Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A Japanese glossary of chopsticks faux pas (2022)

nippon.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 408 posts

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

#171

Post by derefr »

cmcaleer wrote: post #105
cthalupa wrote: 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…

I think if you were to do an Osaka version of this, the list would be limited to maybe 4 of these (licking, chopsticks upright in rice, passing between chopsticks, and pointing esp. toward a senior would be taboo). Whereas when I had a date with a girl from Kyoto, one of the first things that happened when we went to eat was she had to stop me from picking up my chopsticks impolitely and show me the proper way of doi…

I wonder what Ms. Kyoto would tell me to do to properly pick up my chopsticks, given that I’m left-handed, and yet it is apparently a faux pas to lay down the chopsticks pointing to the right.

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

#172

Post by derefr »

wahnfrieden wrote: post #73
frereubu wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen those too. I was going to say that I've seen people put the bowl to their mouth and shovel food in with chopsticks, but now that I come to think about it that might well actually be from the series Tokyo Diner and Takeshi Kitano films, and may be deliberately uncouth characterisations...

Bringing the bowl close to your mouth and picking food up from it is proper. Pushing it from the bowl into your mouth is impolite but common.

So what are you expected to do with the last few sauce-soaked grains of rice that would at best be able to be plucked grain by grain from the bowl, and even then would likely slip from between the tips of the chopsticks? Just leave them in the bowl?

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

#173

Post by Brian_K_White »

cmcaleer wrote: post #112
cthalupa wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's always wild to me when I hear about how different the culture is between Osaka and Kyoto when they're so close.

I remember being blown away when I was in a Kyoto Familymart after a few months of living in Osaka after they handed me my fried chicken very delicately with both hands like it was a business card! I guess that’s the cultural divide that occurs when one community is fishing and trading while the other does, like, competitive perfumed calligraphy or whatever.

Clearly they also cook and serve fried chicken.

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

#174

Post by derefr »

tempodox wrote: post #165

Highly instructive, and some quite surprising to me as a gaijin. > To take the tips of the chopsticks in one’s mouth. Sometimes I'm having a hard time avoiding that. Apparently I need more practice.

I think that one refers to doing so when there is no food on the chopsticks. Picture tapping the chopsticks against your lips to show you’re thinking, if conversing while eating. The overarching rule being that you should put the chopsticks down whenever you’re not in the middle of picking up/moving food with them.

(Unless you want to come off as imitating a Rakugo storyteller. If you do, then go ahead and use them as a talking prop. But maybe make it clear that you’re not eating with those ones, so people don’t worry you’ll flick sauce at them!)

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

#175

Post by scheme271 »

rglullis wrote: post #163
markdown wrote: post #135

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.

I think the deeper question is whose standards and why should we consider them the standard?

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

#176

Post by mrkandel »

3eb7988a1663 wrote: post #98
chasil wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a wiki. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eating_utensil_etiquette Edit: The wiki on chopsticks has an etiquette section broken down by country. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chopsticks#Chopstick_customs,_...

The difference between the American and European styles has been used as plot point in fictional works, including the 1946 film O.S.S. and the 2014 series Turn: Washington's Spies.[5] In both works, using the wrong fork etiquette threatens to expose undercover agents. Nuts. Apparently I have been a German spy all this time. I don't have time to waste swapping a fork around.

Tarantino has a bit about it in inglorious bastards.

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

#177

Post by kleton »

Umofomia wrote: post #84
wahnfrieden wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bringing the bowl close to your mouth and picking food up from it is proper. Pushing it from the bowl into your mouth is impolite but common.

I'm under the impression this is a Chinese vs. Japanese difference. Shoveling food into your mouth is perfectly acceptable in Chinese etiquette but discouraged in Japanese. Accordingly the Japanese cook their rice to clump together so it's easier to pick up using your chopsticks so that you don't have to resort to shoveling.

A lot of culture was lost in the Cultural Revolution

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

#178

Post by scheme271 »

sudo_cowsay wrote: post #61
0x3f wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just proceed to eat some splinters, then? What is the good etiquette way to handle low quality el-cheapo chopsticks? Well first of all the chopsticks are joined at the non-eating end, typically. So the splinters would be bothering your fingers more than anything. It's rude because it insults the host, in a way. Anywhere that would care about you doing it should not be giving you the cheap chopsticks in the first pl…

There are steel chopsticks (though not really common <-- only in Korea).

The metal chopsticks are pretty much only get used in Korea. The shape and material of the chopsticks varies by country so you can make a good guess as to where someone is from based on which chopsticks they use.

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

#179

Post by alisonatwork »

tomcam wrote: post #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 spen…

I feel like a lot of this is culture and class specific. I can't speak for Japan, but in China there are at least as many different levels of chopstick-using skill as anywhere in the west. Kids and elderly who can't pick up a peanut or a cherry tomato, people who find it entirely unproblematic to stab a slippery dumpling, people who think it's stupid to waste time trying to get fried rice into your mouth with chopsticks and just grab a spoon instead, people who dredge their way through the hotpot to find the treat they're looking for...

I often get the sense that foreigners getting stressed about (or feeling pride in) how well they use chopsticks is a weird kind of orientalism. Because, like, who cares if someone shows up in a western restaurant and uses a spoon instead of knife to saw through something, or grabs a big hunk with a fork and takes a bite, leaving the rest on the fork? Maybe you wouldn't do it if you were having dinner with the queen, but any other context nobody cares. I'm sure parents still try to teach their kids to eat polite way, and maybe even feel a bit embarrassed if their kids show themselves to be less well-behaved than the neighbors', but that's a universal thing so, eh.

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

#180

Post by rvba »

maxerickson wrote: post #110
pndy wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's equally complex dining and utensils etiquette in Western culture but it's largely omitted (or even unknown) on daily basis.

That's not really a coherent statement. If people don't even know it, it's not part of the culture.

Is is also topic od relevance.

Poland has honorifics that are probably on par to those in Japan, but since the language is difficult to learn and frankly speaking nobody cares about Poland, barely anyone even knows this.

Also lots of corporations prefer "american style" approach of just refering by name (even to the CEO), so this dissapears.

Probably could write few pages about this, but nobody would care to read.

Post reply on HN