User:Blemking/sandbox

Since early modern Japan, households have used personal tray tables (zen (膳、ぜん)) for dinner, which are small short-legged tables on which dishes for one person are placed per table. This allowed individuals to freely move the tray table and eat wherever they preferred. After the rise of the chabudai around 1920, the custom of commensality emerged in Japan where families have dinner together around a singular table. Large dishes are placed in the middle of the chabudai to be shared, and individuals take a portion of their desired food. Whereas talking while having dinner was considered disrespectful previously, conversations naturally occurred around the chabudai table, so the table manners eased to accepting dinner table talk.