How To Use Chopsticks

Yes, you too can use Chopsticks. Here are some web pages to help you:

• How to Use Chopsticks
• How to Use Chopsticks (large print edition)
• Schauwekers Guide to Japan - Chopsticks
• Things Japanese - Chopsticks (Hashi)
• Japanese Chopstick Manners
• Chopsticks Dos and Don'ts
• More Japanese Chopstick Manners
• Eating with Chopsticks (Japanese)
• Chinese Chopsticks and History
• Chopsticks and Chinese Culture
• Chopsticks (history)
• More History of Chopsticks
• Chopsticks
• Chopsticks
• Chopsticks Gallery
• Interview with a Chopstick Maker
• Custom Imprinted Chopsticks (store site)
• Chopsticks (store site)
• Rookie Chopsticks (store site)
• Chopsticks, Chopstick Rests & Placemats (store site)
• Toothpicks and Chopsticks (hints on eating rice)
• Make Chopsticks
• Do I have to eat with these sticks?
• Chopsticks Revival (store site)
• Forkchops?
• Chopsticks and Dining Superstitions
• Eat Your Chopsticks (poem from chopsticks wrapper)
• Fractured Chopsticks Instructions
• God's Little Chopsticks (advocacy)
• Kim's Page o' Chopsticks (the largest collection of chopstick wrappers on the Internet)
• How to give a speech about Chopsticks
• Chopsticks and Trade (case study)

Chopstick Taboos

Kaki-Bashi

To rake in or shovel food on one's mouth attached to plate or bowl.

Yose-Bashi

To pull your plate around with chopsticks.

Sashi-Bashi

To pick up food by stabbing it

Namida-Bashi

To drop the sauce from the food of from chopsticks.

Komi-Bashi

To overfill one's mouth by stuffing food with chopsticks.

Neburi-Bashi

To lick the tips of the chopsticks.

Nigiri-Bashi

To hold two sticks together as one would grasp a knife to attack.

Watashi-Bashi

To place chopsticks on top of the bowl.

Tataki-Bashi

To tap the chopsticks against the bowl to call someone.

Yoko-Bashi

To use two chopsticks held together as a spoon

Mayoi-Bashi

Wandering chopsticks over several foods without decision

Utsuri-Bashi

Changing the food you choose after you have touched a certain food.

Saguri-Bashi

Looking for contents in a soup with chopsticks.

Do not stick chopsticks into your food, especially not into rice. Only at funerals are chopsticks stuck into the rice that is put onto the altar.

Do not pass food with your chopsticks directly to somebody else's chopsticks. Only at funerals are the bones of the cremated body given in that way from person to person.

It is improper to wet chopsticks to a height of more than three centimeters. Food stains of a length between one and a half and three centimeters are judged acceptable.

Do not point with your chopsticks to something or somebody.

Do not move your chopsticks around in the air too much, nor play with them.

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