Q. As the principal of a school, I occasionally have
to travel abroad. During a visit to a school in south China I was generously entertained and called upon to eat some awful stuff by my kind hosts. Remembering my grandmother’s advice, I did all of this without complaint and was cheerfully grateful even when confronted with chicken feet and jellyfish. Imagine my concern when the Chinese returned the visit recently and sent instructions before they dined with me in my own home that they wanted nothing but lightly steamed vegetables and rice. I decided to ignore this commission and served our standard ‘foreign visitors’ dinner. Was this sufficient punishment for trying to boss me about in my own home?
P.B., Cairns, Australia A. You rightly congratulate yourself on your own admirable behaviour in choking down this alien fayre without complaint, but you have misunderstood the motives of your Chinese guests on their return visit. It was not that they wished to duck their dose of the same sort of medicine, but that they were trying to be considerate and not put you to any trouble. For this reason they suggested this bland and trouble-free banquet.
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