A last-minute mad rush again? Guess who's not coming to dinner

The third invitation would demand punctuality to the minute. But, guests paid no attention to the stated time and would organize their hand-carried sedan for a 4pm arrival.

By mid afternoon, a fourth and final summons may be sent urging the guest to get a move on. That's right. Mr Wang sent four hand-written messages delivered by couriers each time.

All of this rigmarole was part of dinner invitation tradition, and every guest would land on Mr Wang's doorstep four hours late.

Maybe the practice of being "fashionably late" is yet another Chinese invention.

I discovered the details about the traditional dinner invitation party, and many other wonderful Chinese old-world tit-bits, from the writings of Herbert Allen Giles, who was a British diplomat in China in the late 19th century and also professor of Chinese at Cambridge University.

"A foreigner arriving in China for the first time will be especially struck by three points to which he is not accustomed at home," Giles once said in a lecture.

"The people will consist almost of entirely of men, they will all wear their heads platted in queues, and they will all be exactly alike.

"But he will soon find out that the Chinese men are not one bit like the countrymen of his own home in the West."

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