The ins and outs of chopsticks

I guess I've always thought a chopstick was just a chopstick, but as the the Chinese, Korean and Japanese ladies show us in the above video there are differences between their shapes and weights. The variations were large enough to make it awkward for them to use the other nationalities' chopsticks.

As an aside I learned how to use chopsticks while I was in the Navy. As a sailor -- well, more accurately as a drunken sailor -- I learned how to use them when was a little, or a lot, tipsy. To this day I'm still clumsy with them when I'm sober.

If you want to learn how to use them, sober or otherwise, the post How to Use Chop Sticks is a good guide.

Also, if you want to be an insufferable bore at a Asian themed dinner party, in Chinese chopsticks are called kuàizi, in Korean they are called jeotgarak, and in Japanese they are hashi. Be sure to mutter about cultural appropriation when you correct people about their proper names.

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