appreciate the wine's color and enjoy the beauty of wine. This is indeed the case; the western drinking vessels have an elegant appearance as well as the good usage. Nowadays, the glasses become more popular and are carriers to spread the wine culture.
4.3 Etiquette of Drinking
Wine is a medium to understand the culture of different countries. Knowing the etiquette of drinking can reduce the misunderstandings in social activities and promote communications between peoples. After careful studies, we can find that there are some differences of etiquette of drinking between China and Western countries.
China is a country known as ceremony and pay attention to etiquette. Talk freely about the saying “No Custom without Wine”, etiquette of drinking is becoming an important part of life. There were four steps in this ceremony in the past, first, people worshiped, then poured a little wine on the land to sacrifice the earth, after that they tasted the wine and finally drained it. People use drinking etiquette to express their respect to the drinker. When people take part in social activities, host and guest have fixed places to sit for and fixed order to toast. In the etiquette of drinking, people toast seniority first to express their respect, so the most distinguished guest is the first one to be toast. What’s more, when we toast, we must make sure our glass is full, and if the younger one making a toast to the elder, the younger should drink up first. The answer to this is that Chinese people express their respect to the drinker in the process of drinking.
In the western countries, they don't have so many customs for drinking as in China. In their opinions, etiquette of drinking is used to express respect to the wine. When drinking grape wine, they enjoy wine with all sensory organs, so the first thing to do is watching the color smelling it, and then tasting it. In the process of drinking, Li Xiaoye (2010) introduced that “they pay attention to the drinking turns, Write wine first and Red wine follows, mild wine first and then rich wine, and short-time wine before longer wine.’’(P9) In order to have
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