseas, my parents were worried that I had no one to look for help if some urgent thing happened.

Coincidently, a friend of my parents had a Singaporean friend visiting her at that time. My parents’ friend wanted to introduce her Singaporean friend to us. My parents were grateful that this Singaporean friend would like to help me if I had some emergency in Singapore. My parents invited her for a dinner in a good restaurant and my father intentionally booked the VIP room. In the restaurants in China, there is a minimum expenditure requirement for dining in the VIP room. My parents thought it showed respect for the Singaporean friend by dining in the VIP room.

When the Singaporean friend arrived at the room, my parents welcomed her with a warm handshake. My father asked her politely to order anything she wanted. She said: “Please just order a couple of simple dishes. There is o need to order so much food since we have a few people here.” My father asked her again to order some dishes since we had no idea about Singaporeans’ taste. Then she ordered an ordinary dish of mixed vegetables and shrimp. My parents thought it was not courteous to have just some simple dishes for our guest. So my father started to order some “big” dishes, like beef, fish, soup, steam pot and so on. The Singaporean guest looked at my father surprisingly and kept saying “Enough, enough, too much already! We cannot finish.” Because she insisted on taking just five dishes (each person one dish), my father respected her wish by ordering five dishes. Those dishes were very ordinary and most of them were made of vegetables. They did not cost much. I asked if she was a vegetarian and she said: “No, I am not. I just do not want to waste food.”

In the end, we did not even finish the five dishes since my father felt awkward about this very simple dinner and he did not eat much. Moreover, most of the dishes are too vegetarian for him. My father has a heavy taste. Since the dinner cost less than the minimum amount required, my father had to pay for the lacking amount.  

After living in Singapore for a period of time, I understood the differences in the dining culture between Singapore and China. In China, when we invite some guests for a dinner in a restaurant, we always order more than we can eat. The host would like to order various dishes and meat dishes to show hospitality and respect to the guests.  If all the dishes on the table are finished, the host will think they have made a mistake by not ordering enough food and immediately order more dishes. However, this tradition obviously does not fit Singapore’s eating culture. They want to order just enough food and finish up all.