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Comment by gretch | Hacker News Reader

As an ethnic chinese person (grew up in the states but parents immigrated and don't speak english) I've always tried to convey this to my non-asian friends.

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.

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As a caucasian who grew up in SE Asia... Lemme tell you, the number of times I was politely but firmly 'corrected' in how to hold chopsticks as a kid (which varied literally from family to family, so there was no way to win this game) is an equal part funny and stressful memory. :D Local parents had Strong Opinions on this!

As a lefty who lived in China for 9 years, they took one look at me and gave up. Something about using the wrong hand to eat with chopsticks just freezing minds.

if everybody is using chopsticks with their right hand, and you use your left, there will be "contention" haha

Left-hander here. Yes, that's why I'm practising using my right hand to use chopsticks too.

It's still weaker and not as flexible as using my left hand to eat, but I'm working on it. :-)

Yes, tightly packed circular tables were my bane.

Ha! Was it Thailand? Thailand is weird because you eat food deemed Chinese with chopsticks, and food deemed Thai with a fork and spoon, and displaying some Chinese heritage is a prestige thing

> displaying some Chinese heritage is a prestige thing

Considering the amount of racism towards Chinese I have encountered in Thailand, I somewhat doubt that.

But you’d be wrong! The locals can be vocally pretty hostile to mainlanders, but it’s important to have a Chinese grandparent. Source: ask any of your hi-so Thai friends

For me it was Laos, Thailand, and Yunnan province of China. :)

The Lao didn't care, we mostly ate with our hands. Thai were all over the place, but man did I get schooled hard while we were in Yunnan!

> 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.

They're really hard to use if you didn't grow up using them and also haven't put in quite a bit of practice. They may be hoping for tips to make it less difficult.

> They're really hard to use if you didn't grow up using them and also haven't put in quite a bit of practice.

This is true with most tools. If you have never used it in your life even a tool as simple as pencil can be challenging.

A pencil's exactly what I was thinking about comparing it to, actually. Spoon, fork, knife... hell, shovel, screwdriver? All easier. Pencils and chopsticks are more precise and require more fine motor control.

I think chopsticks are more than twice as hard as a pencil (even never having used either) simply because you're trying to use two rods together. (Unless we allow just stabbing stuff I suppose, but that only works with certain foods and generally they won't be the whole meal anyway.)

The only methods I've ever managed to make work rely on holding one of the sticks still so only one's moving, but it takes a fair bit of concentration and focus to achieve that. It's way easier than having both in motion, but still really wobbly and tricky.

That's certainly what I (aim to!) do too, I just think that's still like .. writing with a pencil while trying to hold the paper still on a moving platform, or in mid-air (even with a backing/a notepad), or something.

You're on the right track.

I was taught the "right hand rule" depicted here [1] - the stationary chopstick is held at the near end between the bases of the thumb and index fingers (to prevent it from slipping around), and the far (towards food) end rests on the middle finger. The other chopstick is held with the thumb and index fingers (near the tips) and moves around as a lever to pinch the food.

You may have better luck with other grips - I am hopeless with the "standard grip" but perhaps it will work for you.

If you want to get good quickly, there is an exercise you can do - pour a small amount of uncooked rice into a bowl, and using only chopsticks transfer the grains to another bowl. Then repeat going the opposite direction, over and over until you either master the chopsticks or swear them off forever :).

[1] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Marcosticks-12_commo...

Sure, and if someone who never held a pencil before asked you what's the right way to hold it, it wouldn't be very helpful to tell them "don't think about it too much" or "there is no right way to hold it".

This reminds me of the bowling analogy. https://daedtech.com/how-developers-stop-learning-rise-of-th...

It's a ball; rolling it down and hit the pins. It's not deeper than that.

Just like bowling, some ways to hold them get you more precision and control.

Efficiency aside, I don't think they're overthinking it worrying about table manner of other cultures. It's no different from learning which forks to use in a Western formal setting.

I don't really think this is anything like that bowling analogy.

-Bowling is an explicit competition. Eating is not. -Bowling has objective markers for performance (160/300). Eating doesn't -Bowling is completely human created (as is software creation). As a result, both are highly abstract. Eating is one of the most basic things we all do

The skill ceiling for chopsticks is extremely low. Once the food gets into your mouth and you are able to nourish yourself, the game is solved. Bowling is capped at 300. Software creation is not capped presumably.

> It's no different from learning which forks to use in a Western formal setting.

Yes I completely agree. In my opinion it's a useless form of gatekeeping used to artificially put people in 1 class over another. This is the type of thing we do when we eat at King Charles' coronation and I reject it.

Every analogy can be stretched to the point that things don't match up. My original point is only about the skill ceiling.

> Bowling has objective markers for performance (160/300). Eating doesn't

Neither does software engineering, the thing discussed in the linked article.

> The skill ceiling for chopsticks is extremely low.

Occasionally foods can be slippery or delicate. Then the grip force (which generates friction) and precision matter.

Using chopsticks is completely human created, just like bowling. Eating is a basic thing, yes, but cavemen didn't use chopsticks or other utensils (as far as we know), they used their bare hands and had little concept of hygiene which humans later created to try to minimize diseases.

The skill ceiling for chopsticks isn't that low. Try picking up individual grains of rice with them. Skilled users can do this easily; beginners, not so much. It's far more difficult than using your fingers to grab things and shove them into your mouth, which is something any toddler can do.

As for "gatekeeping", I find that one difficult to believe, since it's absolutely the norm for everyone, regardless of class, in Asian nations (namely CJK plus a few others) to use chopsticks for eating. Whereas in western nations, only certain upper-class (or aspiring) people really give a shit about which forks to use. In most Asian restaurants (in Asia), you'll have a really hard time eating if you can't use chopsticks, because it's assumed that everyone can and they don't usually provide western utensils unless it's a western-food restaurant.

As a white dude:

> It's 2 sticks; put the food in your mouth. Did you do it?

No. The food is not in my mouth. Now what?

Then I would diagnose your technique and give you some advice.

In all of my personal experiences though, I've never seen someone fail on this level. It was almost always anxiety about 'proper' form.

Or, they just needed to use a spoon. People forget chinese cuisine comes with a spoon a lot of the time (same with korean) and sometimes the spoon is the better instrument.

or learn to use a bowl and the scoop technique with chopsticks, coz that works too!

I actually thought about this a lot until I visited Singapore/Hong Kong. Just put the bowl to your mouth and drink the soup while shoveling the noodles - at first I thought I just saw some hurried people, but at least in food stalls and low key restaurants everyone was doing it. It's also much quicker and you don't really need a lot of chopstick ability...

> 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.

As someone who both learned to use chopsticks as an adult and also taught _several_ people how to use them: what they're likely asking for is the basic hand position to use.

It feels real awkward at first, so it's not obvious. The less correct ways feel about as awkward at first, but never actually improve too much, so it's really not a bad thing to ask.

As a white person who grew up in the west, I was berated often for holding my knife and fork the “wrong” way and so it’s instilled in me that there is a “right” way to use utensils — thankfully, I only embarrassed myself a few times asking about the right way to use chopsticks before learning.

> I was berated often for holding my knife and fork the “wrong” way and so it’s instilled in me that there is a “right” way to use utensils

Norms on that vary country-to-country, as does which hand the fork and knife go in, plus things like cutting a single bite at a time vs. pre-cutting several, or things like using a different hand to hold the fork while cutting versus while picking up food to eat, or keeping them in the same hands the whole time.

[EDIT] Oh, and tines-up vs tines-down!

Sorry for your experience. In my opinion those people were using chopstick technique as a vehicle for their bullying. Take the chopsticks out of the equation and they are probably doing some other form of gatekeeping.

At some point early-on, I decided that the "correct" (don't really even remember which finger at this point--probably middle finger) top knuckle position someone taught me just didn't work for me for whatever reason. So I essentially use two fingertips.

>Plenty of times in my family we would just stab stuff because that was the easiest thing to do and no one thinks twice.

And, yeah, there are some things like dumplings that conventional chopstick usage just don't really work all that well for with many people.

(Per article I was probably taught something like standard rule but use something closer to finger pistol.)

Well it does kinda make sense to think about it explicitly, to make up for lacking the formative experience of growing up using them. But I get your point, it's a funny contrast.

I've been wondering recently, how and what age do Chinese households get their children started using chopsticks? You make it sound like there isn't much instruction, if any. In my house, where spoons and forks are available, I think we have to actively encourage our toddler if we want her to try chopsticks.

I thought that parents in China are very strict about instilling "the right" chopstick habits.

There is definitely a right way.

But no one would be offended if you didn’t hold it the right way

You usually can tell who grew up mainly using chopsticks to eat because they don’t have a standard grip. It’s people who start using them when they’re older who have proper form.

That’s just a stereotype taken from a small fraction of the population. There is one alleged proper form, but many adults don’t even do it that way, let alone instilling it on their child. Most parents are cool as long as the child can use the chopstick, which is exactly how adults who don’t hold it the “proper” way come into being.

Theoretically, the proper form has some practical advantage. Practically, the difference in utility is minuscule.

>That’s just a stereotype taken from a small fraction of the population.

It was absolutely a Big Deal part of table manners when I was a kid, FWIW. SE Asia, southern China, late 70's. FWIW.

I based my comment on convos with a few Chinese friends, all anecdotes from their childhoods though.

Many parents in the UK are very strict about knives and forks, to be fair. Usually in my ham-fisted experience in frustratingly inverse proportion to the likelihood of serving peas and other small vegetables and grains as opposed to easily tackled lumps of beige and gloopy-sauced beans.

And, in the UK and China and elsewhere, some parents are, evidently, decidedly not.

Yes, it's true that in China, parents often teach their children proper chopstick etiquette and techniques from a young age. This is because chopsticks are a fundamental part of Chinese culture and are used in almost every meal. Parents believe that learning to use chopsticks correctly not only shows respect for the food, but also reflects good manners and discipline.

So you admit the standard grip is "better" than the scissor grip.

You put the most significant word in your question in quotes, which means that you are putting some kind of special non-standard meaning on it. I can't guess at what you mean.

What do you mean is it "better"?

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