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Comment by cmcaleer | Hacker News Reader

I think if you were to do an Osaka version of this, the list would be limited to maybe 4 of these (licking, chopsticks upright in rice, passing between chopsticks, and pointing esp. toward a senior would be taboo).

Whereas when I had a date with a girl from Kyoto, one of the first things that happened when we went to eat was she had to stop me from picking up my chopsticks impolitely and show me the proper way of doing it.

Suffice it to say my Osaka-learned table manners and speech patterns meant there was no second date.

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I'm not sure I'd put it down entirely to Osaka versus Kyoto. My impression is that these things often have at least as much to do with upbringing, formality, and social background as with region.

I don't know where you're from, so apologies if this is an unfair assumption, but in countries like the US or Australia people often seem less attuned to social class, whereas in places like the UK, France, and indeed Japan, those distinctions can carry more weight, even if they almost always go unspoken.

Agreed. Was always taught to never put elbows on the table, but as an adult I see people do it everywhere.

Seeing people fail to meet a standard does not mean that the standard does not exist.

I think the deeper question is whose standards and why should we consider them the standard?

Some of them of course are invented whole cloth. British Received Pronunciation was invented and needs to be learned and is the standard of the upper class. It's neither right nor wrong but it's there to differentiate.

RP isn't really a thing any more, except among some of the older aristocracy and Tories and a few legacy BBC Radio shows.

Most people have settled into Estuary, which has split into a high/corporate/media Estuary-tinged dialect, and low street Estuary. The BBC has its own special neutral version.

Fifty years ago the difference between upper class/BBC/RP and street English was almost hilariously obvious. Watch a BBC show from the 50s and 60s - even something like Dr Who - and everyone is speaking a unique RP dialect that doesn't exist any more.

Idk. I’m in my early 40s, not a Tory, not aristocracy, and I speak with RP, as do many others I know. Maybe a product of schooling, but I wouldn’t say it’s dead.

In media, you’re quite correct - it has become rare bar presenters who are now in their 80s or older.

You say “needs to be learned” but that’s no more so than any other accent.

We just grow up with it because it’s how our parents and the parents of our friends speak.

If you want to change your accent you can, of course, get elocution lessons but most Brits do not. We just have a large variety of accents of which RP is one.

Not sure why this is controversial. RP is just an accent like any other now.

I didn’t have lessons for it and I don’t know anyone else that did. It’s just how we speak.

"Received Pronunciation was invented"

How so?

It's not the natural evolution of a regional dialect coming to prominence but rather the conscious consensus of a geographically distributed social stratum.

Interestingly, the sociolinguistic literature shows that such a consensus is strongest among an aspirationally upward-mobile social group rather than the already social elite. In other words: The aspirational middle class make a big effort to speak how they think the upper class speak in hopes of joining them one day.

That's the thing with standards: there are so many of them to choose from.

You don't have to follow them, but you do you should be ready to accept the consequences of your choice.

There are lots of standards, but some contradict one-another.

In the area I grew up in, caring too much about useless aesthetic stuff like “elbows on the table” would have a social cost.

Maybe some of them may have had a purpose. With this one, if you were used to putting your elbows on the table and there were more people around, you just took up too much space and made it unpleasant for others around you.

When it comes to manners, I'd say seeing enough people fail to meet a standard means it's not a standard, at least.

No, that's argumentum ad populum.

Mind you, I'm not saying that standards must be followed. I am just saying the same thing I tell my kids:

- the standards are there, wishing they didn't exist doesn't invalidate them

- the reason rules and standards came to existence might or might not be applicable to our current context, but some people will expect you to follow them regardless.

- If a rule or standard seems silly to you, make your best attempt at understanding why people would still follow it. (Chesterton's fence)

- You are free to not comply to some rules, but always be ready to accept the consequences of your decisions.

- What your friends are doing or not doing is not reason enough for you to change your behavior or choices.

> the standards are there, wishing they didn't exist doesn't invalidate them

But not observing them does. There are standards no one in the world follows anymore. They may still “be there”, but are only used for mocking purposes.

> If a rule or standard seems silly to you, make your best attempt at understanding why people would still follow it. (Chesterton's fence)

The corollary to that is that anyone who rebukes anyone else for not following a standard must be able to explain why it exists. “Because it’s rude” it’s not good enough, explain why it’s considered rude.

I don't see anything in your responses that even remotely contradict or relate to what I said.

Are you just looking for an argument here?

It seems like you are making a different point than the other posters. If the majority of a group does not follow an etiquette standard, it is reasonable to say that the group does not hold that standard. Your point that if any group holds an etiquette standard, then that standard exists is true, but is more tangential to the other point that a rebuttal of it.

> Your point that if any group holds an etiquette standard...

Not quite. My original comment was in response to "I see people violating rule X anywhere, even though I was told it was 'wrong'".

All I am saying is one shouldn't be basing their behavior solely on what they see others "getting away with".

That might be true for things like laws, but manners and customs are not strictly enforced by any central authority, at least these days, but rather by how culture/generation changes. It is possible that if nobody follows the same etiquette anymore, it means it is outdated and no longer exists. That is the entire point of progress.

At one point in time, it was considered bad etiquette to interact with people of color, but over time, society changed for the better. That etiquette literally doesn't exist anymore. That doesn't mean people are "getting away with" not following a "rule" these days. But rather customs/morals/etiquette are transitory and prone to changes, and one must understand what is and what isn't actual etiquette instead of just following all outdated "rules".

That's also fundamentally different from something like a law, where the ethical thing to do is that you should still follow it even if others are "getting away" with it.

What is this, abuse?

"Appeals to public opinion are valid in situations where consensus is the determining factor for the validity of a statement, such as linguistic usage and definitions of words."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum

But the populus sets the standards. If people decide not to follow a particular one anymore, it stops being the standard.

You and I are using different meanings for standard.

then it’s a custom or etiquette, not a standard

And the point of etiquette is to signal conformity and social status.

I had a friend who came from a working class culture where social aspiration was measured by tiny nuances, like whether someone put milk in their tea before or after pouring it.

Outside of that culture these nuances were irrelevant. Middle and upper class people had a completely different set of etiquette markers - as well as more or less obvious displays of wealth - which the working class aspirers were oblivious to.

So? Doesn’t make it a universal standard. Just an invented shibboleth for a group.

> the standards are there, wishing they didn't exist doesn't invalidate them

If people act like a standard doesn't exist, then the standard actually doesn't exist, because that's the only thing that defines a standard.

Most people in the US use imperial unit, it doesn't mean metric doesn't exist.

Standards are not absolutes.

This is just great way to put it and explain.

Yeah, as if we still have loose table tops, like in medieval times.

In general, upper-classish dining probably used to be more formal in the US in terms of cutlery type and placement and other things. May still be in some circles but no one I know worries about such things and even very decent restaurants don’t. And when was the last time you saw a fish fork?

My mother-in-law always used to get annoyed at me for using my knife and fork in the European manor instead of the American way. She said it was boorish. I don't know anybody else here in the US who cares in the least which way you use your knife and fork, so I always interpreted it left over behavior from her upper class DC upbringing in the 1930-40's.

(I did try to explain to her that it was more related to my being left handed than my attempting to emulate European behavior. It didn't seem to make much difference to her.)

By American way do you mean cutting the food then transferring the fork to your right hand for eating? Or is there some other distinction?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ctrOZIJni8Q

This explains the difference. The European method seems the most optimal.

I thought this would simply be about the knife and the fork switching hands, but holding the fork tines up or down (spearing vs scooping) is new to me.

On the other hand, I don't think Americans ever pick up food with their fork and switch the loaded fork to the other hand, especially if the food is scooped, not speared. A lot of food would be dropped in the process.

As a non-conformist, I taught myself to use my knife in the non-dominant hand so that the fork is used in the same hand regardless of knife usage.

I typically just forgo the knife and cut food with the side of the fork. Unless it's a particularly thick slab of meat, it works just fine.

Pretty much. I do the same thing with a spoon.

To save you a click, the answer is: yes.

This is bonkers. Just cut the food with your non-dominant hand. If you're so weak that you cannot cut the food with your non-dominant hand then you're either a small child, elderly, or you have a medical condition.

It's just awkward, I've held the knife with my dominant hand all my life.

You are getting reported but you should be given a medal —or token if you are an AI or otherwise lack the anatomy for it.

Nonsense. If you can cut with your non dominant hand, then you can also spear and scoop with it.

Spear and scoop requires dexterity, hence the use of the dominant hand. Cutting is an extremely simple task with no special requirements.

You obviously haven’t done it both ways and are assuming that spearing requires more dexterity than cutting. Hilarious that you could just try it for yourself and figure out that knife in the dominant hand works well but choose instead to bore everyone with your ignorance and stunning closemindedness

Do you always get fish served deboned? Cutting it with non-dominant hand sucks, especially more bony ones like trout. For me doing almost anything with my non dominant part sucks, my left hand is 20x less useful.

Fish are gross and smell gross. I don't get them served at all.

So you probably only "cut" Chicken McNuggets and shit like that. Why use a knife at all? Just cut it with the fork sideways.

Nonsense

Just guessing here, I'm left handed also. I don't trust myself to cut a piece of steak using the knife in my right hand. So, after cutting with my left hand, I put the knife down and use my left for forking.

Or, it could be what my English son-in-law does, he uses his fork and knife, in different hands to aid in pushing food onto his fork. (He's right handed, not that it matters in this case.)

That and you hold them in your fists or like a pen, rather than the European manner of holding cutlery.

Lee Van Clyf eating in good bad and ugly. Really underlines the savageness of the wild west.

> no one I know worries about such things

It went underground - those who know just note that you're nekulturny, and move on.

They don't bother telling you about it, nowadays nothing good would come of that.

It's always wild to me when I hear about how different the culture is between Osaka and Kyoto when they're so close.

I remember being blown away when I was in a Kyoto Familymart after a few months of living in Osaka after they handed me my fried chicken very delicately with both hands like it was a business card!

I guess that’s the cultural divide that occurs when one community is fishing and trading while the other does, like, competitive perfumed calligraphy or whatever.

competitive perfumed calligraphic etiquette -- of your grandfathers!

Clearly they also cook and serve fried chicken.

I've had people living in the East of Durgerdam explain to me that people from the West of Durgerdam were a bit weird. For context:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/1026+CD+Durgerdam/@52.3790...

Similar in Spain between Andalusia doing trades since forever across the whole Mediterranean Sea vs the inner provinces (the Castille-s) and the chilly Atlantic North regions with Celtic/Basque substrates.

Do you know how serious "chopsticks upright in rice" is? I had a Chinese teacher who mentioned the taboo (with regard to China, not Japan), but she also said that while people recognize that it's something you're not supposed to do, it's not taken seriously either.

I do. My parents (americans) lived between HK and Taiwan for a decade before I was born, and growing up, I was fortunate enough to have my folks teach me a bit of chinese. We'd regularly go to a local Chinese restaurant where the staff would speak to me in Chinese so I could practice speaking. Seeing as some of the staff were significantly older, my dad taught me to be hyper aware of customs surrounding dining norms and etiquette. One day I accidentally left my chopsticks in the rice bowl while there was still rice in it, and the waitress (an older Chinese lady) saw it - poor lady nearly fainted.

I did not make that mistake ever again.

For context - it's a way of saying "death to your family" or something akin to that.

> I do.

I don't think an elderly person who lives in a different country is actually a good guide to modern practice.

Also, I was asking about Japan. I believed my Chinese teacher (in China).

> For context - it's a way of saying "death to your family" or something akin to that.

Nothing so specific. It is felt to resemble something you'd see at a funeral.

I would say you dodged a bullet.

I dated many foreign girls and it was always fun to discover the cultural differences.

There are similar faux-pas in France but, really, nobody with an ounce of common sense cares. You like your red wine cold as I do? Someone will maybe mention that you will be loosing some aroma znd that's all. You add sugar and ice? This is probably not a drink for you and you will get some laughs but that's all.

I eat my starters after the main meal in the company restaurant, nobody cares.

You are there to have pleasure, this is not West Point

> You like your red wine cold as I do?

Fun fact: "chambrer le vin" i.e getting (usually red) wine from storage temperature to "room temperature" comes from a time where said room temperature was well below 20 degC (more like 13-15 degC), not the comfortable 20+ degC that people like to enjoy these days.

Thanks for the reminder about our traditions. Now, I like to drink it straight from the fridge, i.e. about 6°C :)

Heh, whatever works.

A sommelier friend of mine says that the best way to taste wine is the one you enjoy; if you want to have a glass of chilled powerful Haut-Médoc with some delicate fish, have at it.

> You add sugar and ice?

One of my favorite alcoholic drinks is port + ice, which it sounds like the only difference here would be that wine + sugar + ice would be much weaker in terms of alcohol content.

I wonder what Ms. Kyoto would tell me to do to properly pick up my chopsticks, given that I’m left-handed, and yet it is apparently a faux pas to lay down the chopsticks pointing to the right.

It's probably a faux pas to be left handed

I’m thinking this would be interesting inspiration for a song by the band Pulp.

Jarvis Cocker-san.

Could be the Japanese version of getting a friend to "save them from the date" by calling to pretend it is an emergency.

I live in Osaka (only lived here a year) and it is fascinating the vibe change between Osaka and Kyoto.

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