Yum Cha

This is where you go out, sometimes three times a day, to a Hotel or local restaurant, heckle (sometimes successfully) for a private aircon room, then watch TV while being instructed to eat more and 'cheers' your teacup every time someone drinks. It also helps to learn the correct titles for each person, or which there are many depending on age, relation and familiarity.

There's no sitting down with a couple of sakes and letting the staff bring round food to say 'yes or no' to, you order it and then the rest of the table orders more for you and you take as many as three hours to complete the experience.

It always seems to begin with an appetiser of cold chook foot followed by organ soup. Tea is copiously consumed. I even went on a boozing night with Lemon's brother Sing, and even as they threw back the whiskeys and soda-ed red wine, there was always a teapot dispensing hot, nutritious tea!