PROTIP: Close your mouth while eating, you sound like a horse!
In China, eating with the mouth open is normal. (Are any other countries like this?)
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Comments
I worked on the proprietary trading desk at the Industrial Bank of Japan in NYC for three years. Me, my boss and a guy from Singapore office were the only non-Japanese in that room of 60+. All others were men on overseas assignment from Tokyo home office. Same rules here as for other trading floors: lunch eaten at desk. At IBJ, a woman with a wheeled cart arrived at 11:30am daily, quickly traversing the aisles between the long rows of trade stations, collecting money, serving meals. Soon the raised-floor room was filled with the sound of noodle slurping, soup bowl draining, lip smacking and burping at will. My co-workers were fastidiously polite and tidy, But their culture considered "silent eating" to be bad manners (was a sign that the food wasn't enjoyable or good). It is impossible to make that volume and variety of noise without **some amount of open mouth activity.** So in answer to your question, "yes". In the U.S.A., I saw Japanese i-bankers eating with their mouths open, *en masse,* on a daily basis. It was very normal behavior at IBJ.
Ellie K
This is great. Thank you for the investigative commenting!
William Entriken
Please discuss this topic anywhere and let me know any great comments or media coverage I should link here.