It looked like a scene from The King and I, in which a proper English governess frantically coaches Oriental courtiers in the rudiments of Occidental custom. All week, for five hours a day, 140 uniformed Chinese waiters and waitresses marched in stiff single file through an empty hotel banquet hall, placed plates on cloth-covered tables and then returned to remove them. The drills were but one of many painstaking preparations for the "reciprocal banquet" President Reagan hosted in Peking last Saturday night.
The state dinner for 600 Chinese and American guests was one of...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
