Facing south is honored. When the emperor gathered his ministers, his seat must be sitting north to south. The closer to the emperor the greater the honor.

The next right is facing west.

Located in the center of the front of the main building of the Palace sitting north to south on the "Hall", it is the most respectful of the south, followed by the west, and again for the east.

Round table into the middle of the Qing Dynasty after the restaurant popular dining table style, today's families are also commonly used, especially for today's catering industry and organizations and enterprises cafeteria will feast with the desktop. Its seat is generally based on the orientation of the restaurant or room and decorative design style, or take to the door, sunrise, or according to the hall design and decorative style embodied in the center of gravity and the prominent position of the first.

Often waiters set the table with the mouth of the cloth folded into flowers, birds and other shapes, the first modeling will be very eye-catching, so that people know at a glance. The grand large banquets are often placed in front of the seats of the dining table before the seat card (seat sign), the invitations issued are marked with the banquet with the number of the table. In this way, or by the master of ceremonies into, or holding the invitation to find the map, the number of seats, naturally not easy to make mistakes.

Banquet place settings, both customary, so its time and space differences, and according to the concept of our country nowadays habits, the first on the position of inferiority and superiority, the second narrative of the age of the teeth, and after the gender (after the first woman after the male) to show that the concept of women). Of course, this is the general pattern that is followed after the chief seat is determined.

Expanded:

Chinese New Year's Eve party, the ancient rules of seating, do not know how to make people laugh!

According to the Chinese Confucian ethical concepts, there is a difference between seniority and inferiority, the order of seniority, reflected in the seat is also a rule to pay attention to. Ancient seat is still right, right for the position of the guest teacher, living in the west and face east. Teachers and bureaucrats of the school staff, are known as the "western guest", also known as the "western seat", the master is called "East". So the ancients honored the teacher who taught them as "Xixi".

The main seat on the table is which position, according to the ancient Chinese system of etiquette, the south is honored, the north is inferior, the person's seat has a north-south facing points, can not be overstepped. The most typical representative is the seat of a country's ruler, must sit north to south. In fact, China's ancient etiquette, the seat of honor and inferiority of the king and the master and the guest of two kinds. The king and the minister is mainly north-south direction, the emperor to the south as the sole seat of honor, that is, the south side of the title of honor, the north side of the title of the minister.

And the host-guest ceremony is taken in the east-west direction, out of respect for the guests, the host sits in the east; and let the guests sit in the west, that is, face east and sit. In our normal life, the seat facing south, that is, the seat. This is the main seat, in the gathering of friends and family, must be reserved for the highest ranking person in the family.

Of course, in life, we are not to distinguish between the direction of the seat, but the seat facing the door as the upper seat. When the same seat, should be elders, leaders let for the upper seat, back to the door position for the lower seat, usually for the seat of the younger generation, left and right for the ordinary seat, can be arranged by the host seating.

In Chinese history, which emphasizes etiquette, there are also many records of seating. For example, the Records of the Grand Historian (史记-廉颇蔺相如列传) records that "(Zhao) Brace, once he was a general, faced eastward, and the military officials did not dare to look up to him." Zhao Kuo, who was good at talking about military affairs on paper, sat on his throne facing east and defied other military officials, portraying the boastful and arrogant Zhao Kuo in a vivid manner.

Another example is the "Book of Han - Wang Ling Biography", which records that Xiang Yu put Wang Ling's mother in his army, and when Wang Ling's emissary came, Xiang Yu let Wang Ling's mother sit eastward, so that the emissary could see that he respected Wang Ling's mother, and wanted to beckon Wang Ling to surrender. From this we can see that in the interior sitting west to east is the upper seat. That is why the ancients arranged their guests and teachers to sit on seats facing west and east to show their respect.

Of course, in the past, the term "west seat" had other meanings. For example, in classical literature, teachers were often referred to as "Xixi" (西席). In the Tang Dynasty, Liu Zongyuan wrote a poem saying, "If the Liu family has no children, why did he beg for a seat in the West in the past years?"

"Dream of Red Mansions," the second installment of the novel, reads, "When I heard that the brine government wanted to hire a guest of honor, Yucun entrusted his friends with the task of finding a way in and making a plan for his own safety." In the second installment of "The Outer History of the Confucian Forest," it says, "Shen Xiangfu hurriedly poured a cup of wine and said, 'Mei Sanxiang should drink a cup. The west seat of Gu Lao Xianggong's family is Mr. Zhou.'" Also in the folklore there is a couplet praising the teacher for his good education and his winning students all over the countryside: "The Xishi's peaches and plums are full of Mulberry, and the Dongtan dragons and snakes are all exemplary."

Reference:

Baidu Encyclopedia - Seating Times