Chopsticks

China IntroductionChinese DishesChinese Cooking MethodsA Chinese PantryCustoms

: A Chinese BanquetBreakfast in ChinaDim SumEveryday Eating in ChinaChopsticksRe
staurants in Sung Dynasty China

It is not known when chopsticks first began to be used, although it is fairly ce

rtain that they were invented in China, where they have been traced back at leas
t as far as the 3rd century BCE. There are those who say that the philosopher Co
nfucius, who lived over 200 years earlier, influenced the development of chopsti
cks with his nonviolent teachings. Thus, knives, with all their associations wit
h war and death, were not brought to the dinner table, as they were in the West.
Today, chopsticks are used in Japan, Korea, and Vietnam, as well as China, maki
ng them the world's second-most popular method of conveying food to mouth, the m
ost popular being the fingers.

What Chopsticks Are Made Of

Chopsticks are most often made of utilitarian bamboo or other wood, but they can
also be treated as decorative objects. Especially in Japan, they are made of la
quered wood and are sometimes elaborately painted and personalized for their own
ers.
Chopsticks in China
In China, chopsticks are usually made of bamboo or other wood. They are called k
'uai-tzu, meaning "something fast." This phrase is said to have originated among
boatmen, who renamed the utensils, originally called chu ("help"), because the
word sounded so much like their word for a slow or becalmed ship, and this struc
k them as particularly inappropriate for such an efficient eating tool. The word
with which we are all familiar came into being during the 19th century, when th
e Chinese was translated by traders into Pidgin English. The word "chop" means f
ast -- as in the phrase "chop chop!"
Chopsticks in Japan
The Japanese word for chopsticks, hashi, means "bridge." Unlike Chinese chopstic
ks, which are squared-off and blunt at the end, the Japanese utensils are rounde
d and tapered to a point. It has been suggested that this is in order to facilit
ate the removal of bones from fish, which makes up a great part of the Japanese
diet.
Japanese Taboos
There are several taboos in Japan regarding the handling of chopsticks at the ta
ble, mostly derived from associations with the use of chopsticks in Buddhist fun
eral rites. Passing food to another person using your chopsticks resembles a rit
ual in which bone fragments from the cremated body are removed from the pyre and
passed from chopsticks to chopsticks among the mourners. It is also important n
ot to leave the chopsticks sticking upright in the rice bowl. A dead family memb
er's personal pair is often positioned this way in an offering bowl of uncooked
rice placed at the family altar