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 am not sure if it's because it really is a faux pas or just because no one else really tends to do it either.
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...
it's like western etiquette: upper class, fine dining traditional practices are not what you'll see everyday even among polite society. the spectrum of behaviors will also depend on one's company.
Yeah? How are you supposed to line up the sticks? And stir the soup? I think the "Mawashibashi" faux pas is to whip the soup like a madman, or to aimlessly swish it, and the translated listicle doesn't convey that.
Glad to know I haven’t picked up any seriously bad habits, but how the heck do you keep the chopsticks aligned without tapping them somewhere?
Most of these seem related to health/sanitary practices/being considerate more than anything. Just avoiding contaminating what others are going to eat with your own utensils is an easy way to describe several of them.
The article does a good job calling out the more serious offenses, although I’d personally argue that nigiribashi is just as bad as the other two. Most Japanese people would probably react with a bit of shock to those.
That said, chopstick etiquette is definitely evolving. Something like chobujubashi isn’t enforced as strictly anymore, especially with more awareness around left-handed users. Kaeshibashi, on the other hand, is becoming more common, and in some social circles, not doing it can actually come across as rude.
For anyone else curious after reading "-bashi" 40 times:
(Not gonna direct quote because the damn site doesn't allow copy-pasting so they don't get a link, paraphrased):
Kirai-bashi would be literally translated to "dislike-chopsticks" and means bad chopstick table-manners. Hashi is chopsticks and bashi is the voiced form of it.
So the bashi suffix/word on the end of all of these just means chopsticks it seems.
I was shocked to find it's a faux pas to rub disposable chopsticks to remove potential splinters. I was taught this is what you're supposed to do with disposable chopsticks.
It's rude if it's a nice establishment, as it conveys your belief that the chopsticks are of low quality. So that's what you're signaling with that. If everyone already knows they are cheap (e.g. disposable), then have at it.
I once witnessed a local admonish another (younger) local for exactly that at a bar. He replied with a bratty "Not my fault they're using crappy chopsticks..."
The splinters come from where they break apart and there's not really any reason to have that part of the chopsticks touching your skin.
But you move away from break apart disposable chopsticks in Japan long before you get to high etiquette dining. In my experience, basically every restaurant in Japan that isn't of, like, fast food tier, provides actual chopsticks instead of disposable ones.
I had mostly disposables but they were actually lathed wood. The crude rectangular cut chopsticks are terrible -- usually not for splinters, but they often break imperfectly, leaving you with two sticks with different lengths.
Some of these sound just as made-up as a lot of Western dining "rules." Maybe someone more familiar with the culture can say whether or not these are true faux pas in an everyday ramen shop or similar.
> To use the chopsticks to pick something out from near the bottom of the dish.
I think there must be some bits that are lost in translation for some of these. This makes it sound like you can't eat all of the food in a bowl with your chopsticks.
Yeah, could be - that's kind of what I mean in terms of being lost in translation. It feels like there's missing information / context in quite a few of them.
Edit: In fact I think you're completely right - "picking out" something near the bottom of the dish does suggest that.
Let me check but I think it refers to a shared dish; at an izakaiya you often order a bunch of shared food plates and then serve yourself from them.
It is definitely rude to use chopsticks that you just put in your mouth to go rooting around for something in those. You are supposed to take from the top and ideally turn them around using the back end. Some people frown on using the back ends however as it may have been touched by your hand...
Most of these are common sense. As a tourist foreigner, you also aren't expected to know all the customs but it's appreciated when you try. The one about which direction to NOT point the chopsticks in was new to me. If you just watch what other people are doing, then try to do the same thing, you're probably on the right track.
Related to eating, one pro-tip I got from a local is that when you're ready to close your tab or get your check at a bar or restaurant, you can make a small X with your index fingers.
A lot of them are not common sense at all. Even the 'serious' ones require cultural knowledge to understand. Only a subset of the rest would be un-ideal across cultures, which is what I would use to measure 'common sense'.
It's like how in some asian cultures it's rude to bring the bowl closer to you by lifting it off the table, and in others it's the opposite. And of course there's some just-so story for why, that seems to make sense if you don't know about the opposing just-so story.
Things like that aren't what I'd call common sense.
Fascinating culture and raises numerous questions arising from my subsequent confusion:
1. > 返し箸 Kaeshibashi (also known as 逆さ箸 sakasabashi)
> To turn the chopsticks around when serving food so that the tips of the chopsticks that have touched one’s mouth do not touch the food.
Does this mean it is preferable to use the tips that may have touched mouth to then serve more food? Or is this considered fine because it's also taboo to touch the tips to your mouth? (which only a BARBARIAN would do!)
2. > こすり箸 Kosuribashi
> To rub waribashi (disposable chopsticks) together to remove splinters.
Just proceed to eat some splinters, then? What is the good etiquette way to handle low quality el-cheapo chopsticks?
---
I have been guilty of the above as well as:
Chigiribashi - Hold one chopstick in each hand and use them like a knife and fork to tear or cut food into smaller pieces.
Soroebashi - Hold chopsticks together and tap them on a dish or the top of the table to align the tips.
Namidabashi - Allow sauce or soup to drip from the tips of the chopsticks when eating. Namida means “tears.”
Nigiribashi - Grip both chopsticks in a fist.
Neburibashi - Lick the chopsticks.
Hashibashi - Place the chopsticks like a bridge across the top of a dish to show one is finished. Chopsticks should be placed on the hashioki (chopstick rest).
Furibashi - Shake off soup, sauce, or small bits of food from the tips of the chopsticks.
Mogibashi - Bite off and eat grains of rice that are stuck to the chopsticks.
Yokobashi - Line the chopsticks up together and use them like a spoon to scoop up food.
.. growing up my mom used to say, "What are you, raised by wolves!?" .. apparently, yes!
> 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 place. If you're in a place that gives you them, they probably don't care about you doing it.
The preference is to use a separate pair of communal chopsticks that is not used directly for eating.
> Kosuribashi
I have heard that this one is because it's considered to be an insult implying that the chopsticks are low-quality. (That said, if your chopsticks are indeed low-quality, then avoiding splinters is probably preferable to then visibly plucking splinters out of your fingers.)
I think it's important to point out that these are good manners for eating with Japanese people, not good manners for eating with chopsticks. There is no requirement to emulate Japanese eating manners if you're not in Japan and not anywhere near a person raised in Japanese cultur. There are other cultures that use chopsticks that do not necessarily have these manners.
Always interesting to see the analogs of island vs continental culture when comparing UK <-> America and Japan <-> China. Seems like islanders, due to their reliance on trade, naturally get specialized and autistic about their craft so they can have a comparative advantage, and their obsessions carry over into stuffy traditional practices.
I'm curious for a native's opinion on how important these are. The etiquette I was taught growing up in the US is a mix of:
- several things that are often quoted as good etiquette but nobody follows (elbows off the table, correct order of dishes)
- lots of things that are customary but nobody cares if you don't follow it (napkin on lap, placement of silverware)
- only a few things that actually matter and would be considered rude by normal people (don't touch shared food with used silverware, keep your mouth closed while chewing)
Of these several dozen "rules" for chopsticks, how many actually fall into the last category of things that actually matter?
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 gohan (bowl of rice offering to the deceased) at the end of your meal and you are probably golden. If you have kids in Japan, gaijin passing food with chopsticks to their children in a restaurant is going to be seen in a neutral or even sympathetic light. The Japanese may silently judge but they rarely sneer or harass. If you spend a lot of time with modern Japanese families you might be surprised to discover Western stereotypes of Japanese taboos are sometimes outdated and even incorrect. They are very aware that foreigners will not understand all of their customs, and many of those customs have decreasing importance as their culture evolves.
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 (eg. giving your miso soup a swirl with your chopsticks before drinking) are very, very commonly ignored.
The main one for me is not putting your chopsticks on top of the bowl rim or putting the chopsticks sticking up from the rice. Those are both intuitive natural actions for me. In the US I rarely see chopstick rests so I'm always wonderting what to do with them when I'm not using them.
Others I don't know that I would have much of an inclination to do and haven't seen but am not sure if it's because it really is a faux pas or just because no one else really tends to do it either.
Most of these seem related to health/sanitary practices/being considerate more than anything. Just avoiding contaminating what others are going to eat with your own utensils is an easy way to describe several of them.
That said, chopstick etiquette is definitely evolving. Something like chobujubashi isn’t enforced as strictly anymore, especially with more awareness around left-handed users. Kaeshibashi, on the other hand, is becoming more common, and in some social circles, not doing it can actually come across as rude.
(Not gonna direct quote because the damn site doesn't allow copy-pasting so they don't get a link, paraphrased):
Kirai-bashi would be literally translated to "dislike-chopsticks" and means bad chopstick table-manners. Hashi is chopsticks and bashi is the voiced form of it.
So the bashi suffix/word on the end of all of these just means chopsticks it seems.
But you move away from break apart disposable chopsticks in Japan long before you get to high etiquette dining. In my experience, basically every restaurant in Japan that isn't of, like, fast food tier, provides actual chopsticks instead of disposable ones.
> To use the chopsticks to pick something out from near the bottom of the dish.
I think there must be some bits that are lost in translation for some of these. This makes it sound like you can't eat all of the food in a bowl with your chopsticks.
Edit: In fact I think you're completely right - "picking out" something near the bottom of the dish does suggest that.
It is definitely rude to use chopsticks that you just put in your mouth to go rooting around for something in those. You are supposed to take from the top and ideally turn them around using the back end. Some people frown on using the back ends however as it may have been touched by your hand...
To turn the chopsticks around when serving food so that the tips of the chopsticks that have touched one’s mouth do not touch the food.
Related to eating, one pro-tip I got from a local is that when you're ready to close your tab or get your check at a bar or restaurant, you can make a small X with your index fingers.
Really useful in a busy bar!
A lot of them are not common sense at all. Even the 'serious' ones require cultural knowledge to understand. Only a subset of the rest would be un-ideal across cultures, which is what I would use to measure 'common sense'.
It's like how in some asian cultures it's rude to bring the bowl closer to you by lifting it off the table, and in others it's the opposite. And of course there's some just-so story for why, that seems to make sense if you don't know about the opposing just-so story.
Things like that aren't what I'd call common sense.
I suspect it mostly affects left handed people.
1. > 返し箸 Kaeshibashi (also known as 逆さ箸 sakasabashi)
> To turn the chopsticks around when serving food so that the tips of the chopsticks that have touched one’s mouth do not touch the food.
Does this mean it is preferable to use the tips that may have touched mouth to then serve more food? Or is this considered fine because it's also taboo to touch the tips to your mouth? (which only a BARBARIAN would do!)
2. > こすり箸 Kosuribashi
> To rub waribashi (disposable chopsticks) together to remove splinters.
Just proceed to eat some splinters, then? What is the good etiquette way to handle low quality el-cheapo chopsticks?
---
I have been guilty of the above as well as:
Chigiribashi - Hold one chopstick in each hand and use them like a knife and fork to tear or cut food into smaller pieces.
Soroebashi - Hold chopsticks together and tap them on a dish or the top of the table to align the tips.
Namidabashi - Allow sauce or soup to drip from the tips of the chopsticks when eating. Namida means “tears.”
Nigiribashi - Grip both chopsticks in a fist.
Neburibashi - Lick the chopsticks.
Hashibashi - Place the chopsticks like a bridge across the top of a dish to show one is finished. Chopsticks should be placed on the hashioki (chopstick rest).
Furibashi - Shake off soup, sauce, or small bits of food from the tips of the chopsticks.
Mogibashi - Bite off and eat grains of rice that are stuck to the chopsticks.
Yokobashi - Line the chopsticks up together and use them like a spoon to scoop up food.
.. growing up my mom used to say, "What are you, raised by wolves!?" .. apparently, yes!
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 place. If you're in a place that gives you them, they probably don't care about you doing it.
The preference is to use a separate pair of communal chopsticks that is not used directly for eating.
> Kosuribashi
I have heard that this one is because it's considered to be an insult implying that the chopsticks are low-quality. (That said, if your chopsticks are indeed low-quality, then avoiding splinters is probably preferable to then visibly plucking splinters out of your fingers.)
That’s why you don’t need to rub to get rid of splinters.
If that was always true, there wouldn't be a word for it.
I've been given some pretty gnarly chopsticks at roadside places outside the main metropolitan areas.
I wonder how many of these words a typical Japanese person can list off the top of their head.
I've seen people eat noodles and broth (e.g., ramen) like that a million times? What am I missing? How do you properly eat noodles and broth?
But it's fast and efficient, which is why people do it anyway.
> To rub waribashi (disposable chopsticks) together to remove splinters.
Stopped reading there. If you're handing me crappy chopsticks to eat with I am rubbing them together first.
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 (eg. giving your miso soup a swirl with your chopsticks before drinking) are very, very commonly ignored.