Etiquette for Japan’s Dining Rooms

Table etiquette of 1895 had “elaborate rules, which high-bred ladies and gentlemen must strictly follow.” —A late 19th century collectible cigarette card, honoring “Flower Day” in Japan.

The Japanese Dining Room

In Japan the family never gathers around one table as the European or other Asian people do, but each person has his or her own separate small table, a foot square and a foot high, and always highly decorated. When they take their meals they kneel upon the mat, each taking his table before him. 

The little lacquered table generally contains a small porcelain bowl, heaped up with deliciously cooked rice, and several lacquered wooden bowls containing soup or meat, and numbers of little porcelain plates with fish, radishes and the like. 

The way of cooking of course is entirely different from the European. Two pretty chop sticks, made of lacquered bamboo or wood, silver or ivory, are used, instead of knife, fork and spoon, and all people use them with great skill. 

All foods are prepared in the kitchen, so as to avoid any trouble to use knife and fork. Soup is to be drunk from the bowl by carrying it to the mouth by hand, in the same way as people drink tea or coffee. 

Table etiquette has elaborate rules, which high-bred ladies and gentlemen must strictly follow. A maid servant always waits, kneeling at a short distance, before a clean pan of boiled rice, with lacquered tray, on which she receives and delivers the bowls for replenishing them. 

Fragrant green tea is always used at the end of the meal, but sugar and cream never. — Placer Argus, 1895

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