What if you hear a boal or plate dropped to the floor, at a formal event?

China
January 3, 2009 1:26am CST
Quite often, when everyone is enjoying the dinner, you hear a loud "ping pany!" coming from the kitchen or even right at the table. What would you say or do? Something must have been broken. As "broken" has the same pronunciation as "age", or "sui" in Chinese, the host or hostress would say "Qian sui, wan sui!", which means "Thousand years, and ten thousand years", or "Wish you a long life!" It is a sign of goodwill from the host or hostress, showing his or her understanding, which helps cure the atmosphere, so that everybody comes back to the dinner with a light mood, not in the least spoiled by the breaking. I believe it is a kind of attitude toward life. Blaming does not help the spilled milk. Showing understanding sometimes has greater effect on whoever broke the bowl or plate. The servant or younsters will learn to be more skillful. The wife feels warm-hearted. And if it's the guest, he feels at home instead of spoiling the event.
1 response
• United States
3 Jan 09
When we hear something like that we always say job opening. Meaning that the person responsible may get fired. Of course that never happened we usually said it as a joke.