Eating on a clean table -Douglas purity and danger

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 There are general habits around the world of eating food and not leaving food on tables. In China, leaving rice on the table is not acceptable and a sense of a mess. Children are trained not to spill food from the bowl when using chopsticks. And the more food spilled on the table, the "dirtier" one eats. According to the norm, at least in most families, spilling even only one rice on the table is seen as "dirty" or "uneducated." It is thought that a person letting food fall on the table makes the whole eating environment "dirtier" since others share the same table. 
According to Douglas, "purity" and "dirty" are social order and disorder. Applying Douglas' theory on how people eat food in an ordered way is very helpful in understanding why foods ending up in slightly different places are clean and dirty. 

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