These are the seven Japanese chopstick etiquette rules; how many do you already follow?
You can just about manage to eat properly with chopsticks… But is there also etiquette involved? Yep, if you ever make it to Japan (more popular than ever right now), make sure you’ve committed the following chopstick etiquette rules to memory.
Actually, the etiquette is mainly about what you should not do when eating with chopsticks.
Seven chopstick etiquette rules
There are quite a few rules, in fact, and some of them even have a pretty creepy reason…
1. Never pass food from chopstick to chopstick
If you want to let someone at the table try your sushi, you’d better find another way to give it to them. With your hands if necessary, but NOT with your chopsticks. That’s a mortal sin in Japan. Literally. Chopsticks are used there to pass pieces of bone from a deceased person between people during a funeral. Really. If you pass food from one pair of chopsticks to another, you’ll be looked at with a murderous glare. It’s completely disrespectful and a bad omen for the future. Want to make it out of Japan alive? Don’t do this!
2. Don’t lay your chopsticks across your bowl or plate
If you place your chopsticks crossed across the edge of your plate or bowl, that’s a signal to the chef, waiter and fellow diners: you’re finished eating. You don’t want any more of the dish. If you’re not finished eating yet, that doesn’t exactly show much respect. So always place them straight beside your plate or bowl.
3. Don’t place your chopsticks upright in your food
A major taboo in Japan! I also don’t see any reason why you’d need to place your chopsticks upright in your bowl of rice, but still; imagine if… You’d better not. This reason also has to do with death. During funerals, a bowl of rice with two chopsticks standing vertically in the middle is traditionally left behind. Do this at the dinner table? It brings bad luck.
4. Don’t rub your chopsticks together
The Japanese do this to remove splinters from wooden chopsticks. In Japan, wooden chopsticks are usually disposable chopsticks of inferior quality. If you do this in a restaurant, you’re suggesting that you’ve been given bad chopsticks. They may not show it straight away, but you’re quite seriously insulting the chef and waiter.
5. Don’t poke your food with your chopsticks
Suppose you get very aggressive because of the etiquette rules above and want to poke at your food out of anger. Forget it! Not even if you mean it less aggressively and simply want to eat with one chopstick. Or check whether your food is cooked. Whatever your reason for poking, stabbing or prodding, it’s rude and a bad idea in every case.
6. Don’t point at anyone with your chopsticks
It’s the same as someone pointing at you with a finger while talking. Not very nice, right? So don’t do it with a chopstick either. Incidentally, the Japanese also consider it rude to wave and gesture with your chopsticks while talking. It’s not a conductor’s baton or a magic wand.
7. Don’t wash your chopsticks at the table
Have your chopsticks become dirty? That’s too bad. You’re not supposed to clean them at the table with a liquid, whether water or a bowl of soup in front of you. These are bad table manners in Japan. Slurping your noodles? That, on the other hand, is completely acceptable behavior.
Also read:
- How to make divine Japanese Kewpie mayonnaise at home
- Bizarre trend from Japan: armpit sushi (yes, really)
- Cooking Japanese rice? Here’s how to do it perfectly
Source: Why so Japan
