Ten Thousand Ways to Use Chopsticks

When we go out to eat together, they always ask me what's the 'right way' to hold chopsticks and I tell them that you guys think about this way more than any chinese person I've ever met.

It's 2 sticks; put the food in your mouth. Did you do it? If so, then you're good. It's not deeper than that. Plenty of times in my family we would just stab stuff because that was the easiest thing to do and no one thinks twice.

addendum: growing up, I organically evolved the 'scissorhand' grip. At like ~18 years old, I consciously switched to standard because I was trying to pick up something small and realized my grip lacked precision.

Years ago i used chopsticks to eat snacks at work, in order to keep my keyboard clean. People ridiculed me in a friendly way. They've since come around.

Since covid people have become more conscious of sanitation and to a lesser degree table etiquette and i'm glad to see chopsticks supporting both of those trends.

When using chopsticks to pick up medium sized things like popcorn, my grip is further back on the chopsticks and usually a standard grip because it feels less tiring and gives me more control. When I am picking up something very small or heavy, I often switch to something closer to the vulkan grip, because using the pads on my ring finger gives me more leverage, fine dexteriry, and a wider range of wrist motion. But it's also more tiring.

I learned how to use chopsticks as an adult, because my favorite place to eat lunch was a little korean restaruant. After a few weeks, I felt confident enough to ask one of the owners to critique my technique. He said I was as proficient as him and he found it humerous how I used them for the rice, the standard in Korea is to use a spoon.

I feel that for snacks and certain meals, the chopstick is more useful while eating the majority of it, but a spoon is better for getting the last bit. I started using chopsticks for snacking because I found it makes distracted eating harder.

I learned at ~8 and my "ah ha!" moment came when I realized that it was easier to hold chopsticks with my left hand despite writing right handed. Now I can do it well enough with both hands.

My hold is somewhat like the "right hand rule" grip, although the lower chopstick fits into the groove of my thumb unlike the reference photos. And while I've tried other grips — as demonstrated to me by Asian friends — they've never "fit" with my relatively large hands.

https://www.accessible-japan.com/surviving-without-chopstick...

I can't quite find the exact way I hold chopsticks on the chart — maybe Finger Pistol but my middle & ring have a good grip on the lower stick.

I am pretty sure I learned by looking at the little pictures on the chopsticks wrapper when we ordered Chinese food. (There was some confusion in the text — something about "Tuck under thurnb...")

Different countries favor different chopstick designs and materials, which can influence the comfort of different grips.

Thing is... I find Korean chopstick style way easier to use than Chinese. I learned to use chopsticks on Chinese sticks + Lateral Chick held at the very very top of the sticks, these days I mostly use standard, and adjusting to Korean chopsticks from Chinese is almost like moving from driving stick to auto.

I guess the sticks matter as much as a grip. :)

Opening a bottle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPLrGfAbhnw

Also, I couldn't find a video, but at least in my Asian family, we will sometimes cut food like, say, an eggroll by using the chopsticks as a scissors.

Lastly, a chopsticks hack is that they are great way to eat food like buttered popcorn without getting your fingers greasy. :-)

That's a technique that will turn heads regardless of one's chopstick-using heritage.

Just an observation.

This page is great. I was just discussing chopstick techniques last night during dinner with my 5-year-old.