From top to bottom: Plastic chopsticks from Taiwan, porcelain chopsticks from mainland China, bamboo chopsticks from Tibet, palmwood chopsticks from Indonesia (Vietnamese style), stainless flat chopsticks from Korea (plus a matching spoon), a Japanese couple's set (two pairs), Japanese child's chopsticks, and disposable "waribashi" (in wrapper)
Do you know how to hold chopsticks?
I learned to use chopsticks in Japan. I had no choice. I stayed with families who ate with chopsticks. I was doing well until the day a family told me that as a treat they had made me an English breakfast. It was a fried egg.
But we had chopsticks. The man of the house, who did all the talking, asked me. "How to eat fried egg with chopsticks? Can show us?"
"Do you have knives and forks?" I asked.
"Sorry. No knives and forks."
I improvised. You need a piece of toast. Bread? Make a sandwich."
To this day, there may be a family in Japan whose members think that you eat eggs for breakfast in London in a sandwich.
If you are lucky, you will find a guide printed on the wrapper of cheap wooden chopsticks. Or a friend might tell you.
Essentially, you are moving the top chopstick up and down so the points meet and you can grasp anything as small as a grain of rice.
CHINESE
Chinese chopsticks are rounded.
When you have finished eating, you may place them on the chopstick rest, which looks like a small indented oblong pillow made of white china.
SINGAPORE
Do not place the chopsticks upright in a pair in the middle of uneaten rice. This is done when food is offered to dead ancestors. To do anything connected with death is unlucky and impolite and very odd.
Long chopsticks are used for frying food. They also come in handy at Chinese New Year.
For Chinese New Year the local Singapore tradition is Chinese dinners, at hotels and homes and clubs, serving a multi-coloured dish containing fish and noodles. You do Lo Hei, tossing food from a communal plate as high as you can for good luck. For practical reasons you have long chopsticks so you can reach the dish in the centre of the table and toss high. You can buy a Lo Hei set in a supermarket before, during and after Chinese New Year.
JAPAN
In Japan the chopsticks are placed horizontally near you in front of the dinner plate, with the narrow point towards the left.
KOREA
Korean chopsticks are flatter.
You lower your chopsticks onto the table when you are talking. You don't wave them around in mid-air with your hands.
Useful Websites
https://blog.moneysmart.sg/dining/yu-sheng-lo-hei-price-singapore/
Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Please share your favourite posts with your favourite friends.
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