Chopsticks are utensils for cooking or eating that are shaped pairs of equal-length sticks. Almost one third of the world uses chopsticks every day, about as many as use a knife and fork. The English word “chopstick” may have derived from Chinese Pidgin English, in which “chop chop” meant “quickly”. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the earliest published use of the word is in the 1699 book Voyages and Descriptions by William Dampier: “they are called by the English seamen Chopsticks”.
Earliest forms of chopsticks date back 5,000 years in China and were likely used for cooking. Chopsticks have been a table utensil for the last 3,000 to 3,500 years, from around the time of the Shang Dynasty (1,600 BCE – 1,050 BCE) and became the primary eating utensil by around 400 CE. The use of chopsticks spread throughout Asia, and by around 500 CE, they were common in what is now Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Mongolia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam. The first chopsticks came to Japan by way of Korea.
Chopsticks are made from many different materials such as bamboo, wood, plastic, porcelain, silver, bronze, ivory, jade, bone and stone. Bamboo chopsticks are most frequently used in Chinese daily life. Chopsticks are usually held in the right hand, and left-handed chopstick use is considered as improper etiquette in China.
Playing with chopsticks is thought to be a bad manner. It is considered to be polite and thoughtful to pick up food for the elderly and children. When eating with the elders, Chinese usually let the elders take up chopsticks before anyone else. It is impolite to tap chopsticks on the edge of one’s bowl, because in ancient China beggars often used it to attract attention.
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