Don’t do this with your Chopsticks!
In Japan eating with chopsticks or hashi is commonplace and you will often have to ask for a fork if you are unable to use chopsticks. With the proliferation of Asian cuisines throughout the world many people are able to use chopstick quite effectively but how many do you think know their chopstick etiquette?
Yesterday I told you about Ginza Natsuno, your one stop shop for everything chopstick related, and today I want to let you know about 11 things not to do with your newly purchased chopsticks. These things are all considered rude or at least culturally incorrect and some are just plain unsanitary:
- Thrusting the chopsticks into the food to pick it up. Chopsticks should be treated like tongs not swords!
- Passing food from chopstick to chopstick. If you want your friend to try something they should pick it up from your plate with their own chopsticks.
- Licking your chopsticks. Sort of like licking your knife.
- Making a drumming sound with your chopsticks on the table or dishes. Chopsticks are not to be confused with drum sticks!
- Biting your chopsticks. You risk damaging the finish on your chopsticks, not to mention eating lacquer which probably isn’t very good for you.
- Impaling your chopsticks vertically in a bowl of rice. This is only done as an offering at Japanese funerals.
- Using your chopsticks to push food further into your mouth.
- Using your chopsticks to pick through the food presented to find the morsel that you want to eat.
- Using your chopsticks to move the dishes on the table. Don’t use your chopsticks to drag a plate closer to you!
- Using your chopsticks to point at a person.
- Chomping down on your chopsticks to free up your hands – you’ll just look silly! Your hand should never leave your chopsticks when they are in or near your mouth.
How well do you know your chopstick etiquette?
Photo Credit: Personal Collection Source: Babel Fish Translation of Ginza Natsuno website
9 Comments
Argh!
I just got back from having Japanese food for dinner tonight, and I’ve afraid I was in violation of #8. I wanted less meat and more vegetables.
I think that we’ve all done #8 and maybe some of the others at one time or another. But best keep this list in mind if you ever get the chance to dine with the Emperor.
[...] are over 1400 types of chopsticks and 1,100 different ways to hold them? There are even rules about what you should and shouldn’t do with your chopsticks. The Japanese term for chopsticks is hashi and Ginza Natsuno is a store dedicated to everything [...]
Guilty of #3.
Once I saw a westerner using chopsticks to eat rice from a plate. He was picking the rice bit by bit and that was tough! Use fork and spoon will be good enough for that!
bubble, you are right – eating rice grain by grain with hashi would be tough! Maybe they were just trying to prove that they could do it?
I’ve done 1, 3 and 8 before, but I don’t do any of them regularly. Does that mean I can get off with a warning this time? O=)
The only one where i could see people actually beinf offended is #6. otherwise just replace chopstick with fork. same difference. not a big deal.
I’m surprised #2 wasn’t explained, as it’s the only one I’ve ever committed that actually caused an outcry. My friend suddenly shouted “My poor grandmother!” when she took the meat from my chopsticks, and when I was confused explained in funerals you carry a deceased relatives bones from their ashes, passing them along down a line of relatives by chopsticks (probably the only time people would cry if your chopsticks slipped). She felt guilty and sickened the whole rest of the night, and I have never done it again.
#10 is offensive as well. I used to always do this, and I think I still do, but as long as you don’t make a big show of it and don’t do it to any senpai, I think it’s not too big a deal.
#8 is stupid. Japanese do that all the time. This should be specified; when at a pub, do not stick your chops into the group portions to find what you want, it’s okay to do it on your own plant. But that’s like picking up everything with your hands and then putting it back down… I have seen middle aged Japanese men do this a lot and it is a bit annoying.
#3… who on earth would lick their chopsticks? That’s gross, and in a cheap eatery like Yoshinoya just asking for a splinter.