Manners are a difficult thing. Everyone defines manners differently, everyone is brought up differently and manners vary from country to country.

Well, table manners in Australia are different, too. Before I even start, I want to say that I really don’t care if someone knows with which fork the entree should be eaten, but I thought that certain standards would be valid globally. That seems not to be true.

But maybe that’s a problem of the English language or because of the lack of manners there is no expression in English for the German “Guten Appetit”.

The expression which is closest seems to be “Enjoy your meal” or short “Enjoy”, but I don’t hear that often. Some people told me that others would also use the French “Bon Appetit”, but I’ve never ever heard that.

As a consequence everybody starts immediately to eat, when the food is served. Noone waits until all have their plates in front of them, but that bothers me not too much. Also not all Australians have heard that when they finished their meals, they should place their knife and fork parallel to each other, so the waitor knows when you really finished your meal and he can take away the plates.

The same is true for drinking with other people, let’s say a glass of beer or wine. Everbody gets a drink and just starts drinking without saying anything. Our colleagues are now used to say “Cheers” everytime we get a new drink, but they really don’t learn that when you say “Cheers” you have to look into each others eyes.

Someone told me once that no manners are also manners. This is probably true. But the only bad thing about this is that you get used to having no manners after a while and you find yourself starting to eat without saying “Enjoy your meal”.