A Japanese glossary of chopsticks faux pas (2022)

Post by Umofomia » Sun, Mar 22, 2026, 8:54 PM UTC

thaumasiotes wrote: post #211

vunderba wrote: post #143

When I first moved to Taiwan and was just getting a handle on Chinese, I asked a waiter "請給我一個筷子" - not yet being familiar with proper measure words. The waiter (who had a bit of a sense of humor) brought me exactly ONE chopstick. I laughed and repeated 請給我另一個筷子 ( Please give me another chopstick ) and he brought out another one. Of course later my friend told me that I should have used 雙 to indicate I wanted a "pair…

> Of course later my friend told me that I should have used 雙 to indicate I wanted a "pair" of chopsticks. That's hard to guess. There are three common measure words meaning "pair"; 副 is for "pairs" that are connected, like a "pair" of scissors in English, but 双 and 对 are basically identical in significance as far as I know. > The waiter (who had a bit of a sense of humor) brought me exactly ONE chopstick. Slightly u…

Post by waffletower » Mon, Mar 23, 2026, 3:24 PM UTC

decimalenough wrote: post #46

waffletower wrote: post #30

I lived in Japan for nearly 6 years and found that concern for faux pas such as these for hashi (chopsticks) are way way overblown. I used at least one thousand disposable pairs of chopsticks in Japan and never had the desire to smooth them -- they are higher quality than Panda Express offerings. I knew about this "taboo" prior to arrival and it was simply irrelevant. Avoid the obvious symbolic references to makura g…

Passing food by placing it directly on someone else's plate or bowl is fine. The taboo is specifically about two people holding onto the same thing at the same tine with chopsticks, the way cremated bone fragments are placed into the urn at kotsuage . Other than that, I agree. It's kind of like trying to apply Emily Post's etiquette to TV dinners: many of these "rules" would be viewed as prissy by Japanese and some (…

Post by tanjtanjtanj » Tue, Mar 24, 2026, 1:27 AM UTC

AdamN wrote: post #224

tanjtanjtanj wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I ate at a very nice restaurant (think The Menu) in Kagaonsen last week and the main course was served with lacquered chopsticks but another course was served with disposable chopsticks and the waiter actually broke them and rubbed them together for me. I think the social faux pas is making a show of doing it.

You know you're at a fancy restaurant when the waiters have an entire dish emulating what the poors are eating. Reminds me of a restaurant I used to really like in NYC called 'Peasant' :-/

Post by rvba » Wed, Mar 25, 2026, 6:47 PM UTC

herewulf wrote: post #384

rvba wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calling someone Sir or Madam also exists in English and is nothing special. You left out most of the interesting things. For example the vocative case is partially dissapearing. Someone from Finland can actually understand this topic, since Finnish has multiple cases - more than in Polish language (meanwhile English has one case and if we try very hard we can squeeze something similar to a case - so let's say it has…

> English has one case and if we try very hard we can squeeze something similar to a case - so let's say it has two This isn't a correct way to describe English grammar. You can either say it has no cases or four cases with no inflections (because it definitely has subjects, objects, indirect objects, and possessives). Presumably your native language doesn't inflect in the nominative or something like that and your E…