How to Eat with Chopsticks

Eating using chopsticks can be quite challenging to a novice. But if you are someone planning to travel to Asia and explore its cultural intricacies, using chopsticks might be something you'd want to do. It's a difficult skill to learn, but you can learn it.

1. Types of chopsticks

If you are looking into Suzhou apartments for rent and staying at a place like Somerset Baitang Suzhou, your stay might be the ideal time to learn how to use chopsticks. But first, you should learn about the different types of chopsticks.

They are usually made from bamboo, but you are also likely to find ones made from lacquered wood and metal. You'll find that men typically use a longer pair of chopsticks than the ones women use.

It is said that the first chopsticks in history were made from bronze – several bronze chopsticks were found in an ancient tomb in China.

2. Tips

Though it looks difficult, it really isn't. All it takes is practice, and that's all that there is to it.

When using chopsticks for the first time, you are bound to feel intimidated, and it is totally natural. You only feel anxious until you get the hang of it. When you use chopsticks to eat food, it's going to slow down the whole process. At first, it may be exasperating to you, but you'll soon realize that it really forces you to enjoy your food more.

3. The key to using chopsticks

You are not supposed to move the two sticks simultaneously. The one at the bottom is kept stationary, and the top one does all the work. To handle the top stick, you use your index finger, middle finger and your thumb. The holding position of the top stick is similar to how you would hold a pen.

4. Chopsticks and rice

Eating rice using chopsticks seems counterintuitive, but Asians do it. It isn't the same as eating rice with a spoon, and it isn't a very nice spectacle, but it is commonly seen in Asia. If the rice is sticky, it makes it comparatively easy, but to a beginner, it may seem impossible.

In Asia, you can bring your food blow close to your mouth and push the rice into your mouth, you don't see this in other regions of the world, nor should you try it in other regions of the world. But in Asia, it is something you can do. Eating rice with chopsticks is a matter of shovelling food into one's mouth.

5. Chopsticks and noodles

The same method applies when eating noodles using chopsticks – bring your soup bowl close to your mouth and push the noodles into your mouth. As for the soup, you can drink it directly from the bowl. Again, this is not something you should do at a European restaurant; if you do, you may look rather uncouth.

6. Do not impale your food with chopsticks

Don't run the chopstick through your food; it's not good etiquette. You are not supposed to stick at your food with chopsticks but use them to hold the food.

7. Things you should avoid doing

Do not play with chopsticks and make noises; it isn't very polite. Leaving your chopsticks vertically in your food bowl signifies death in some Asian countries. Holding the chopsticks with all your fingers as you would a weapon is something you should avoid doing. Refrain from pointing at people and things using chopsticks. Don't use chopsticks to pass food around the table, especially if your dinner guests are Asian. Also, do not cross your chopsticks in a way that forms an X; this is also a symbol of death.