Posted by cainxinth 1 day ago
Related to eating, one pro-tip I got from a local is that when you're ready to close your tab or get your check at a bar or restaurant, you can make a small X with your index fingers.
Really useful in a busy bar!
A lot of them are not common sense at all. Even the 'serious' ones require cultural knowledge to understand. Only a subset of the rest would be un-ideal across cultures, which is what I would use to measure 'common sense'.
It's like how in some asian cultures it's rude to bring the bowl closer to you by lifting it off the table, and in others it's the opposite. And of course there's some just-so story for why, that seems to make sense if you don't know about the opposing just-so story.
Things like that aren't what I'd call common sense.
A quick Google search will turn up hundreds of results corroborating this.
2. The two listed as "serious" are related to Japanese funerary rites, and so are clearly culturally specific.
3. Several of the things listed are perfectly acceptable in other chopstick-using cultures. Many are also perfectly acceptable to do with a fork and/or knife in cultures that use forks and knives. I think I would go so far as to say that there is not a single thing on there for which it would be widely considered rude to do in all cultures.
There are people in Japan who are rude or who do not have as good manners or etiquette when they are eating alone!
If everyone followed all manners all the times they wouldn't really be encoded woould they?
when you're ready to close your tab, you can make a small X with your index fingers
I suspect it mostly affects left handed people.
> To use the chopsticks to pick something out from near the bottom of the dish.
I think there must be some bits that are lost in translation for some of these. This makes it sound like you can't eat all of the food in a bowl with your chopsticks.
Edit: In fact I think you're completely right - "picking out" something near the bottom of the dish does suggest that.
It is definitely rude to use chopsticks that you just put in your mouth to go rooting around for something in those. You are supposed to take from the top and ideally turn them around using the back end. Some people frown on using the back ends however as it may have been touched by your hand...
Edit add: It means to dig food out, either from your own dish or a shared one. Like mixing the food up to look for something you like in it.
To turn the chopsticks around when serving food so that the tips of the chopsticks that have touched one’s mouth do not touch the food.
> 移り箸 Utsuribashi (also known as 渡り箸 wataribashi)
> To keep putting the chopsticks into the same side dishes. It is proper etiquette to first eat rice, move on to eat from a side dish, eat rice again, and then eat from a different side dish.
More about politeness to other guests in the context of a shared meal than being picky (and probably also with some similar logic to the TCM theories of how and what to eat, and maybe giving face to the host).
In all my decades of using chopsticks, I've never had a splinter poke me. But I've seen people rub their chopsticks then complain about splinters.
But the internet informs me that the composite chopsticks that I am used to seeing went away during covid and now disposable wooden chopsticks are the norm.
I almost associate the cheapo reusable plastic chopsticks with some food courts or Matsuya at this point.
I have always been a little embarrassed by my own use of chopsticks. When I was three or four years old a waitress in a Chinese restaurant helped me figure out a way to hold them that worked for me. Long story short, I am in my 70s and I have very effectively been getting food efficiently into my mouth with chopsticks my whole life - with horrible style.
Huh, this is something that I did consistently, believing it to be good etiquette.
こすり箸 Kosuribashi:
To rub waribashi (disposable chopsticks) together to remove splinters.
It is definitely not appropriate. If you break the chop sticks and use them correctly your fingers will never touch the surface where there are splinters.