Chinese Culture Taboo #3: Major on one food and skip the others -
The rights and wrongs of food etiquette could be an entire article in and of themselves. I will briefly 
summarize the "dos" and "don'ts" here. Traditional Chinese serve the bowls of guests. It is considered rude to help yourself to the food you want when at someone's house. The proper way is to wait until the host serves your bowl. Don't be afraid that you will go hungry because good hosts take it as their personal mission to make sure your bowl is completely full all the time. Even after you have eaten 3-4 bowls full of food they will continue to scoop it for you and say "Don't be polite. Eat up. You haven't eaten anything yet." In the process they will give you what they consider to be the very best food, which might or might not be what you like.
summarize the "dos" and "don'ts" here. Traditional Chinese serve the bowls of guests. It is considered rude to help yourself to the food you want when at someone's house. The proper way is to wait until the host serves your bowl. Don't be afraid that you will go hungry because good hosts take it as their personal mission to make sure your bowl is completely full all the time. Even after you have eaten 3-4 bowls full of food they will continue to scoop it for you and say "Don't be polite. Eat up. You haven't eaten anything yet." In the process they will give you what they consider to be the very best food, which might or might not be what you like.
In other less traditional homes, you might have freedom to serve some of your own food. If you do, beware. Reaching across the table for another dish is a big no no. So is using your chopsticks to pick out the meat or food from a dish you like the best. If you do seem to eat one thing more than another, it is likely that they will serve you more of that. My mother went to a guest's house where she was served a kind of boiled greens. They weren't her favorite so she ate them first to save the best for last. They saw saw her quickly eating them up and interpreted that to mean she loved them. The hostess promptly got her bowl, went to the kitchen, and gave her another scoop.
It is often advisable to leave a little bit of food left in your bowl or the host might think you are still hungry and fill it up again. Then again, in some regions it is considered very wasteful to leave any food. Sound complicated? It is. Accept a dinner invitation at your own risk. No, in seriousness most Chinese know that Westerners will not know all the rules or customs. They will give you some leeway, but try to be sensitive and navigate the system as well as you can. Just like in the States, do be gracious and rave over every good thing you eat. Cooks enjoy the attention worldwide.
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