A friend of mine has kept the same habit for years: no matter how busy life gets, every month he makes sure to share a meal with his two closest friends. It does not have to be elaborate. Even a simple bowl of noodles is enough.
In a city like Beijing, that is harder than it sounds.
I have experienced it myself. A few friends start talking in a group chat about getting together. Someone says, “Let’s do dinner sometime.” Everyone replies enthusiastically. “Yes, absolutely.” But that “sometime” drifts further and further away. Even when a table is finally booked and everyone seems committed, work can intervene at the last minute. A boss asks you to stay late, and the dinner is postponed again.
So I once asked that friend how he had managed to stick to this routine for so long. Didn’t it eventually become just a formality?
He said no. To him, no amount of likes on social media can compare with sitting across from a friend over a bowl of noodles. Technology may be more advanced than ever, but it cannot replace the warmth of being face to face. Over a hot meal, with steam rising from the dishes, people talk differently. You can see at a glance that your friend has gained a little weight, or has dark circles under his eyes, or is forcing a smile when he is not really okay. Those things do not come through a screen.
There is a small and very human kind of warmth in simply eating with someone.
When did sharing a meal become so difficult?
How long has it been since you sat down with family or close friends for a hot meal and a real conversation?
I did not think seriously about that question until last year. And once I did, I realized that eating with the people close to you is not some casual thing at all. It is one of those questions that deserves an honest answer.
That year, I was sent out of town for work to discuss the details of a cooperation agreement with another company. The meeting dragged on until five in the morning. There were still plenty of unresolved points, so everyone decided to rest for three hours and resume later.
One man on the other company’s project team, in his early thirties, started packing up immediately and hurried off.
A colleague told him, “Just stay at the hotel nearby for the night. The round trip home will take you two hours.”
He smiled, shook his head, and left in a taxi.
He got home before his wife woke up. Quietly, so as not to disturb her, he made breakfast: her favorite seafood noodle soup, plus a slice of toast and a fried egg. The two of them sat across from each other, smiling, eating, and talking about ordinary things—work, daily life, nothing dramatic. After she finished, he quickly cleaned up the dishes and was back in the meeting room before eight.
Later, when we happened to walk down to the buffet lunch together, he explained, a little embarrassed, that his wife had not been feeling well and was resting at home for a few days. He had been so busy lately that by the time he got home each night, she was already asleep. Breakfast, he said, was the only time they could actually talk during the day. He did not want to miss it.
I asked whether they were newly married, still in that especially sweet phase.
He laughed and said no. They had known each other for more than ten years, been married for five, and had a two-year-old child.
That surprised me. Usually, after so many years together, people are assumed to care less about whether one meal is shared or not.
But he told me it had not always been this way.
The moment he understood what mattered
About six months earlier, he had been promoted. His boss appreciated him, and his responsibilities multiplied overnight. From then on, it felt as if there were endless project plans to write, endless clients to meet, endless phone calls to answer, endless emails to return. Leaving home before dawn and coming back late at night became normal. Even weekends were often swallowed by work.
After months of this, one day he suddenly felt his heart racing and his body weakening. He could not stay on his feet. His vision went black, and he collapsed beside his computer. His coworkers rushed to help and called an ambulance. At the hospital, he learned that the strain had affected his heart. This time, rest was no longer optional.
While he was recovering, his parents came to look after him. Every day they cooked different dishes he liked. His wife brought the food to his hospital room and sat beside the bed, watching him finish it slowly.
He told me that during that period, he kept thinking: if something worse had happened—if he had never woken up again—what would he have regretted most?
Would it have been losing out on a project?
Not buying the car he had always wanted?
Failing to save enough money to move from a cramped 50-square-meter apartment into a bigger place, as he had planned?
No.
What hurt him most, he said, was realizing how long it had been since he had sat down and eaten a proper meal with his family.
That thought forced him to reconsider the frantic pace of his life. Society has become more diverse, more open, more tolerant in many ways. Yet the standard for success still feels strangely narrow. A prestigious education, a high income, a good car, a large home—these are still treated as the obvious signs of a life well lived.
But what about being there for your family? What about regularly sitting down with them, calmly, steadily, for a simple meal? Is that not also a form of happiness?
The bowl of stew that changed another decision
That conversation reminded me of another friend who had been assigned to work overseas for two years.
Near the end of his term, his manager asked whether he wanted to extend it for another two years. He hesitated. The advantages were clear: the pay abroad was much better than what he would earn at home. The downside was equally clear: the work was intense, and because of the time difference, calls from China often came while he was still asleep. Still, he thought he was young and should take the chance to earn more. He was leaning toward staying.
Then he went home during a break.
The moment he walked in, he saw a big bowl of Chinese yam and lamb stew on the table. His parents urged him to eat more, saying it would be good for his stomach. Only then did he remember a post he had written some time earlier saying that irregular hours and overtime had upset his stomach. His parents had called. His wife had called. He had brushed them off with a few quick words and thrown himself back into work.
But they had remembered. They knew he was living alone and not eating properly, so when he came home, they wanted to help him recover a little.
That familiar warmth brought a rush of memories. Back in his school days, every morning before he left the house, his mother would ask what he wanted to eat that day. In the early days of his marriage, he and his wife would go hand in hand to the market whenever they had time. After he moved away, every year before the Spring Festival, his mother would start preparing his favorite foods long in advance, just waiting for him to come home.
At some point, though, we become so busy that we forget those small acts of care. We forget the waiting. We forget the companionship. We forget the people who are still quietly thinking about whether we are eating well.
If your family loves you, they will worry when you are too busy even for a hot meal. If they prepare a table full of your favorite dishes and you cannot make it home because work takes over again, they will be disappointed. And if the people you love are left to live in that cycle of worry and disappointment, what exactly is all your rushing around for?
Because of that one bowl of lamb stew, he decided not to extend his stay overseas.
He said there is nothing wrong with young people working hard and fighting for a better future. But too often, that becomes our excuse for sacrificing far more time with family than we realize. We keep saying: after this project, then I’ll make time. Next month, then I’ll make time. After I earn a little more, then I’ll make time.
But some things do not wait for us forever. If you do not do them today, there may not be another chance.
Why a meal carries so much feeling
I once saw a public service advertisement made up of a few ordinary scenes.
A small child struggles to pick up food with chopsticks, grows frustrated and cries, then finally gets a bite into his mouth and breaks into a smile.
At another table, an eager child reaches for food before everyone is seated, but his father stops him; only after the elders begin eating does the child extend his chopsticks again.
A young man comes home for the New Year, walks into the kitchen to see his mother cooking, and she immediately picks up a piece of meat and places it into his mouth.
An elderly man spends the holiday alone at home. A neighbor invites him to join the family reunion dinner. He hesitates, embarrassed, but the neighbor warmly insists: it is only one more pair of chopsticks.
Why can something as simple as a pair of chopsticks carry so much emotion in Chinese life?
Part of it comes from culture. Part of it comes from family tradition. But more than anything, it reflects a deep wish: that the family can gather, that people can be together, that no one has to eat alone if they do not have to.
And yet now, more and more people leave their hometowns. Transportation is easier than it used to be, but somehow the road home feels longer. Communication tools are more convenient than ever, yet the time we spend actually meeting each other seems to shrink. Even sharing one meal together has become strangely difficult.
I know why. People are busy because they want a better future for themselves and for those they love.
But busyness should not become the reason you stop going home for dinner.
And our devices should not dilute the simple warmth of wanting to be with one another.
Yes, life is full. There are always messages to answer, meetings to attend, plans to finish, responsibilities to carry.
Still, there is this one small thing: sitting down to eat with family or friends.
It is such a gentle kind of warmth.
Do not miss it.