Society

Internet brings netizen together over dinners

(China Daily)
Updated: 2007-01-30 08:47

It's not only a party for your taste buds, but it's also a party, period.

And these online dinner parties are even a good time for your wallet - 12 dishes for 20 to 30 yuan ($2.56-3.84) a piece.

Netizens in Haikou, capital of Hainan Province, have learned up to share the costs of fine dining, Hainan Daily reports.

Tired of eating fast food every day during lunch break, Xing Anzhu, a medical worker, found himself short of money to have big dishes daily.

Xing searched on the Internet and found dozens of people like himself - real gourmands but short of money.

So they joined together to share more dishes and the bill.

"Thanks to the dinner party, I have tasted almost all the gorgeous food in Haikou, including some expensive ones which I dared not try before," Xing said.

"Going Dutch, everybody felt easy and equal, though most of us were total strangers at first," Xing said.

After several times, though, the strangers soon became friends.

The netizen gourmets even have formed their own eating-together websites.

A woman who called herself Olive said she made many friends among the group.

"I had no friends and often ate alone when I first moved to Haikou from Chongqing a year ago," Olive said. "After joining an online eating-out group, my life was totally changed."

A graphic designer, Olive now publishes an online eating-out bulletin and is in charge of organizing dinner parties and sending dinner messages to members of the group. "I feel everybody knows me, and I am part of the group," she said.

Members of the group had a New Year's party at a restaurant earlier this month. More than 60 people attended.

Most of the group members are young people in their 20s and 30s, and many of them are foreigners who want to make friends in a strange land, Olive said.

Two couples have even fallen in love.

The dinner parties have other benefits, such as helping people develop better table manners or become amateur nutritionists. The group has invited chefs to share their knowledge and preparation techniques during their dinner.

"I gained a lot of nutritional knowledge from other diners and the chefs," Olive said. "My cooking skills have also improved."