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A Japanese glossary of chopsticks faux pas (2022)

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Re: A Japanese glossary of chopsticks faux pas (2022)

#161

For anyone else curious after reading "-bashi" 40 times: (Not gonna direct quote because the damn site doesn't allow copy-pasting so they don't get a link, paraphrased): Kirai-bashi would be literally translated to "dislike-chopsticks" and means bad chopstick table-manners. Hashi is chopsticks and bashi is the voiced form of it. So the bashi suffix/word on the end of all of these just means chopsticks it seems.

To add to this, voicing is also a way for Japanese words to become more “coherent”, the same way you write “dislike-chopsticks” as one combined noun, and not “dislike chopsticks”.

Someone downvoted this, but the poster is correct, so there was absolutely no reason for downvoting.

Rendaku, i.e. the voicing of the initial consonant, happens in the native Japanese words (i.e. not in the Japanese words of Chinese origin), in most cases when they are a part of a compound word and they are not the initial word. This serves indeed to distinguish a sequence of unrelated words from a compound word.

There are exceptions when rendaku does not happen, but typically whenever a word like hashi becomes a part of a compound word it will be voiced to -bashi.

"H" is a special case among the consonants, because in old Japanese it was pronounced as "p", which is why it is voiced as "b". Later, in initial positions the pronunciation was changed to "f" and even later the pronunciation was changed to "h". The "f" pronunciation has been retained only before "u", like in Fuji. In non initial positions, the original "p" has become later "v" and even later "w".

These pronunciation changes happened after the creation of the hiragana and katakana syllabaries, so they were not reflected in writing. The orthographic reform that was forced after WWII has brought the written form of the words closer to the pronunciation, e.g. by writing consistently "w" where it is pronounced so. Before WWII, many words written now with "-wa-" were still written with "-ha-", a spelling that has been preserved now only in the particle "wa" (like the spelling corresponding to the old pronunciation "wo" has been preserved for the particle "o").

While the Japanese orthographic reform had some positive effects, in simplifying a little the Japanese writing, it also had the effect that for someone who knows only the modern written Japanese it is difficult to read the Japanese books published before WWII, where many different kanji are used and also their hiragana transcriptions are different.

I assume that this was actually an effect intended by the American occupation forces, as a similar policy was applied by the Russians in all the territories of the Soviet Union (except the Baltic countries), where they forced the native populations to change their writing systems to the Cyrillic alphabet, in order to make difficult for the younger generations to read anything dating from before the Russian occupation.

Re: A Japanese glossary of chopsticks faux pas (2022)

#163
post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I'd put it down entirely to Osaka versus Kyoto. My impression is that these things often have at least as much to do with upbringing, formality, and social background as with region. I don't know where you're from, so apologies if this is an unfair assumption, but in countries like the US or Australia people often seem less attuned to social class, whereas in places like the UK, France, and indeed Japan,…

Agreed. Was always taught to never put elbows on the table, but as an adult I see people do it everywhere.

Seeing people fail to meet a standard does not mean that the standard does not exist.

Re: A Japanese glossary of chopsticks faux pas (2022)

#164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Was always taught to never put elbows on the table, but as an adult I see people do it everywhere.

Seeing people fail to meet a standard does not mean that the standard does not exist.

When it comes to manners, I'd say seeing enough people fail to meet a standard means it's not a standard, at least.

Re: A Japanese glossary of chopsticks faux pas (2022)

#166
post #134

こすり箸 Kosuribashi: To rub waribashi (disposable chopsticks) together to remove splinters. I don't know about Japan, but everybody does this in Taiwan.

> I don't know about Japan

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.

Re: A Japanese glossary of chopsticks faux pas (2022)

#168
post #4

Interesting. Some of these are big deals (particularly the ones mentioned as important) but others I have seen Japanese people in Tokyo do quite consistently. Soroebashi - not on the table, but I've seen chopsticks aligned by pushing them against the plate hundreds of time. I've also seen them used to stir miso soup, etc. plenty. Others I don't know that I would have much of an inclination to do and haven't seen but…

it's like western etiquette: upper class, fine dining traditional practices are not what you'll see everyday even among polite society. the spectrum of behaviors will also depend on one's company.

Yep. Two words:

_grape scissors_

Re: A Japanese glossary of chopsticks faux pas (2022)

#169
post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's like western etiquette: upper class, fine dining traditional practices are not what you'll see everyday even among polite society. the spectrum of behaviors will also depend on one's company.

Yep. Two words: _grape scissors_

Look here, Bridgerton: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNegQyn-4N8

Re: A Japanese glossary of chopsticks faux pas (2022)

#170
I married an Asian woman I met at work. Our boss called me in to ask if I was serious about marrying her and I said yes. He asked if I wanted any advice and I sincerely answered that I did. Our marriage was necessarily disruptive because it meant that she would also defect. That would cause problems up and down the management chain. His advice was for me to learn how to use chopsticks. that’s it. Nothing else.

I spent months learning how to use them properly in secret and finally deployed my skills when I thought I was pretty good. She didn’t notice. I then realized she almost always used a fork. In high school and college their meals were always served hastily and the students always brought a fork or spoon. they would eat standing up and had maybe five minutes to get the job done. No time for chopsticks.

When her parents came out to visit us after we got married I frantically asked her advice about good chopstick etiquette. I very much did not wish to cause her to lose face. She didn’t give a flying fuck. I honestly think I married one of the freest spirits in Asia, which is not necessarily a compliment.

She said I was doing fine and literally refused to give me any feedback at all, incorrectly claiming she wasn’t even that good. In fact, I think she only started to resume using chopsticks because I ended up finding them useful and now far prefer them to silverware.

I ended up having to learn most of the customs by watching people in restaurants. Just learning how to set them down right took additional months because I noticed far too late that they set their chopsticks down in a sort of V shape which is much harder than one might expect. Also, I am left-handed, but taught myself to do it right handed on the theory of that would also help me not lose face in front of the in-laws. It turns out they are also highly unconventional and probably didn’t care about my chopstick use one way or the other.

When we had kids, I would learn that Asian children who don’t learn to use chopsticks represent another way to lose face. It results in titanic power struggles within the family and makes everyone miserable. It’s a little like forcing kids here in the USA to eat their vegetables. By this time I had learned of her disinterest, so neither of us bothered to teach them. All of our children naturally picked it up with no apparent effort, including one who is very severely developmentally disabled.

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