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Chopsticks are the traditional eating utensils, pairs of small tapering
sticks, of China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam (the four "Chopstick
countries"). Chopsticks are commonly made of wood, bone or ivory, but in
modern times, plastic as well.
In general, chopsticks should be
used for eating and no other purpose. Do not point with chopsticks, or
gesture with them, or use as drumsticks, or use to bang on a dish or bowl to
catch the attention of a waiter or waitress or mother or father.
- Do not dig around in dishes for choice bits of food. Eat from the
top and choose what is to be eaten before reaching with chopsticks (don't
hover around or poke looking for special ingredients).
- Never stab or pierce any food with chopsticks.
- Never stand chopsticks upright in a bowl of rice (or anything else,
for that matter, but rice especially because the act is part of a funeral
rite)
- Don't move dishes around with chopsticks.
- Don't lick or suck the ends of chopsticks.
- Don't let food drop off ends of chopsticks.
- Don't shove food into your mouth with chopsticks. Soup bowls, but
no other dishes or bowls are brought to the mouth in Japan.
- Never touch food in a common dish with the pointed (eating) end of
chopsticks. Use the blunt end to transfer food from a common dish to your
own plate or bowl (never your mouth). (No hygiene problems if all do
this.)
- Never use chopsticks to transfer something to someone else's
chopsticks or someone else's plate or bowl.
- Place pointed ends of the chopsticks on a chopstick rest when
chopsticks are not being used.
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