Question about chopsticks

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baking fool

Senior Cook
Joined
Jan 6, 2006
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Location
canada
When people break apart some disposable chopsticks, WHY ON EARTH do they rub them together?! I use disposable chopsticks a lot & not once have I ever felt the need to do that.
 
Sometimes when you break them apart, they do so unevenly. Those uneven parts can rub against your skin and be irritating.
That being said, I have never rubbed them together either.
 
Never heard of or seen the "rubbing together" of disposable chopsticks. But the reason does make some sense.

Although I just recently learned that proper etiquette for eating communally is that you should use the non-eating end of your chopsticks to remove food from the communal dish/plate/bowl. Makes sense to me.
 
They rub them together to "rub away" any splinters. Splinters are seen in inferior chopsticks - so when you do that you are telling the sushi chef and those around that you think they have inferior chopsticks - it's NOT a good thing to do. Actually, it's considered extremely rude.
 
if you want to get rid of the splinters, just stick them into the rice bowl when you're not using them...:cool:
 
They are attached at the top, so the only reason I can think of that you would get splinters is if you did as Katie said and turned them around to pick up food from the communal bowl. Then you would be using the end that could have splinters in it. I have never done this, so no problems here!

And if rubbing the splinters off is rude, then wouldn't that be along the same lines as returning a dirty fork? If they serve ones that get splinters, then they deserve to get pointed out for how cheap they are, LOL.
 
I think its more impolite to make people use a cheap and splintery tool:-p

Kinda like saying it would be rude to point out that your fork given to you was dirty, so just smile and use it...:sick:
 
Well to go along with your analogy, Maverick, there are polite ways and impolite ways of going about something. If you were having dinner at your friends house and they gave you a dirty fork I am sure you have more manners then to wave it around saying "this is dirty". Rubbing chopsticks together is akin to doing that. If someone is worried about splinters then they can discretely remove the splintered pieces instead of making a show of rubbing the sticks together for all to see.
 
Um, er, yea I have more manners than to do that...;)

I get what you are saying, makes sense, but you have to admit it just serves to give me more ammo for when I got to MILs house!:cool:
 
I have to admit that I am simply astounded that rubbing chopsticks together
is considered rude.

May I ask where? Is it rude in the local $9.99 all you can eat "chinese" buffet,
or just in the multi-dollars a piece sushi restaurant, or at a dinner party or where?

I guess I am just a low class uneducated dilettante, because I have never heard of
this, and can't really wrap my mind around WHERE it would be considered rude.

LOL, I always considered it something like rubbing my hands together in anticipation of
good eats!
 
this whole arguement is somewhat silly to me.

i've eaten sushi and chinese and every other type of food that is served with chopsticks, and of all of the bamboo chopsticks that i've been given, literally thousands of times, not one has been splintered in a way that i felt a need to rub them together. maybe once i saw a long strand that was easily pulled off.
i think people do it habitually or unconsciously because they've got the "splinter" fear in their head.
 
I have to admit that I am simply astounded that rubbing chopsticks together
is considered rude.

May I ask where? Is it rude in the local $9.99 all you can eat "chinese" buffet,
or just in the multi-dollars a piece sushi restaurant, or at a dinner party or where?

I guess I am just a low class uneducated dilettante, because I have never heard of
this, and can't really wrap my mind around WHERE it would be considered rude.

LOL, I always considered it something like rubbing my hands together in anticipation of
good eats!

It's a fact, nothing I made up. Just because you don't know something how does that make you a low class uneducated dilettante? It is rude anywhere chopsticks are used - Japan for one. I learn something new on here almost daily. I don't think badly of myself for not having known something previously.

Also, it's not the ends that you break apart that get rubbed together, it's the ends that you eat off of. The friction supposedly rubs any splinters off. You are pointing out, publicly, that the owner is a cheapskate. This was probably more common back when chopsticks were of a lower grade also. These days most chopsticks are of a better quality.
 
And to think that I thought it was done because that's what Harrison Ford did at the noodle counter in the beginning of Blade Runner

Chad

P.S. This is my first post, long time lurker, first time poster :)
 
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