Chopstick or Hashi Etiquette

The following set of instructions is supplied by an expert in the field. He’s the proprietor of a popular Chinese restaurant in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Since Chinese chopsticks are a bit more difficult to use, are bigger, and have a lacquered surface, if you can master them, the Japanese throwaway type you will find in most of Little Tokyo should be simple for you to manage. 

How do you identify an amateur chopstick or hashi user in a Little Tokyo restaurant? His head keeps moving closer to the plate. All Caucasians seem to think that handling these wooden sticks is as easy as signing their names on credit cards. In actuality, it calls for a bit of skill. So today, for the benefit of you readers who must stab your food with your chopsticks in order not to go hungry for lack of proper skill, we are going to give you a free lesson in etiquette. 

The following set of instructions is supplied by an expert in the field. He’s the proprietor of a popular Chinese restaurant in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Since Chinese chopsticks are a bit more difficult to use, are bigger, and have a lacquered surface, if you can master them, the Japanese throwaway type you will find in most of Little Tokyo should be simple for you to manage. According to our expert, here is the proper technique in numerical order: 

1. Put one chopstick at right angle to right hand, nesting it in crotch of thumb.
2. Put third finger right, hand against it. This stick never moves.
3. Take up second chopstick in right hand the way you hold a pencil.  
4. Ready? Set? Manipulate!

The traditional test is whether or not you can pick up a raw quail’s egg from a bowl of soup. A more practical test, however, is whether or not you eat. Since the Chinese are close neighbors to us here in Los Angele’s Little Tokyo (Los Angeles’ Chinatown is only a few blocks north) here are a few other items concerning the Chinese and chopsticks you may find interesting:

• During a time of mourning, for example, chopsticks are taboo. The prestige of the diseased rises in proportion to the number of mourners who eat with their fingers.  

• Laying chopsticks across your bowl is an indication that you are through eating. If you go to Chinatown, beware. Don’t rest until you finish.  

• Also, any number of secret messages can be sent with chopsticks such as, “Family Hold Back,” “pass the egg foo yung” or “you spilled some mustard on your coat.” – Shin Nichibei, 1964

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia