Nearly always when I've had family style meals in China, there are no serving chopsticks. People just reach in with their own personal chopsticks and pull out their portion of food onto their plate. I notice this acutely because I'm a bit of a germaphobe, so it's something I notice every time. This is at nice fancy meals with university administrators. I've learned to just roll with it, and to pull my food off of the side of the platter that has been least disturbed ... just because it kind of grosses me out. So I'm surprised that you don't see this commonly as well, because it's been probably 80% of these meals for me. Only rarely have they had serving utensils/clean chopsticks for things like noodles or other food items that you eat with chopsticks. Items that are served with a spoon they will usually have a large serving spoon, yes.

And I will say that the Airbnbs are pretty darn dirty. We really do have to scrub them down every time we rent one out for my family just so we can use them. Again, this isn't out in the countryside, but in the big cities, and usually "middle class" types of apartments — in other words, we aren't getting the most expensive ones, but not the cheapest ones either ... somewhere in the middle. And then we go to Church and share our experience and others laugh and admit they have had similar experiences. So it hasn't been just us. My kids love going to China with me, but if you were to ask them what we do the first day in our new airbnb, they will tell you it's always cleaning the apartment!

But anyway, I love your posts ChinaFan, and glad to hear you've had better experiences!