Chinese Dining and Table Etiquette

“In sitting at a Chinese table, neither one’s body, nor his dress, must touch the table, and great strictness in regard to one’s position is enforced. It is not according to Chinese etiquette to look around when one is eating, nor to stare at one another.” — Depiction of 19th C. Chinese Scholars 

Ting Lang Ho, an educated Chinese man, writes as follows: “According to the teaching of Confucius, no conversation must be carried on at the table. This precept of Confucius, disagreeable though it may seem to many, prevents many embarrassments at table, namely, one’s being interrupted when he tries to speak at table. Chinese etiquette requires all to begin to eat at the same time, but each one before be begins to eat generally says, “Let us begin,” which is accompanied by a gesture of the chopsticks. In finishing one’s meal, the same gesture is used, but not the same words. He says to those who are still eating, “Do not be in haste.”

It is customary for the elders to help the younger to those dishes which he cannot reach, but in receiving, etiquette requires him or her to rise. In sitting at a Chinese table, neither one’s body, nor his dress, must touch the table, and great strictness in regard to one’s position is enforced. It is not according to Chinese etiquette to look around when one is eating, nor to stare at one another. Remarks made on the food and the smacking of one’s lips are (I’m sorry to say) allowable in Chinese etiquette.

The chopsticks, when one is not using them, must be placed on the table close together, sitting perpendicular to the spoon. According to Chinese etiquette, it is rude for one to finish too soon; one must try to keep together with the rest, though it is becoming for inferiors to finish a little before their superiors, but not a little too late. Reading of periodicals is strictly forbidden, but letters are allowed if they are very important. One very seldom asks for an excuse from table in China, but every one goes at the same time. — Jennie June, 1881

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

Simplest Are Most Widely Used

Historians believe the use of chopsticks began because of the way Chinese food is prepared. Generally meats and vegetables are cut into small pieces before being served which eliminates the need for a knife at the dinner table. Usually about eight inches long, chopsticks are normally made of wood or bamboo, although modern ones may be made of plastic. More elaborate pairs are made of enameled wood, ivory or bone, and have even been known to be made out of gold, brass and silver.

Chopsticks Came First

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K’uai-tzu are the most widely used eating utensils in world

To those unfamiliar with Oriental terms, k'uai-tzu might sound like the name of a new martial art or next season's replacement for television’s, “Kung Fu.” But it is actually the name of the second most popular eating utensil in the United States, and by a wide margin, the most widely used eating utensil in the world. K'uai-tzu (pronounced kwi-zu), or chopsticks, were used in China in the fourth century 8.C., long before Europeans stopped eating with their hands. “Today, chopsticks remain the most popular eating utensil in China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam and other East Asian countries influenced by Chinese culture,” says Chun King consultant Ms. Anne Byrd. “Here in the United Stales, they rank behind the knife and fork in eating utensil popularity.” 

Historians believe the use of chopsticks began because of the way Chinese food is prepared. Generally meats and vegetables are cut into small pieces before being served which eliminates the need for a knife at the dinner table. Usually about eight inches long, chopsticks are normally made of wood or bamboo, although modern ones may be made of plastic. More elaborate pairs are made of enameled wood, ivory or bone, and have even been known to be made out of gold, brass and silver. “Through centuries of use, chopsticks have also been associated with many superstitions or practices,” Ms. Byrd points out.

Chopsticks have been used as gift items between friends sometimes decorated with inscribed poetry or painted with good luck designs. A gift of chopsticks to newlyweds suggests a wish that the couple will quickly have children. “Also, it is still common for a pair of chopsticks to be placed upright in the bowl of rice offered at a memorial service for the dead,” adds Ms. Byrd. “The chopsticks thus mark the sacredness of the offered rice, and also are a sign to prevent the coming of evil spirits to disturb the peace of the dead.” 

The word “chop” is derived from k'uai, which means “quick” or “speedy,” but many people experience just the opposite when they use them. But mastering the Oriental art of chopsticks is not difficult, as some believe. All it takes is practice. Beginners can learn to best maneuver chopsticks by starting with frozen egg rolls, heated crisp and savory. After a little practice, separate items such as chow mein noddles or Oriental dinners can be tried. – Desert Sun, 1979

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

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

Han Dynasty Women’s Etiquette

The Han Dynasty, from 206 BC – 220 AD 

Instruction for Chinese Women and Girls, 

by Lady Tsao

All girls, everywhere, Should learn woman's work. When women guests are expected, You should the chairs arrange in order. Let your own dress be neat and suitable.

Slowly and lightly walk ; Move not your hands about ; And let your voice be gentle and low. With such deportment, Invite your guests to enter: Present your salutations, Inquiring after their welfare since last you met.

In conversation with them, Talk not at random. When they questions ask, Do not imitate those who only regard themselves, And show no respect to others. Such receive few guests. Because they know not politeness. As a guest, demand nothing ; As a hostess, exhaust hospitality. 


When you go to a friend's house, Be not eager to receive attentions. Having exchanged greetings and taken tea, Immediately your business then make known, This finished, at once rise to go. Observing all courtesy in departing. 

If the hostess prevails upon you to longer stay, And a feast for you prepares, Remember the wine to only raise to your lips. Your chopsticks, place not on the table crossed. But use them with propriety and grace. The filling your cup with wine continually refuse. Follow not your desires, just to eat, eat ! 

Imitate not those rude women, Who with confusion eat, drink, and talk ; Drinking wine until crazy. They shamefully vomit their food ; In this state going home. Before reaching their house. Many shameful, rude acts will they do.

Outside of your house you should seldom go. Nor into the street for pleasure. If persons unknown you meet, Your head and eyes quickly lower.

Do not imitate stupid women, Who gad about from house to house. These speak many idle words, And cause others evil to speak of them. Such may not escape reproof, Their families by them are injured, Their parents greatly dishonored. Still another class imitate not, Those whose deeds are so evil, That they are shameful, fearful, And disreputable !

The Han Dynasty was one of the Longest of China's Major Dynasties

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

Chopstick History and Etiquette

"You do not sew with a fork, and I see no reason why you should eat with knitting needles." — Miss Piggy

Chopstick History and Etiquette

"The ultimately restricted, and therefore it may be thought, the ultimately delicate, manner of eating with one's hands is to use the thumb and two fingers of the right hand, only the tips of these ideally being allowed to touch the food. This gesture, we find even more by artificially elongating the fingers and further reducing their number, is of course the origin of chopsticks. Once people became accustomed to fingers remaining clean throughout the meal, napkins used for serious cleansing seemed not only redundant but downright nasty."

Chopsticks have been used in Japan for thousands of years. Also known as "hashi," or "otemoto" in fancier restaurants, Japanese chopsticks reflect the highly artistic culture of the islands. Originally, they were used strictly for religious ceremonies, but soon they were used for casual eating as well. Because of this history, the Japanese tend to be a little more strict about the proper use of chopsticks than the Chinese. At first they were fashioned like tweezers - a single piece of bamboo connected at one end. This connection is how they got the name "hashi" meaning "bridge." By the 10th century AD, they were being made regularly as two separate pieces and used in pairs, as they are today. In the 17th centrury AD, they began to lacquer the wooden chopsticks to make them more durable. This allowed them to become the beautiful Japanese icons that they are today. The ornate designs make them some of the most attractive and unique chopsticks in the world. The hard lacquer finish is not only attractive, but highly functional. It waterproofs them and makes them easier to clean. Japanese chopsticks are shorter than most chopsticks. Adult chopsticks in Japan are typically 7-9 inches long (20-23cm), are typically rounded, and tapered to a point.

Information from www.thechopstickstore.com 

"Father João Rodrigues observed in the 17th century that the Japanese were "much amazed at our eating with the hands and wiping them on napkins, which then remain covered with food stains, and this causes them both nausea and disgust." Napkins laid on knees are still an " ethnic," western affectation in China and Japan. There is, however, a tradition of supplying diners several times during the meal with small rough towels wrung out in boiling water, for hand and face wiping.

Chopsticks seem to have evolved in the East specifically for use with rice: The staple grain in China was originally millet, which the Li Chi insists must be eaten with a spoon, not with chopsticks like rice. Chinese rice is not loose and dry like that chosen by Indians, Arabs, and Africans, who prefer eating it with their hands, but sticky and slightly moist even without sauce; it is easily handled with chopsticks. The earliest word for chopsticks seems to have been Zi, related to the root meaning, "help". This is pronounced, however, like the word for "stop", or "becalm" used of boats. Chinese boatman are said to have renamed them kuai – zi, which sounds like "fast fellows", because Chinese think of chopsticks as swift and agile, the very opposite of halting and being becalmed. This is now their Chinese name; "chopsticks" is of course a western barbarism. In Japanese, chopsticks are called hashi, "bridge", because they effect the transition from bowl to mouth.

Chopsticks are thought of as fast, then, and helpful. Meals in China often surprise visitors by the speed with which they are eaten; chopsticks enable the Chinese and Japanese to eat food which is sizzling hot, but because is often served in small pieces it gets cold if people dawdle. Chopstick users remain more likely than we are to use their hands as aids in eating but it is not at all advisable to get them greasy: chopsticks, and especially the lacquered chopsticks common in Japan and Korea, are extremely difficult to manage with slippery fingers. Porcelain spoons are used for soups and the more liquid dishes; children are allowed to use spoons for everything until they are about three or four years old, when chopstick training begins."
     

Chinese chopsticks are the longest of all chopsticks. This is probably because they were originally used for cooking, and adapted for eating as the food began to be cooked in bite size pieces. Chinese chopsticks are not tapered. They are square at the base and round at the tip, symbolizing the infinite God in heaven feeding the man, bound by four seasons, on earth. Because they are thicker at the tip, chinese chopsticks are great for tearing meat and pushing rice from a bowl into the mouth. Contrary to popular belief, the Chinese do not use chopsticks to pick up pieces of rice in a conventional manner. They lift the bowl to their mouths and use the chopsticks to push the rice in, and the wider chopsticks are well suited to this method. Information from www.thechopstickstore.com 

"Chinese tables are round or square rather than oval or oblong: diners sit equidistant from the dishes of cài (meat, fish, and vegetables), all set out in one "course", in the middle. Each diner gets a small bowl for fán, literally, "food", meaning rice. The rice is the substance of the meal; the cài is merely relish, unless the occasion is a banquet. The host, or the mother, doles out the rice into the bowls. Each guest must take the filled bowl in two hands: receiving in one hand shows disrespectful indifference. You never eat cài before being served rice, because that looks as though you are so greedy and selfish that you would be prepared to eat nothing but meat and vegetables, which are the expensive part of the meal, centrally placed in order to be shared with others.

When the host gives the sign, you may begin to take the cài with your chopsticks. The gestures used by Chinese, Japanese, and others to do this are fascinating for Westerners. They look accomplished. Delicate, precise, and gentle-- much more polished that our own behavior at meals. Roland Barthes in "The Empire of Signs" speaks of eulogies on the Japanese manipulation of chopsticks: "There is something maternal, the same precisely measured care taken in moving a child... the instrument never pierces, cuts, or slips, never wounds but only selects, turns, shifts. For the chopsticks... In order to divide, must separate, part, peck, instead of cutting and piercing, in the manner of our implements; they never violate the food stuff; either they gradually unravel it (in the case of vegetables) or else prod it into separate pieces (in the case of fish, eels) thereby rediscovering the natural fissures of the substance." A Westerner feels like a brute butcher before this Oriental delicacy. Barthe says that we are "armed with pikes and knives "like predators rather than gentle mothers, our food, " a prey to which one does violence."

“Man who catch fly with chopstick, capable of anything.” ― Mr. Miyagi, in The Karate Kid 
B.Y. Chao tells us that the Chinese are aware in themselves of a sequence of commands: "Await, avoid, attack!" You must pause, think of others, consider which piece you want, then zero in on it. You may have to stretch across the path of another's chopsticks – though Chinese, too, try to restrict themselves to taking from the side of the dish more or less facing them; fellow diners cooperate with each other and are not greatly offended by another's "attack." You should never looked too intent on obtaining a particular morsel, however. Chinese children are taught that "the best mannered person does not allow co-diners to be aware of what his or her favorite dishes are by his or her eating pattern."

“Marriage is like twirling a baton, turning hand springs or eating with chopsticks. It looks easy until you try it.” — Helen Rowland

"It is politer to transfer food first to your rice bowl, and eat it from there, then to take it directly from the cài dish to your mouth. Chopsticks must never be licked or bitten. Japanese bad manners include neburi-bashi: licking chopsticks with the tongue; mogi-kui: using your mouth to remove rice sticking to your chopsticks; komi-bashi: forcing several things in your mouth with your chopsticks; utsuri-bashi: one must not break the rule that a mouthful of rice is to be taken between every two bites of meat, fish, or vegetables; saguri-bashi: searching with chopsticks to see if anything you want remains in the dish; hashi-namari: hesitation whether to take one thing rather than another; and sora-hashi: putting back with the chopsticks food you intended to eat.

Mannerly diners with chopsticks never "fish about" for morsels; they must take the bit they touch first. This means that one begins by eyeing one's target carefully: if you prod it, you must take and eat it. Using chopsticks need in no way mean that people eat food touched by implements which have been in other people's mouths. Yet a very western distaste for even the thought of touching the food of all with utensils of each has spread. In 1984, Hu Yaobang, the former Communist Party Secretary, criticized the traditional Chinese way of eating and urged change on sanitary grounds. A good deal of such concern must in fact be a desire to participate in Western  prestige as being somehow more in ineffably "modern." The admiration of people like Roland Barthe 's for superior Oriental wisdom seems to be less satisfying than the allure of technological hygiene and "modern "mental instruments. A compromise with "modernity" is the Japanese pre-wrapped disposable set of wooden chopsticks.

Korean chopsticks are traditionally flat and made of metal, though the Koreans are beginning to use round chopsticks as well. In Korea, chopsticks are called jeokkarak (젓가락). In length, Chinese chopsticks tend to be the longest, and Japanese chopsticks are often the shortest, with Korean chopsticks falling somewhere in-between. So why are Korean chopsticks made of metal? One explanation is that in ancient times pure silver chopsticks were used by the king because the silver would change color if the king’s food had been poisoned. Then the commoners, wanting to emulate royalty, began to use metal chopsticks as well. One may argue that metal chopsticks are more practical and sanitary since they can be easily washed and used again. Another could maintain that since Koreans mostly use a spoon to eat their rice, they can use the more slippery chopsticks to eat their other dishes. It is true that it is significantly harder to eat rice and noodles with metal chopsticks. Whatever the explanation, metal chopsticks are uniquely Korean.

Information from www.thechopstickstore.com 

"Chopstick users remain more likely than we are to use their hands as aids in eating but it is not at all advisable to get them greasy: chopsticks, and especially the lacquered chopsticks common in Japan and Korea, are extremely difficult to manage with slippery fingers. Porcelain spoons are used for soups and the more liquid dishes; children are allowed to use spoons for everything until they are about three or four years old, when chopstick training begins.

The problem that Westerners experience is often the result of attempts to eat rice with chopsticks from flat plates: the small bowl raised towards a face is far easier to manage with the proper zest. Chinese themselves, given food on a  flat plate, prefer to use a porcelain spoon (to stand in for its sister, the bowl). This spoon, like a bowl, has a flat bottom, so they can be laid down without spilling the contents.

 The kind of food we ourselves eat, together with the way we cook and serve it, predisposes us to use knives, forks, and spoons, and our idea of what constitutes "place setting "also influences our food choices. Oriental food is cut up in the kitchen so they can be eaten with chopsticks – but also, as Barthe points out, chopsticks came into being because each mouthful is regarded as comestable partly because it is small; being confronted with a large slab meet on the dish can be a disgusting experience for people from rice – and – chopstick cultures. In addition, rice – growing is a land use which reduces the amount of fuel available, so that meat and vegetables must usually be cooked quickly to save wood. Cutting them up small facilitates stir-frying and other quick-cooking methods.

But unfortunately there is an ecological price to pay for this, as hundreds of millions of trees are chopped down every year to supply throwaway chopstick wood– in 1987, 20 billion chopsticks were used and discarded in Japan alone.  It has never been acceptable to return bitten morsels of meat, vegetables, or fish to the common dish; but because the bowl of rice is "private territory, "a piece of meat or vegetable maybe held in chopsticks and bitten, and the rest put down on the rice in the bowl, to be finished later. One must never, in Japan, stick the chopsticks up right in the rice. This is done only when offerings are made by Buddhist mourners for their dead: standing chopsticks are rather like our own taboos about an empty chair at the table.

The kind of food we ourselves eat, together with the way we cook and serve it, predisposes us to use knives, forks, and spoons, and our idea of what constitutes "place setting "also influences our food choices.

With perfect propriety one lifts the small china bowl in the left-hand and sweeps the contents into the mouth with precise, busy movements of the two sticks together, held in the right. Barthe's delicate gestures suddenly become swift and purely efficient; the bowl held under the chopsticks is moved dexterously about so as to prevent food spills. We ourselves are surprised to see this done because we are never allowed to lift dishes containing solid food – and we count soup, unless it is in a cup, as "solid food"-- to our lips; we gave up doing this and when we agreed that formal politeness involves using our cutlery.

The Chinese may be thought of as treating the little bowl like a cross between a teacup any large spoon, with the chopsticks as "helpers. "Table manners always impose difficult restraints: "if you rattle your chopsticks against the bowl," says the Chinese proverb, "you and your descendants will always be poor." Whatever happens, however, at an ordinary meal every single grain of rice in one's bowl must be eaten before dinner is over. Leaving rice is a disgusting behavior, because it shows a lack of knowledge of one's own appetite in the first place, together with greed for meat and vegetables, and no respect for rice – its culture, its history, and the hard work that has been involved in getting it to the table.

Rice is never to be gripped, lifted, and eaten grain by grain, as Western novices in the art of chopstick-handling find themselves doing with so much frustration and so many complaints. "Picking "at one's food is very rude, in fact, for Oriental manners, more than our own, demand demonstrations of delight and pleasure in eating, and inept fiddling with one's chopsticks is apt to be interpreted not merely as a want of competence but as a depressing unwillingness as well." – Margaret Visser, The Rituals of Dinner

Compiled and submitted by the late- Demita Usher of Social Graces and Savoir Faire

🍽️Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J Graber of The RSVP Institute of Etiquette, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia