A European arrives at the restaurant relieved: the hard part is over, this is the friendly part. In fact the meeting established positions and the meal establishes whether there is a relationship in which those positions can move. Decisions are rarely taken at the table, but the willingness to take them later is. Nothing about this is mysterious once you accept that the evening has a structure and that your host is running it.
Who invites, and why the bill is not shared
One side invites and that side pays, entirely. Splitting a business bill, or insisting on paying your share, removes the thing the meal was for: the host is doing something for you, and accepting it gracefully is the first half of the exchange. The second half is that you invite in return, later, with the same seriousness — at your own choice of place, on your own ground if they come to Europe. A visitor who never reciprocates is not rude so much as absent from the relationship.
If you are the host in China, say so when you propose the meal, settle the bill away from the table if you can, and let your guest see that the question was never open. If you are the guest, a single polite attempt and then a clear thank-you is the right amount of resistance. The ordering is the host's job too: a guest who takes over the menu has taken over the evening.
The table is a diagram
Seating is not improvised. At a round table the host takes the seat that faces the door, the principal guest sits to the host's immediate right, the second guest to the left, and seniority descends outwards from there, with the most junior people nearest the entrance — close to the service, which is the point. If a host indicates a chair, that chair is where you sit, and moving to one you prefer rearranges a hierarchy in front of everyone. The simple rule for a visitor is to wait, let the placement happen, and sit where you are put.
The toasts follow the same order as the seating. The host opens, with a short sentence about the visit or the project, and after that the toasts circulate: individual, across the table, and in descending order of seniority. Lowering your glass slightly when touching the glass of someone senior is a small gesture that is noticed; so is standing up for a toast with the most senior person present, and so is toasting the people at the far end of the table whom nobody else has toasted. None of it requires drinking heavily — and the way to drink little is to decide before the first glass rather than halfway through the evening.
- Arrive a few minutes early and let the host place everyone. Say nothing about the seats.
- Hand over your business card and any gift at the start, with both hands, to the most senior person first.
- Let the host order and let the dishes arrive. Taste everything that is put in front of you, including the thing you do not recognise; leaving a little in the bowl says you have had enough, where an empty bowl asks for more.
- Wait for the host's opening toast before drinking, then return it soon afterwards with a sentence of your own about the visit.
- Announce your limit early and keep it with a smile all evening. « I am driving », « I have an early flight », tea instead of alcohol: a reason given once at the beginning is accepted, where a refusal improvised at the fifth toast reads as a judgement.
- Leave when the host stands up, thank the host in front of the others, and send a short message the next morning. The message is what turns an evening into a relationship.
Gifts: what travels well, and what carries a meaning you did not intend
A gift in a professional setting is small, explicable and from somewhere. Something characteristic of your region, of your company's craft, or of France in a way that is not a cliché, given openly in front of the others, does the work. Something expensive creates an obligation and may be impossible for the recipient to accept at all. The most common failure is not the object but the manner: handed over in a corridor, unexplained, or given to one person while their colleagues watch.
- Both hands, and an explanation. Give and receive with both hands, and say in one sentence what the thing is and where it comes from. The sentence is most of the gift.
- Expect it not to be opened. A gift is often set aside and opened later; that is normal courtesy, not indifference. Do the same with what you are given.
- Think about the group. One good object for the team, plus something small for everyone present, avoids the awkwardness of a single person being singled out in front of the others.
- Avoid the objects that carry a bad word. Clocks and watches, cut flowers, handkerchiefs, umbrellas, sharp objects and anything in white or black wrapping all sit close to funerals, separation or the word for an ending. Red and gold are safe.
- Mind the unlucky number. The number whose sound resembles the word for death is avoided in quantities and in sets; pairs and even quantities are generally better than the sets a European would assemble by instinct.
- Logos are not gifts. A branded object with your logo on it is marketing material, which is fine as a supplement and thin as a present. Keep the two separate.
What your own gift policy means in practice
Most European companies now have a written rule on gifts and hospitality: a ceiling on value, a duty to declare, an outright ban in some sectors or where a public buyer is involved. The rule is yours to apply and it is not your host's problem, which means the work is to make it visible early rather than to enforce it at the table. Saying at the start of a relationship that your company asks you to declare anything above a certain value, and that you would rather exchange something modest on both sides, converts a potential insult into a shared constraint. Mentioning it for the first time while a box is being held out to you does the opposite.
When something arrives anyway and you cannot keep it, refuse the object and accept the intention: thank the person in front of the others, say that the rule is your employer's and not a judgement on the gesture, and offer a substitute — the gift goes to the team, or is matched by an invitation from you. Where a refusal would be visibly embarrassing in the room, accept it there and settle it afterwards, by declaring it and by saying so to the giver in a message. Protect the person's standing first and your paperwork second: the paperwork can always be done later.
Receiving in France, which is the harder half
The return invitation is where most European hosts underperform, because they treat a lunch as a lunch. A Chinese visitor arriving in France reads the same signals they would read at home: who came to meet them, where the meal happens, whether the senior person is present, how long the table lasts. A sandwich in a meeting room after a long flight is a message, whatever was intended. Equally, a French lunch that runs for hours with wine and no agenda can leave a visitor wondering when the business part starts — so say what the meal is for, and keep one short working sequence either side of it.
A few practical things make a French table comfortable rather than an endurance test. Ask about food before you book, without making it a questionnaire: raw and very cold dishes, strong cheese and very rare meat are the ones that most often go untouched, and iced water is less welcome than hot tea. Offer your guest the seat facing the room. Pay without discussion. Keep the evening earlier than a French dinner would naturally be, because someone who has just crossed most of a working day in time difference is further through it than you are. And send a short note the next morning, which works in both directions.
Decide two things before the trip, not during it: what you will give, and what you will drink. Both answers are easy in advance and almost impossible to improvise in a room where everyone is watching, and both are read as a position rather than an improvisation — which is the whole advantage of having decided.