Lifestyle
Manners matter
Another university student Richard Chau Chi-keung said he came to realise the dress code difference between a semi-formal occasion and a formal one, after attending a high table dinner that coached students on manners and etiquette.
Chau cited that men did not have to wear a tie and a suit for a semi- formal event. ˇ§But jeans are not allowed. T-shirts can be worn with a jacket on top. And guys can choose to dress in other colours besides dark and solemn colours,ˇ¨ he said.
At present, there are etiquette courses and high table dinners organised in universities for students to learn and practise proper social manners.
Yet, the number of students who can join those events is limited. And most courses are catered only for students in certain groups or faculties. For example, etiquette courses are provided to most students of the business administration programmes.
ˇ§The business students are more sensitive to manners because they often have to wear a suit and act as smart as they look,ˇ¨ said Patrick Fung Kin-wai, a committee member of the business administration studentsˇ¦ society at the Chinese University of Hong Kong ˇ¦s New Asia College .
The student association of the school of hotel and tourism management at Hong Kong Polytechnic University recently also held a course on table manners for their students.
The students were taught the proper way to have different courses of a meal, how to use pieces of cutlery, where to place the napkin, how to differentiate wine glasses and hold them, and the proper dress codes for various occasions.
Alvina Chan Yuk-kwai, operation manager of Beauty Square Limited, a company which organises etiquette courses, said most youngsters were aware of the importance of having good manners, but they did not know the rules. ˇ§Manners are not something you can learn from books easily,ˇ¨ Chan said.
Many etiquette courses offered by private companies in the market, meanwhile, are costly and unaffordable to young people. Anna Wong Man-yee, an author who now researches on etiquette, said she had seen others embarrassed themselves by behaving impolitely or inappropriately at social gatherings.
Wong argued that family upbringing did play a large role in oneˇ¦s manners because learning etiquette was a life-long process.
