Chopsticks Etiquette  

                                          by Bill Yim

Studying how people, both Chinese and non-Chinese, use their chopsticks when eating out in a Chinese restaurant is one of my favourite hobbies. And I'm not exaggerating that most of them do not know their chopsticks etiquette.

I'm not referring to the odd office worker who casually turns his chopsticks into a back-scratcher in the middle of a lunch in Wanchai or the playful kid who tries to create a scene by sticking the utensils into his ears and laughs at a birthday party in a five-star hotel.

I was four years old when I first learned how to use chopsticks. My mother used to strike me across my knuckles with her spoon whenever I used the chopsticks to pick up my food with the back of my hand facing her. What I did is common among most diners and you could be one of them.

"That's bad chopsticks manners," my furious mother would yell at me, warning she would hit me again if I didn't stop doing that.    

"The back of your hand symbolizes your behind," she said, "It's rude to do that when eating with other people." 

She then grabbed my right hand and gave it a little turn to the right so my palm would face up before I reached out for my food with my chopsticks.

"Your palm represents your heart. Good table manner is to show you're not hiding anything there when dining with other people," she explained.

I'm still most grateful to my mother for this unforgettable lecture. I could still be eating out with my backside exposed to fellow diners if not because of the painful experience.

There is no historical record as to who started this old tradition. One story goes that people had always been picking up their food with their hands palm down until an imperial concubine tried to murder an emperor in Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD) because of jealousy. She had some kind of poison hidden in her palm and quietly unloaded it in the food while serving the king. Fortunately the king was eating with his own personal silver chopsticks which detected the poison and immediately turned black. The concubine was later beheaded.

Apart from being "obscene" at dinner, there are a few other taboos when using chopsticks. One of them is making noise by beating the empty bowls with the sticks, a game some musicians find it hard to resist at the end of a happy dinner even in the Mandarin Hotel. This behaviour is regarded as uncouth because bowl-beating used to be practiced by beggars in China when they walked from door to door for money.

Another no-no is the planting of chopsticks upright in a bowl of rice. You'd be asked to leave the table if you did that. People do it only at funerals or on the altar of the deceased.

Also bad news is passing your food from your chopsticks to another person's chopsticks. You might think you're just trying to be cute in sharing a piece of pork spare-rib with your loved one but this again is a funeral custom when the  bones of the cremated are passed from one family member to another.

Using your chopsticks to point at the waiter is obviously a rude behaviour but who can blame you when you're not happy with his service.

There are certain superstitions based around the use or misuse of the ancient eating utensils. Though most people are not too serious about them these days, dropping your chopsticks in the middle of a dinner is a sign of bad luck to come.

And if you find an uneven pair of chopsticks at your table seating, it is believed that you will miss the next train, boat or plane you're trying to catch.

You're most welcome to lick your fingers after eating at KFC but don't you suck your chopsticks after swallowing a piece of sweet and sour pork. Not only it's unsightly, you can get hiccups too!